Murakami vs Rothko at the MFA in Boston - is art meant to make you smile or cry?

There're a few new shows at the MFA currently that are quite interesting to me in their contrast to each other. It's the very much talked about Takashi Murakami exhibit vs. the Mark Rothko exhibit, which virtually noone knows about.

I find Murakami to be so flat, impersonal and superficial. Yes, he found a symbol that is now our association with him, that of the flowers with a somewhat sickening grin. When you see it, or especially them in bunches you immediately recognize that they're his. But what does it do to you as a viewer except for this pleasure of recognition? It invokes nothing. It's just a pure Pop statement that just like Warhol before him, or Lichtenstein or Jess Koons - has no emotional connection to anything in anyone's psyche.

And then I step into the world of Mark Rothko and I begin to weep while on my second painting. I can't really explain what makes me weep. It could be the layers of his emotionally charged juxtapositions of color. It could be the simplicity or the perceived simplicity of his vast rectangles chosen for all his compositions. But I can feel his fingertips spreading the paint, touching it, making it visceral, psychological, incredibly emotional. I can feel him getting to the core of the message, to the core of my soul. I see this incredibly powerful effect of layers on my psyche as a viewer.

If one encloses simple relationships that are of utmost importance in a casing that does not distract from the message, that's when it starts to say what it's meant to say. Therefore, in a way these two exhibits are about the same elements. There's a symbol or idea that is key, and through its repetition, within the same casings you see it manifesting as a style.

This casing or composition should not distract from the main idea and that's where I think my problem lies. My landscapes are always seen as of utmost importance, and the play of colors as secondary. When in reality what I want is for the landscape to translate as a shadow of itself, and for the real quest of color harmonies to manifest as a primary goal.

But my main issue with the perception of these two exhibits still remains. Are we as people of today more attracted to the superficiality of Murakami than the depth of feeling of Rothko? Or do auction prices for the sales of Rothko pieces say otherwise? Or were there always two camps of viewers - those who want to look at art and smile, and those who are searching for something that would make them cry?

Could painting actually be better than sex?

Why melt? Because I want to enter the painting. I want the gates of ecstasy to open, to experience the merge of colors and textures, and to discover new possibilities.

First I build a city by looking at it, concentrating on its proper angles, turns, the scale of things. But then I want to dissolve into it, to feel like I'm one with it, existing on this particular day, while I'm staring at it, purposefully, with a mission to truly feel it. And just like Gaudi, I want to re-build it from the drips of paint, forming up like sand castles, directing my thoughts with these rays of hope, droplets of creation.

I've been waiting for this day for so long. It's because no matter how great sex is, with you giving into it completely, this is so much better. I peak time and again with each penetration of a new drip. It's an opening to absolute freedom.

But why not melt it all? It's about questioning boundaries, about giving you a glimpse of what could be vs. what is. It's about not being perfect but always striving for it. Perhaps I'm not strong enough to destroy it, as it pains me when my subjects get completely dismembered: houses losing their windows, foundations merging into roofs. Maybe these are windows into my soul and it's tragic to me when they clogged up. Perhaps it's this struggle between the practical side of me and the crazy destroyer side? They're always at war it seems and my work is an attempt to have them co-exist.

Do you have two warring sides? How do they and where do they play out their struggles?

--

I do write quite a bit about the artmaking process, and you could be among the first to see my newest blogs if you sign on to my mailing list !

--

And this 36x48 oil and wax on canvas of Parisian rooftops is now finished, beaming with light and raw energy. It's available at $1,900. 

Please feel free to email with your thoughts and comments!

Journey to a better you - Seven lessons to change your life (through notions of drips in painting)

What are my drips for? I never fail to see that everything I do while painting is a reflection of a real life question. Same with my beloved drips:

1. These are not random drips of diluted paint and turpentine. They aren't meant to suggest an unfinished draft, or something coming out of nothing....lesson learned: nothing you do should remain unfinished, nothing in this life is random.

2. These are deliberate divisions which step in towards the end of the process. They lay on top of four layers of paint, some partially hidden, others - uncovered to their core...lesson learned here: it's ok to be a mystery, and it's equally ok to let yourself be seen, to uncover the frail sides of you.

3. They are meant to create a grid, a helping aid in dividing various elements in one painting into sub-paintings, into mini compositions within a composition...Lesson learned: always focus on mini-issues in order to solve the big problems in your life.

4. They make your eyes focus on different areas one at a time, then leading your eyes to another drip outlined segment, and by their repetitiveness - the drips take you through the whole painting...Lesson here: all your problems are interconnected, solve one - and you might have an unusual solution to another.

5. They are abstract elements that I notice after I complete them because they frame each area into its own abstract painting....Lesson: focus your attention away from the problem and the answer might just come to you.

6. The lighter colored drips expand the light, the darker ones demonstrate the frailty of emotions. They are like musical notes, or hieroglyphs that with their presence lead to something deeper and more profound. You feel an inner voice that trembles when speaking, yet needs to be heard...A life lesson: Listen to your emotions, they lead you to your inner voice.

7. It's a way to reorganize set notions of a landscape, breaking it down, reconstructing its key areas of impact...The last lesson of today: it's your life - you control how you live it.

Isn't it fun to uncover life through painting?

How Kanye West changed my life

About ten years ago around Christmas time two fellows walked into a gallery I managed. Lots of Holiday fundraising teams have been walking around so I assumed they were another pair out on the street who were also curious about art in the window. I initially didn't even rush to get the sculpture out of our display case when asked about it by one of the guys.

I started my usual sales inquiry by asking the fellow who stepped forward: -'Are you involved in the arts?' -"Yes, but on the music side of things. I've always loved Jeff Koons though." Not knowing who was standing in front of me, I proceeded with -"Did you go to school to study art history? or fine art?". He replied with - "I dropped out, but always enjoyed Chicago art museums"...and so the conversation flowed. In the meantime, my sales associates laughed at my ignorance in the back room, knowing full well that I am perhaps making a fool of myself in front of Kanye. But this was a great, genuine exchange, and I even goofed on the spelling of his name when he gave me his direct e-mail address. His manager was a good sport keeping up the façade standing next to him. Our sales relationship lasted for over five years from that point onwards. I think it was all due to the fact that I didn't know that I was to treat him like a star. He was an authentic person, with interesting things to say, and pretty sophisticated art tastes to boot.

I think about my encounter with Kanye a lot now that I am dedicating myself to my own art more and more. It is so easy to get hung up on fame and lose your genuine self. He didn't.

You turn into an obsessive attention seeker and lose that energy that births stunning works. It's inevitable that recognition puts you into a certain role for which you get cast over and over again, with your style becoming boring, repetitive and trite. Your personality suffers. I didn't see any signs of fame shaping his interactions.

You overwork things hoping others will approve. You don't do art because you simply need to satisfy that voice that comes from within. And yet, everyone can still find their voice in relation to other voices. With focusing his attention on his varied interests, he did just that.

I also think of my role as a sales consultant in that particular scenario. It was that honest interest in who he was as a budding art collector that pushed me to be a natural saleswoman.I was someone whose stomach did not churn at the fear of rejection, or of being criticized or ridiculed. I wish I could wear that hat when I make and judge my own art. I wish I wouldn't be so alarmed at the contrasting statements I put out with my melted, scratched, layered world. Thank you, Kanye, for giving me some life long lessons that help keep me on track.

How to balance out home and work priorities

When I was little, my favorite summer pastime was building sandcastles on a beach. I'd sit by the edge of the water for hours, picking up melting sand and creating these Gaudi-like structures. They'd get washed away by the waves all the time, but it didn't matter. It was this constant transformation of sand affected by water into semi-stable castles that drew me.

This year didn't start off well in my head. I was preoccupied with all the wrong things - popularity, fame, success, jealousy. I was so down on myself that I would retreat and ignore my family, my everyday joys, my accomplishments.

It's only today that I, once again feeling this childish joy of building castles with melted wax and paint, had realized that my word for this year should be process. It's the process I enjoy while painting, teaching, parenting. It's never been about monetary gain.

It's me loving how a first layer of paint is being partially covered up in a semi-transparent coating. Or, it's the grooves of existing layers peeking through the scratched off surfaces. It's the great multitude of these fragile sand castles that I build in each painting that excite me. It's the joy of my kids saying and doing something wonderfully new and unique every single day, my husband supporting me every step of the way. My word for 2017 is process.

Do you see recurring symbols?

There're forms that want to come back time and again, symbols that allow me to uncover certain truths, highlight what hides beneath.

An arched stone bridge - what is the significance of its recurring draw for me? Is it the playful texture of the stones, with enigmatic treasures reflecting in the water below? Is it the contrast of manmade patterns, so carefully assembled, against the smooth reflections of the trees, their branches haphazardly yet gorgeously striking the void?

If I am indeed always painting how I feel about myself, then is it that struggle of contrasts that draws me in? To be agreeable, yet enigmatic, and ambitious but understood, daring, provocative but feminine, delicate, beautiful, balanced, in harmony? Yes, quite a few contradictions to stuff into one painting, with the hope that they will all be apparent to the viewer, that they will all be accepted. What if just some of them are apparent? Or what if the onlooker only sees what he/she wants to see, irrelevant of my struggles and intent?

These symbols which might mean one thing to me, and something entirely different to someone else, they're still elements of a pictorial language through which we communicate. And communication is never easy, even if we all speak the same tongue. We always miss nuances, refuse to see what's just below the surface. Do you see a woman hiding in this painting?

Do you ever wish for a Do-over?

This is the first time I painted over one of my old canvases. Typically, it's very tough for me to let go of even my most disliked pieces, but I wanted this challenge of working on top of something already formed. I thought it would be so wonderful to already have a textured work from the get go, so that I wouldn't have to spend the time establishing texture from the ground up. How fundamentally wrong was I!

All the lines and grooves are formed in all the wrong places for this current piece, and every new layer is going against the grain of what's already established. It's like you're trying to change someone whose personality has been formed long ago.

At some point, however, you realize that old scars won't go away. All you can do is simply work with them, bring a new light to them, a brighter life. Yes, it is typically escapism that I'm after in my work, but it doesn't have to erase all notions of my reality. It can bring me to a new place by building on top of what's there.

 It comes out as an antiqued Instagram photo, with patches of seemingly forgotten white space open for interpretation. Some layers are scratched off to the very core of my original marks, with a new mask seemingly hiding all wounds. However, the more you add to an existing patch of texture, the more sophisticated it becomes...

Do all your problems need constant attention?

Foreground and background - what is important first and what needs to recede back - that was the overlaying message of this piece. I want this shift between voids and built up areas. At the same time, however, I want things to melt into one another. Yet, I keep on insisting that something sticks out.

Problems can't all be important at the same time. We're all constantly shifting our priorities but every time it's a struggle as everything seems equally important. Yet, if you treat all elements the same, then they're all flat - there's a lack of focus. It doesn't take a lot - numb one area with a duller hue and that instantly highlights another. Darken the background to contrast it with the foreground. Scrape away unwanted brightness and everything will become more subdued. Create and outline and things will adjust to their new forms and shapes.

And then it doesn't all have to be solved. Some areas can be left alone, remain as they are - not all issues are worth fighting for. Not all problems need our constant attention. There's a point when you simply learn to let it go. Perhaps a solution comes to you in another painting or life situation. Perhaps, it's simply not an issue after all.

How to enter the 4th dimension!

What has this painting experience been about? It seemed like there was so much happening - different brushstrokes, painting with negative space, frustrations with the carrying out of the idea. Yet I think what kept creeping back is this search for a time warp.

I keep noticing that when I paint, I enter a timeless zone. The clock seems to stop. I accomplish so many transformations. A whole myriad of thoughts, directions, critiques are streaming through my mind. I look back and notice that only a half hour passed, or an hour, or I've been at it for three hours. I've managed to enter a fourth dimension - I'm in the past, and in the present, and in the future at the same time.

My painting practice beckons me to let go of everyday worries and step into a different space, a transformative experience where nothing else matters but my color mixing, final application and the movement of the composition. It is so tempting to get away from it all, to remain in solitude, in conversation only with my own thoughts. It's more addicting than any drug - this desire to understand the depths of me.

Embrace all your different realities!

You start painting an object and move it into an abstract composition of shapes. It seems to lack depth so you add light and shade, you construct believable grooves and folds. Then this something starts to look like another recognizable subject. You run with it and add more elements that will turn it into a fish, or a person, or a hilltop. Once you're past this layer, all you see is that central shape of a physical being and it annoys you tremendously that this is no longer just an abstract painting that is free to be anything. Does our eye always seek something recognizable to hold onto? Do I as a painter and in my real life need to steady myself with reality?

You turn the piece upside down and tell yourself that you'll start from scratch. You can simply see lines and shapes and colors, without needing to go anywhere else. Yet, within ten seconds your eye begins to search out recognizable imagery - formal elements of a painting aren't enough for it to chew on.

Perhaps it's the nature of shapes and lines to be suggestive. With one stroke Japanese calligraphers evoke a mountain top because they know our eyes will complete the scene on their own. So why should I try to run away from suggestive imagery? Why not embrace as many realities as come to mind? When the landscape is full of incomplete spaces, our eyes are able to take it in and add to it in just the same way they see things in an abstract shape. It's about doing more with less. Wouldn't that be a nice life motto?

How important are your acquaintenance relationships?

As I embarked on the color theory journey along with my students, I feel that I'm getting lessons in subtlety. When you limit yourself to the very basic means, you only then start seeing nuances in relationships, in shades - those fifty shades of any color, in vibrancy, in temperature, and in transparency.

Everything doesn't need to be harsh, full of contrast, jarring in order to make an impact. Most of the time, the beauty lies in the subtle mixes of colors, and even more so in their transparent layers. An opaque layer covers all your tracks, all your moods of yesterday. While semi-opaque or translucent layers are able to neutralize if too much has been said, or add a little accent of focus.

All my life I've been searching for only the deepest relationships. It's all or nothing. You're not making it onto my friend list if we can't have the most intimate conversations. Mere acquaintances would stay by the wayside, as that's just what they were. I dismissed so many wonderful people because of this all or nothing approach. In reality, however, one can gain so much from even the smallest encounter with a stranger, or a mentor/student relationship, developing both ways. So much can be learnt from an inconsequential family visit, or a cocktail party conversation. Everything happens for a reason, and if you're only after the most idealistic statements, you miss the nuances, the everyday messages of life. I love this new bare essentials approach.

What it feels like to paint full time

 What is different about taking myself seriously, calling myself an artist and painting almost every day? For starters, the process is a lot faster, both for getting initial inspiration, as well as the development of the piece.


It hits me, this energy that makes my fingers twitch in anticipation, like a little child's, even at the point of getting into the car and heading to the studio. The hand attaches itself to the palette knife immediately and is being led somewhere instantaneously. It feels like you never left and you simply start where your conversation with the painting ended the day before.

I am absolutely wiped out at the end of each session and I don't get the weekly insights into my inner psyche like I used to. It's a job, a demanding process that requires intense concentration, and listening to an inner voice, following what it says, despite hunger, bathroom needs, fears being pointed out constantly by my alter ego of my inadequacy, lack of time, lack of focus, etc.

And at the end it turns into a lesson in trusting yourself and your intuition when perhaps just an hour ago you stumbled in that ability in everyday life. I am so thankful to AOTA art for giving me that chance to discover what it means to be a true artist. The paintings in this post are the three large scale paintings that were chosen for Chestnut Hill's Art in the Square exhibit.

Traps

This painting has been a torture. It was attempting to come to life amidst declines from juried shows and galleries. I was in a particularly foul mood for weeks. Yet, it has been moving along despite it all and in a very strange way. I've been noticing that the drips don't just come down, (laws of physics and all), - they follow certain ridges and roads that I had left previously. Every time I would come back to paint, I'd be afraid that things would progress too fast. Yet, my barriers created intriguing little turns and twists for paint to follow.

At first, those closed gates seemed to play along with my depressive tune - 'you can't jump over your head', 'you can't go beyond your pre-set limitations' - little mean voice inside my head kept saying...

And then I returned one last time and suddenly thought - 'But wait, I am the one who creates these closed gates. It's completely up to me to open some and close others. It's my choice to direct the flow slightly. I set my own traps.

Just like in life, I can always walk into those pre-designed lived-in scenarios. Or, I can make a conscious decision to behave differently - not sacrifice myself, my time, my energy, but create more meaningful satisfying relationships.

It was truly brought home when I would stand as usual with one arm melting the paint, and the other holding a palette knife, ready to place another automatic mark in another section of the painting. But something inside of me kept saying time and again - 'no, put down the knife, use this arm to consciously turn the canvas and create new paths'...and I did.

Layers

I was part of a unique and very insightful workshop a few weeks ago, led by my art teacher and life coach Andrey Tamarchenko, and Judith Schafman, a psychologist who specialized in dream work.

It introduced me to a very counter-intuitive, yet very liberating approach to painting, which utilizes layers of meditation. The work therefore also consists of layers, often invisible. It bothered me at first that they're unseen - there I am putting all this energy in, and you can't see half of my work. But now that I've tried it a few times, I can tell that underlying sketches still remain - in the feel of the piece, in its energy. And when you keep reworking the painting, and are so afraid of taking sections away - they never do go away completely. Key elements will always be felt. It's such a stress relief to know that.

It's like when you start a new job and you feel that you're starting from scratch. Yet you always bring what you had already learned with you. When HR departments hire recent college graduates - I hope they know that those periods of intense research, sleepless nights, deadlines - were all there, they shaped a person's ability to concentrate. When one relationship ends and another starts - you're a person layered with knowledge of past mistakes and accomplishments...

I've begun to truly enjoy watercolors, after almost 20 years of utilizing them for sketches. I finally understand their layers and how nothing quite goes away, but can only be made better with time.

Controlled Impulses

I'm very impulsive by nature. Something comes over me and I follow the urge, I trust it to lead me to a good place. Most often than not it does. Yet, sometimes, I lose momentum, things start falling apart, and I blame it on the initial impulsive decision. Should I? Or is it that loss of faith in my intuition that dooms the task at hand?

I've just read a great NY Times article about restoration being done on Jackson Pollock's 'Alchemy', one of my favorite paintings of all times. Everyone always talks about automatic techniques Pollock had used, the pure happy accidents that followed, his constant drunken state. I never thought his pieces to be accidental, and I'm happy the article shows scientific support of this belief. Every drip area, every color combination was premeditated, even in very large works. Surely, his intuitive senses played a huge part, but so did his formal education, his analysis of how an onlooker's eye should move in a piece to make it lively and compositionally sound.

I just finished a piece that I was told differs greatly from all my other work: it feels larger, it's light is coming from within, it breathes. I'm thrilled with it, and I believe it's my trust and follow through on intuition that brought it to this state. Sure, I used my traditional melted drips, but they were carefully controlled, adjusted in certain areas, intensified in others. Layers kept piling on, yet each uncovered nuances underneath. The palette was limited: colors with which I had never experimented before were carefully juxtaposed. Finally, I left a lot of empty room for it to breathe. It's simply marvelous: it feels like a breath of crisp air. Intuition is certainly a force to reckon with yet nurture...

Time

Amazing how a process of creating a work of art is also a time to draw insights into life's general issues. It never fails. I inevitably come out of every session with an 'aha' moment.

We were on a tropical vacation on a beach (yes, I wish we did this in February as opposed to December, ...alas, the memory of it lingers). I, of course, brought my watercolors, but with two kids and the myriad of scheduled activities, it was impossible to let myself relax and paint. I did force myself, just once.
I set up on a beach, obsessed with the colors and shapes of a stormy sky and unnaturally calm green water, and I really wanted to quickly get these warring emotions onto my painting. It had to be super quick before the 2 year old had another tantrum and the 6 year old got bored with the beach. And nothing was coming out. It was a flat surface that simply wouldn't breathe.

And all of a sudden this little inner voice said to me: 'You just need time. Sometimes you simply need time to let it come into its own'. And I did. I decided that I don't care if there's a tantrum. That once during this vacation I'm allowed to think of just me.I let the watercolor develop, with time and layers. It then dawned on me that everything in this life needs time. There's no need to constantly rush in to solve a problem. Time will tell, will heal, will let things play out and reveal their true meaning. I've gotten so much calmer since that little epiphany. I don't force anyone into a specific plan. I don't force myself to accomplish things in accordance with a strict deadline. Time will show the proper way.

Simple matter of palette observation

My work is always about color but it seems I always arrive at it accidentally. Somehow one hue ends up next to another and forms a perfect relationship. I'm not able to mindfully replicate it. It just sort of happens every time. However, all these trials end up on a palette and it can be part of practice to simply remember what works well with what, based on my own preferences of course, as it's all subjective.

We discussed with my mentor how this attempt to arrive at a formula that ws orks for the art world doesn't quite work. One's palette is truly a phenomenon of the left side of the brain, and simply pours out subconsciously. I still think it's doable, however, without it turning into automation.

Just say to yourself, pale green and subtle pink is a pair, and so is violet and lemon yellow, cadmium red looks stunning next to sage green...Or am I just now naming opposites on a color wheel, impressionist style?

Well, I tried to take these relationships to heart with this latest piece, and I think it sort of works, no?

I was also thinking that I always hated the color green, as it's so blah, and difficult to capture in all its various hues. But when I look at my work, it seems the parts I enjoy the most are the subtle relationships of various greens. So the idea for the summer is to limit myself and simply create a green painting...

The said and the unsaid

I went to the Sackler museum at Harvard a few days ago, thanks to my dear friend, Anna. What got me the most once again were the Chinese screens - their delicateness yet
simplicity. Every time I'm in front of those I'm amazed at how much empty space there is and how it makes perfect sense - it lets your mind complete the scene, there is no need to spell out every detail on the lace neckpiece or every wave in the endless sea. Don't get me wrong - the exquisite lines are also there to depict tree branches full of emotion and the vibrant garments of little soldiers, ane yet the silence is golden.

In Western tradition we're so preoccupied with perspective, form and shadows, that we give no credit to the onlooker at all, we leave no room for their imagination. It'd be so lovely to just be able to let it be - there's so much mystery and beauty in the void.

Anna mentioned in her post similar tendencies for importance of silence in Asian movie making, literature and music. I also wonder about plain conversation - do we say too much? Can the other person guess our correct emotions, moods and thoughts, even if they're masked by shallow conversation?

 

The ying and yang - finding harmony

I read today that caligraphers in China attempted for centuries to get away from interpretations of their lines as trees, clouds, pretty much any type of representational form that can be detected in their forms. When they finally accomplished this - they called it harmony in caligraphy itself. It's that strive for reality that constantly challenges a painting. If only I could see past it into the work itself, if I could shut down reality on the outside and access inner realities - that would be harmony.

The well known trick of turning the canvas sideways and upside down helps see more clearly. Then you can inspect every square inch in the piece and make sure it works. Or you squint your eyes and somehow see the whole message, not its multitutes of questions and realities. And if you stare into one random spot like the yogis and you search for that place inside that has harmony, that you can call home.

Enjoy the latest...

Doesn't everyone love ice cream?

That's the consistency of oil paint when it's mixed with wax and it almost feels like you can taste the different flavors: sweet red or tart green or chocolate brown. It just feels so malleable and soft when the hard edge of a palette knife brings it all together.

Now the palette knife - its main quality is scraping, having new color intrude on the old but not kill it, rather let it peak out in just the right proportions. That's why everyone is so into Gerhard Richter's work with scratched out surfaces. It marries the old and the new in unexpected combinations  - the flavors of ice cream never before attempted together.

You see the function of color best in Monet, Rothko, Pollock, Kandinsky. De Kooning I think was a total anti-colorist just as Picasso before him. Vuillard and Bonnard, Matisse - the fauves are seeing color in a completely separate light.