Motionpaintings

It wasn't until I purchased Dave Jones software and high-end DVD players that I really got into creating diptychs and triptychs.  Prior to this, I couldn't find a simple way to synchronize separate sources.   Of course, I could have combined the separate movies to playback from one single source projection, but this didn't give me the results I wanted.  There's something about multiplicity of images that fascinates me.  At any rate, the first triptych I did was loosely based on the events of 9/11 (the image to the left is a still of this work, which runs for about ten minutes, then loops back on itself).  Note that these works are meant for continuous viewing and for large screen projections.

The works here were all done within the last  5 or 6 years.  I call them "recycles" because I often find myself using previous work and recombining it with new material.  Somehow whatever it is I do seems to stay within certain less or more conscious or known parameters - parameters of form, feeling, intent, ambition, sensibility.  One of my main preoccupations is the fact that I now find it almost unbearable to look at any one "thing" for long - I keep wanting to shift my gaze; to see what's moving in the corner of my eye; to reach a bit beyond my arms outstretched (De Kooning once said an artist's reach extends only as far as he can stretch his arms}, to shift the field of vision away from any single locus.  I'm not referring here to elements of time, but elements of space.  If I were working exclusively in time (development) rather than duration (change), I'd be working inside the traditional parameters of film.  But here I'm referring to spatial qualities - qualities that shift or define the personal referential point of view to some multiple points and encourage displacement and perhaps originality.

No one theme represents these works here - they're done at various times in my life, and reflect moments (personal, political, satirical, etc.) that allow me to have fun with the medium but also vent some of my frustrations I feel from time to time with our social/political system.  My favorite among the bunch here is one that harks back to something Orson Welles said about the role of the artist in creation - namely, that it's not the art work itself but the 'character' of the work/artist that interests him.  Orson appreciated the fact that cathedrals built during the Middle Ages were built by hordes of anonymous laborers.  In fact, during those times, much art was created anonymously - the idea that an artist could stamp his work with his own name was considered a form of blasphemy - an interesting argument which went something like this:  art (great art) is inspired by God;  the artist is nothing but a vehicle for the work;  hence he/she can't claim credit for it;  to do so is, therefore, blasphemy.  An archaic argument to our ears, I know, but if you put aside the religious references, there's something profoundly healthy about this attitude.

I'm interested in shifts of attention; shifts of perception brought about by an ever changing field of experience.  Part of what the artist does, I think, is involve the viewer in an experience which is 'new' or 'fresh'.  Because we're usually living out habits or routines - and because these weigh heavily on how 'alive' we feel from moment to moment, it's important, I think, to try to step outside of these dulling conditions.  One way of doing this is to invite or coax the 'unknown'; to open yourself up to the unexpected, the 'foreign', the 'other' (some would say the 'Other').  How about a little salt in your coffee?  Or try walking backwards when you take a stroll?  Good art will do this automatically - assuming you're receptive to it, it will break routine and make you live the 'moment'.  These "interruptions" touch on these ideas, but don't present themselves as anything more than playful explorations in combining image and sound.

In or around 2006, I created a series of small 'motionpaintings' that incorporate words; this to explore the formal elements possible through Flash motion and shape tweening.  I have always loved words incorporated in painting - one of the artists I copied as a young man was Paul Klee, whose work continues to delight and inspire me.  I remember many years ago seeing a roomful of his works at the Metropolitan Museum (NYC), and I was once again struck by the depth and range of his art.  And, at the same time, I've wanted to 'voice' some thoughts concerning our social and political life.  Hence the incorporation of thematic conceptual material in these works.  They are light and playful and should not be seen as polemics that take a serious stand on issues (although they may).  Nor should they be seen as 'conceptual' works.  I usually dislike 'conceptual' art because, for me, it subverts meaning by replacing content with concept (aren't you tired of curator-speak?).  Even if the concept is good, I find the work often poor, lacking in 'matter' or 'fact'.  As Gaugin once said:  "I want my work to have the same resonance or weight as my sabots when they hit the pavement".  For me, concepts tend to subvert this aesthetic.

Done in 2003, the works belie an interest in moving away from a flat projection toward a more sculptural environment.  Maybe one day you'll be able to project a good looking holographic image, in which case the projections will inch closer to becoming a "thing" or "fact" rather than a chimerical image on a screen or wall.  But for now the fact that these projections need to be seen in a darkened room brings them too close, from my point of view, to ephemera.  I've often felt that, essentially, film translates matter into light and painting light into matter; and I'm eager to push my work ever closer to 'matter'.  The incorporation of virtual 3D objects is an attempt to get nearer this sensibility.

Although painting forcibly engages the personality, art for me is not about personal expression but about creating something interesting.   De Kooning once said that, whenever he felt his personality enter the studio while he was working  ('like a mouse creeping along the wall"), he would "chase it away".  And looking for 'personal expression' in any work places the focus on biography rather than aesthetics.  At any rate, when I look back on my works I see a lot of biographical information, but this doesn't mean that I can give a fixed meaning to the work itself.  To quote DeKooning again:  "No object can be tied down to any one sort of reality; a stone may be part of a wall, a piece of sculpture, a lethal weapon, a pebble on a beach, or anything else you like, just as this file in my hand can be metamorphosed into a shoe-horn or a spoon, according to the way in which I use it".  This doesn't imply a relativistic approach to meaning or artistic understanding - rather an awareness that the task of the artist is as much manipulation of self as it is manifestation of self - manipulation of self through the process of creating the work (i.e. engaging sensation).