Judgement and Inspiration

Why is it so easy to look at a dirty palette and judge it beautiful? Or someone else's finished piece and immediately know where it's lacking color for perfect balance? And yet it's ridiculously difficult to objectively judge your own work? Every time you step back and attempt to see what's missing - it's like you're dumbfounded, blind to your own mistakes. Sometimes, at a very magical time, the work leads you places and that's one happy moment of ecstasy - but to catch that wave - it's so difficult. The inspiration fairy doesn't visit every time you're at work - it's a fickle creature. Its presence it what makes or breaks the work though - you know that if you'd succeeded at following it - you're golden, and if it never materializes, the painting is doomed.

Here's one of the latest favorites where the inspiration fairy had visited, a few times...

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.

Switching hats: art sales vs. art creation

Love the story line disappearing into abstract background



Sam Francis - blobs of paint in opposite colors

So I was wearing an old hat last week, that of an art consultant attempting to sell some art to the somewhat interested public. It's amazing how quickly a different mindset kicks in. Within an hour I programmed myself to disregard artists trying to peddle their wares, to snob students and event organizers, and to hate dealers pushing the same things for less and being successful at it. What a thankless and personality-altering job it is to be in sales. A true salesperson forgets to be civil unless he gets paid for it, would only pretend to be a team player to somehow benefit from it and will wish you good luck or congratulate you on your sales hoping you fall to the lowest depths right after this one successful transaction.



And though I thought that having been in this world would help me in entering it as an artist, it seems that my mind cannot function simultaneously in various roles. I can look at art as a dealer, judging what might sell well and for how much. I can look at art as an art critic for its successful formal aspects. However, I cannot apply the same principles to my own art. I cannot tell myself to do this or that in accordance with current trends in the market. My voice just sort of comes from within and that's the end of the story. However, here're some of my personal favorites from the show and why I liked them.

 

 Love how the figure dissapears into nothingness, love the play of texture and flatness, love the contrasts and limited palette.




 

Inspiration from children's thinking

I knew teaching children would inform my own art, I was just curious how quickly some of these insights would come and how I could accomodate them. It's incredible how a child's mind can wander uninhibited, and so can a story in their drawings. A pencil sketch doesnt't necessarily relate to the forms being colored. New elements can overtake a piece and then it leads you in a direction it wants to go. This very precious moment of letting go that I so seek and treasure - they have it all the time. Their minds make all kinds of connections and color can simply flow, just as much as the line - a true goal of abstract art. Meanwhile, I have such a hard time deviating from an object to be depicted. It's that freedom which I hope is contagious and applicable.

MOMA's Inventing Abstraction exhibit

Ending up in NYC by chance during the Holidays, I had a chance to view the groundbreaking Inventing Abstraction exhibit at MOMA in its first opening days. I have to say it was exactly what the doctor prescribed, a show the focus of which is the linking of a global strive towards abstraction. A huge map of connections, almost Linked-in like, greets you at the entrance, and you immediately realize that noone ever works in a vacuum, that all these separate geniuses whose work you admire for its originality, were in fact influenced by someone else perhaps even continents away. That famous phrase 'everything's been done before' no longer seems scary as it becomes clear that you can still find your voice in relationship to other voices.


Wassily Kandinsky

I also discovered during this show that abstract art has a formula, an easy one at first sight, but something that might take a while to adapt to in terms of your own preferences. The equation is made of three variables: color, paint application, and form. With my idol Kandinsky, forms obviously derive from a landscape, peaks and voids of mountains and gardens are visible, and a bold pure black line outlines them all. The canvas texture peaks thru as the color is applied in one expressive layer. To him, all the symbolism is in color: "I know what undreamed of possibilities color conceals within itself".

Robert and Sonia Delaunay research the sphere and place opposite colors side by side, shading their tonalities within a sphere.

Robert Delaunay

The futurists are all about hard lines, lots of cones, triangles and sharp edges. There's tremendous play of opposites and shading from light to dark. I especially loved Gino Severini, and the expressive strokes in his drawings.

Gino Severini

 

The Russian suprematists are difficult to grasp as it's just pure geometry and planes of color, but for them the very fine application of paint with tiny brushes across various planes seems key. Liubov Popova was a revisited discovery for me this time around.

Liobov Popova

 



 

Georgia O'Keefe all the way on the other side of the globe is so organic that it feels like she's painting plants or human forms and she's of course been criticized or applauded for that time and again, depending on the era. What she said I found truly powerful: "I found I could say things with color and shape that I couldn't say in any other way, things I had no words for." Her line is very musical, sensual and the palette is soft, pastel-like. A tiny brush and methodical application is, however, her method of paint application.

Georgia O'Keefe

 

And then of course, there're the Dutch and the famous Piet Mondrian with his grids of vertical and horizontal lines. Somehow, I didn't realize he was Dutch and that others right beside him were part of the De Stijl movement. Nevertheless, his piece below simply blew me away. Everything is perfectly balanced and your eye moves around to methodically placed limited colors. Unlike Kandinsky, he employs layers upon layers of paint in a soft, calming way, once again - balanced.

 Piet Mondrian

 

It's a grand show, and a must for anyone in love with abstraction. It's also perfectly presented for those simply curious about the development of art in the 20th century and not quite getting what abstract art is all about. All the greats are here, perhaps with the purposeful ommission of the usual suspects like Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne. Kudos to MOMA and to its curatorial staff!

 

 



Uwe Kowski - my favorite artist at Art Basel Miami Beach

 

 

Represented by Eigen Art of Berlin, Uwe Kowski's work was a true discovery for me at this year's edition of Art Basel. Great sense of color, depth, and and very interesting strokes.

Balance

If you pay attention to spreading one color in a balanced way around the canvas, you don't run the risk of getting stuck in the details - a true pitfall. You're also then a lot more cognizant of the type of stroke you're making - for me it's the short horizontal slab with a palette knife that brings the most satisfaction, especially when there's sufficient color that your edge can examine their relationships. Another element that adds to the sameness of texture is s the tool you use, that is staying with same palette knife or brush if repetition is desired, or switching it to a thin outline with a tiny yet bold brush line. I'm certainly a descendant of Russian painters (Kandinsky, Chagall, Rothko), string  the bold black outline is very important to me after all, especially when it's a jagged dancing stroke that seems to resemble a sting. The appearance of this pulsating string seems to be more importance than simply the color relationships. Pay close attention to the palette you're mixing on for pleasing color combinations - this might be the best guide for your painting's progress if nothing else. And know when you get tired in order to stop before it's too late.