II. Concept of
Being
For the last few years I have been consciously working to
find ways in which I could more directly live the life that I was thinking
about living. The rural aesthetic
felt more like it could be brushed aside as a schtick, as something that was a
motif in my work, and I wanted to expand in ways that made being in the studio
more meaningful.
I remember getting a book from the library in undergrad
called Rauschenberg: Art and Life and
being particularly taken by the title; I found the book at a time when I was
struggling a bit in school, not sure how much I wanted to be a part of the art
world and not sure how I fit into it--I grew up lower middle class, worked
multiple jobs through undergraduate and graduate school, and wasn't attracted
to the culture of the art market and the fat cat collectors that I saw when I
went to art fairs in Chicago. The
Rauschenberg book, though, helped me to realize that this way of life was
possible; that Rauschenberg was clearly (as one of the most prolific artists
I've ever seen) able to just make things even though he had a lot of monetary
success in his lifetime. Artists
like Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly, and Richard Tuttle also were good to hear about
as they chose to live outside of NYC and make work away from those constraints. Now, in our contemporary society, it is
great to meet new artists who find themselves outside of metropolitan
areas--starting great projects, creating small galleries, and building
communities of creative individuals that provide far more than what money
does.
I have always wanted to be self-sufficient and leaned
towards homesteading. the Foxfire
books were profoundly impactful to me as I started in college and I've always
been interested in finding ways to make something as opposed to buying
something. In the last three years
my wife and I have had a successful 500 SF garden in our backyard where we grow
a number of vegetables, fruits, herbs and weeds. As this part of my identity has developed, I have noticed my
physical and mental body being more in tune with the progression and cycle of
the year; I also started paying attention quite a bit more to what was
happening in the night sky. I
started using constellations that where visible in the Northern Hemisphere
while I was making the painting and/or drawing as the compositional basis. I then developed the compositions with
gestural marks, push and pull, and spatial geometric abstraction as an
acknowledgement to the constellation that helped create this new image. As I have always been partial to folk
traditions and superstitions, the constellations helped me to make work that
was connected to the experience of being on earth, living within a complex
system of planet and space, and knowing my place and movement as the
constellations changed and time moved forward to cycle back.
I additionally started using the forms of plants, trees, and
other forms of being (in that they have life, in some capacity) as the
compositional basis for paintings as well. This is a sort of overarching idea that I still consider and
think about in my work, as most artists should--why is it that I am using the
elements or symbols that I am using?
What do they mean, and what won't
I use in my work? This last
question is particularly interesting to me because though it is worded in a
negative way, it helps me establish boundaries and get a better sense of why I
use the elements that I do choose to use.
The plants, trees, and leaves have continued to be a major part of my
work; even in more recent wall-based installations. In part these elements are not only interesting in terms of
formal qualities--how a tomato vine can be a line, or a leaf can act like paper
or an awkward brush mark. It is
also rewarding to me to use materials that I have--a lot of the organic
elements in this work are dead plants that would just be composted if I didn't
use them; I like using found wood or materials that are easily accessible not
only because of my attempts at self-sufficiency but also because I think
transcendence becomes all the more important with materials that I see and/or
use every day, as a part of my existence.
Drawing for the Backspace Collective fundraiser, which is still accepting drawings that will be sold to benefit the space in Peoria, Illinois. Please consider donating a piece, drawings are due by Nov. 30, 2012. All works will be sold for $25.
http://wearebackspace.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/drawback-2012.pdf
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