Viewers Know About a Work’S Development

It did well for what I wanted it to do

THESIS

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Matthew Shoemaker Dietz

Graduate Program in Art

The Ohio State University

2010

Master's Examination Committee:

Professor Laura Lisbon, advisor

Professor Michael Mercil

Professor Suzanne Silver

Matthew Shoemaker Dietz

2010

Abstract

I have several focuses while making artwork. While making an artwork I look at art history, my personal art history, and aspects of conventional two-dimensional design.

Then I feel it is important, to put my own interpretation on these different things I look at in order to commit on them in my own way. There is a casual feeling in my work as chance and other operations are combined to make an image. There is often something from outside each work that is brought into the work to aide in its completion. This makes the casual process in which an image is completed into a decisive work of art.

When I complete a work I want it to have a casual feel that has the determination to be a complete work of art.

The key questions that have been raised in my work are what it is that I am truly after in my paintings and drawings? Do I want there to be a narrative between my work, my history and art history? Are my abstractions truly abstract, when I label the forms within them as items out in the world? Am I only interested in my work in the context of the history of painting? What are the modes of abstraction that I use to make an image?

And finally, why is it important for me to work the way that I do?

Dedication

I dedicate this to my loving wife Lisa.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge my committee Laura Lisbon, Michael Mercil, and Suzanne

Silver, for their encouragement, and help throughout the last two years. I would also like to acknowledge, Sean Foley, Ed Valentine, and Ann Bremner for their interest in my work. This work would not have been possible without all of their help and support.

Vita

1997...... Columbus North High School

2002...... B.F.A. Painting and Printmaking, IUPUI

2008………...... Post Bacc. Certificate, School of the Art

Institute of Chicago

2008 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of Art, The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Art

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgments...... iv

Vita ...... v

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2: My Art Experience ...... 3

Chapter 4: Abstraction ...... 13

Chapter 5: Time and Quantity ...... 18

Chapter 6: Color and Plastic ...... 19

Chapter 7: Studio Practice ...... 20

Chapter 8: Drawings ...... 22

Chapter 9: Paintings ...... 24

Bibliography: ...... 32

List of Figures

Figure 1. Large Arch ...... 31

Figure 2. Wall Painting With Stripes ...... 31

Figure 3. 11 Windows and one Form, Problems of Continuation ...... 32

Figure 4. Back In the Saddle ...... 32

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Chapter 1: Introduction

When I sit down and think of how to describe myself as an artist, I immediately label myself as an abstract painter. This has always been a characterization I assert with pride.

When I started calling myself an abstract artist about ten years ago many people in the

“art world” believed that abstract painting was “dead.” Being an abstractionist, I am able to work with the formal issues and process of making an image, without having to worry about narrative or content of telling a story or making a statement. Part of the reason I’m unwilling to title any part of my work is that I want to stay as far away from narratives as possible. Over the last two years I have loosened my stance on what I am willing to label or explain and become more open to letting viewers know about a work’s development.

Now I feel that giving my art work titles, can help me make my work be about being between something and nothing.

I have been working with abstraction for almost ten years. I have had to look at my work and describe something without labels, with words. This process has made me ask questions. What it is that I am truly after while I am making my artwork? Do I want there to be a narrative between my work and art history? Are my abstractions truly abstract? Am I only interested in my work in the context of the history of painting?

What are the modes of abstraction that I use to make an image? Am I truly working in a dead art? And finally, why is it important for me to work the way that I do? 1

To answer these questions I will look at my experiences with art, my personal views of the history of abstract painting, the modes of abstraction I use to create images, and why it is important for me to work this way.

Chapter 2: My Art Experience

My aesthetic is directly related to my interests. As a child my interests were playing make believe, watching cartoons, and creating things. I was always making relationships between toys and things in the world. In Columbus, Indiana, I grew up around significant examples of modern architecture and other art. My interests grew as I grew older. I began collecting and my aesthetic changed; comics, books, CD covers, and skateboard art fueled my visual aesthetic.

I have always been a searcher and collector/finder of “treasures” that truly are only

“treasures” to me. In my life I have collected different things, usually things that had to be bought. I have collected coins, comics, cassette tapes, skateboards, CDs, videos, movie posters, vinyl records, DVDs, and art books. Now my collections still continue but to a smaller extent. My collecting now revolves around my art work more than consumption of collectable goods. I have often associated this search for things I collect with my practice as an artist, not only in the act of searching but in finding things as well.

While searching I will go through stacks and piles of things with qualities I enjoy. I am searching to find something that I have never seen before; at the same time, I am looking for something that I may have seen a number of times but was unable to get or pay attention because something better came along. When I find something, there is a sense of joy mixed with nervousness. I experience joy at having found this gem, and 3 nervousness that I might find something else, and then have to leave one or the other behind.

While searching for things to add to my collection I find the most pleasure in physically stumbling across things, whether it is searching for a record, or within the process of making artwork. With the computer age, the collecting world has changed. It is so easy to find something without really searching for it. I enjoy the visceral nature of searching that involves looking through actual physical objects not just looking through searches on the Internet. This is also true I am while working on my art. Even though a lot of artists will use the computer as a tool, I feel that the physicality of art is what makes it interesting. This is, of course, a personal aesthetic choice, but with the way so many things are created and manufactured today, I believe the aspect that can make an art work great is the fact that it was physically created by one person, and that it can be unique.

Along with searching for things, the collecting of things I find is how my obsessive behavior becomes a part of my work. When one is collecting, the goal is gathering as many of an item as possible. One of my largest amassing of items is my comic book collection. In that collection I have a large number of different titles but the bulk of them revolve around the X-Men comics. My goal was to get the complete collection of the original X-men comic that became the Uncanny X-men. To go along with my accumulation of comic books I started having a interest in music where I would collect albums from my favorite bands, then all the albums of bands related to my favorite band,

4 and so on. I had a few really extensive assortment of what I was looking for in music.

With comics the collection doesn’t sway too far away from the X-men; with music I was interested in many different genres of music.

There are parallels to my work in the act of searching as well as collecting. While working on artwork I search through many different artworks that I am working on or have finished looking for a gem. This special item may be found in a shape, color palette, pattern or anything that might be going on in multiple pieces. These searches within my own work always prompt me to shift ideas of composition, color, and spatial relationships within the context of the work itself. It’s a laborious search that is recorded through the layers of paint and mark making shown in my work. It is a routine but also the way I choose to interpret the world on a regular basis. The process of searching is more like a collection of newspaper clippings or mementos of my daily existence. This routine is also very important because it is a way for me to get into the zone while working on my artwork. This routine allows my brain and body to be comfortable and allows my thoughts and movements to work together instead of separately. By using a collection of forms, my work then begins to develop connections with other works I’m making. I also search outside of my artwork, adding to my collection of things I see and then reshaping them as an abstraction.

I have always been a very observant person. I am always scanning my surroundings, noticing similarities, putting together patterns. Being observant is very important to me

5 because I like seeing details as well as the big picture. I enjoy looking at shadows, how the light hits buildings, structures that I see around the studio, structures I see out in the world, and figurative elements form personal interactions.

I have always enjoyed being in the moment. When I was younger I did other activities that would allow me to be in the moment. Skateboarding was where I would find myself in the zone the most. Skateboarding also gave me the determination to keep trying as an artist. Though I loved skateboarding I wasn’t very good at it, but I would keep trying tricks, often saying “I’m going to try one more time,” then if I didn’t succeed I would repeat the phrase until I completed the trick, or reached my high school curfew was met.

This has been true for me as an artist as well; I never give up on an image until I complete it. Now I say “one more layer” as well as “one more try,” In hopes of making the image complete.

Chapter 3: My History of Abstraction

My first goal when becoming an artist was to become a student of art history as well. I did this as a collector of information from art history. This started as a search through the main texts of art history, and has grown to be an extensive examination of books, articles and other media on areas of art that interest me. One thing that I have found is that most art is named and grouped into its place in art history to show the paths of art in a straight line through time. This is done by art historians wanting to group art together even though it might not be a correct grouping. As a student of art and art history finding, my place in this line is a goal that I wanted to achieve. As I have done research and thought about my artwork, I have begun to question this need of validation through an art historical context. So like many art historians, art critics, and institutions of art I’m going to use Alfred Barr’s method of grouping abstraction’s history. My model will follow that, by looking at the artwork that I have seen, and that has affected my sensibility as an artist. I will differ from Barr’s model in that I will look at selected artists, and I will change the final groupings titles to suit the terminology that I’m using for my artwork. In this sense I am writing a history of abstraction that is personal and self-serving, which actually isn’t so different from what Alfred Barr and other art historians have done. It is also important to state that the common thread that weaves through this group of abstract artists is that they have a determination and commitment to abstraction.

My art history begins with a sculpture in front of the Columbus, Indiana Public Library by Henry Moore titled Large Arch (see Figure 1). Having grown up around this sculpture

I did what was natural, and I wanted to label what this arch appeared to be. As a child I convinced myself that it was a sculpture of an elephant’s, or dinosaur’s hip bone, and back legs. This label has stuck throughout my life even as I look at it now, knowing what

I have gone through with labeling abstractions. This sculpture is important to me as an artist for a many reasons; the structure, weight, texture, color, and material, as well as its ambiguity. These characteristics are still very important to my aesthetics. This sculpture’s placement is also important because of its location on the grounds of the library, where the sculpture’s organic structure is in heavy contrast to the structure of the

I. M. Pei building it is in front of. This placement was actually the suggestion of the architect I. M. Pei. This contrast between geometrical architecture and organic abstraction has probably been the most influential to me as an artist. This contrast is still found in art I still make today. Although this work is very important to my path as an artist, it is the only work by Henry Moore that has stuck with me in this way.

Whereas the Large Arch has been an important artwork in my history of abstract art, my next example is of an artist who has been very important artist to me, and that is Robert

Motherwell. This artist became important to me when I first saw one of his paintings in person. The painting is titled Wall Painting with Stripes (see Figure 2), and it was the first painting to stop me in my tracks. The painting is a work that I grew up with as an artist. Wall Painting with Stripes is also a work that I have seen many times because it is

8 displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago. There are many formal issues that interest me in the work. Beside the composition with the use of stripes in contrast to the bending gray strip; the painting’s surface qualities are the most important trait of the painting.

The reason the surface is so important to my art history is that it shows the painting’s history. You can see the under painting that is different from the finished work, which shows the critical thinking used in its making. This history of a work’s creation has been a very crucial element in my aesthetic. Motherwell would work with automatism, and other processes, which, introduced chance into his work and this loss of control gives his work imperfections that energize his painting. Another reason he is important to my art history is his continued use of certain motifs that would enter and exit his work.

Motherwell also worked in series; this allowed his work within parameters different to continue past abstract expressionism. His understanding of philosophy and theory also allowed Motherwell to progress within the art world. Robert Motherwell has also been an artist that I have collected, not his artwork but my experiences with his artwork. I have gone to museums to see his work, collected books about him, and researched his work extensively, and with all that I have seen, his work still has a stronger place in my art history.

Another abstract expressionist, Willem de Kooning is also an important artist in my history of abstraction, and for many reasons. Unlike Motherwell who came to art through philosophy, de Kooning was a classically trained artist, who came to abstraction through representation. His commitment to abstracting from the figure, and from landscapes, was

9 his biggest strength, as well as his critical downfall. His determination has made him one of the most commendable, stubborn painters in the last 100 years. Where Motherwell would change his intentions to remain contemporary, to relate to other movements in abstraction, de Kooning would just make his work’s the way he felt it should be done.

He did this by exploring, while making his images. His ability to draw is his biggest technical strength. He would draw, then trace parts of his paintings, then cut the drawings and tracings so that he could move the cutouts around the image. He had a constant dialogue going with the creation of the image and his place as the creator. He was always in complete control even though the appearance of his work seemed incredibly haphazard. De Koonings use of drawings is one thing that makes him very important to my art history, because I too use drawings to help generate paintings. His attitude and stubbornness, as well as his sloppy yet refined gestures, are all very important to me as an abstractionist. The thing that most accurately characterizes Willem de Kooning is that he was always working on painting for him. Even when the art world turned their back on him multiple times he continued to interpret the world in his own way. Willem de Kooning is another artist that I have collected, and sought out at museums.

I was introduced to Jonathan Lasker’s paintings while I was at Herron School of Art in

2001. For me his paintings felt awkward like mine, but they are very complete. The forms and lines are mimicking themselves in a very particular way with a little bit of humor. Lasker interested me because he doesn’t search for imagery like I do, but he

10 plans each work very intensely. He will make sketches for his ideas, and then he translates them to a larger scale with areas of thick paint. Lasker always has control over his gesture that has a slow appearance even in areas of a lot of activity. His also uses flat areas of paint with heavily coated areas. This differs from my work in that I never work off sketches in a direct way, if information from a drawing enters a painting it does so a part of the image not as a whole image. My work also differs in how I use thickness of paint in at different manner. My work will have an even surface, with a little impasto, but if I show brush marks it isn’t always as deliberate Lasker’s work. The characteristic that I have the most in common with Lasker is that we both poke fun at the convention of two-dimensional design; we both play this with a small bit of humor, and sarcasm.

Thomas Nozkowski is another artist who had the determination to not give up on what he wanted in his artwork. His small-scale paintings come from a buildup of surface, and a decisive decision of what the painting is about. Nozkowski doesn’t name this thing that the abstraction represents, even though the works are from an observation. There are moments in Nozkowski’s work that feel awkward or have a humorous undertone.

Nozkowski’s paintings are labored with multiple layers until the painting is realized.

This is very similar to how I make my work, by searching for subjects through the act of painting as well as observing the world. It is a mixture that makes both of our works hold together. We both let the paintings come into being naturally and with a period of time passing from the start of our works until they are complete.

Christopher Wool is an artist that was brought to my attention only a few years ago, for his very gestural black and white abstractions. These works have a very casual, quick, and fluid appearance. Wool has worked in a few different series, starting his career doing texted-based works. He will also use stencils and the imperfections of off-registration to add to the works. One of Wool’s aesthetics that I share is his use of a roller over other mark making; this will look like covered graffiti that is often seen in urban areas. This process is also a covering of history, but with the layers showing through from underneath. The use of the roller in an urban context means that what is underneath the graffiti isn’t wanted there, but often it will be put right back after it has been covered. In its own way this is also a sign of stubbornness, even though it is more of a cultural stubbornness. There is one group that sees any surface as game for making art, and the other sees their property being vandalized. Wool saw this happening and has tried to interpret this in his art work. When I saw his black and white paintings I understood the importance of clearing out the painting. I spent two years working on striping things out of my paintings. Although these paintings are stripped down they are still complex, and have a quality that can’t be obtain while using color. The characteristic of Wool’s paintings that is the most similar to mine is his use of erasure. Wool will use a solvent and a roller to erase, using the solvent to remove information and the roller to cover information. It is Christopher Wool’s use of covering information as an erasure that I connect to the most as a painter.

Chapter 4: Abstraction

There are many reasons why I work with abstractions. It all started with the interweaving of lines in a painting I was making of the muscle structure of an arm. While working on the painting I found that what drew me to the painting was the movement of making the marks of the arm, and the feeling of using my body while painting, because the painting was around 5ft x 4ft. This making of marks became documentation of my body’s movement as I moved from side to side and from the top to the bottom of the canvas. As the arm structure disappeared from the painting the image became clear and non-descript, but it still had to do with the movement of my arm even though it was no longer a rendering of the muscle structure of an arm. The painting was still about structure, movement, line, documentation, and observation, but was it was more than a rendering of an arm. Before the completion of this painting my use of abstraction was based strongly in the breaking down of realism into abstraction using my surroundings in a similar way to what the cubists would do. Now my works are expressive, controlled, and more formalist in nature, finding a connection to a lot of contemporary abstraction. My work is a mix of all the styles of abstraction before me.

Now, when I think about abstraction I find it based more in the materiality of the paint. I also think about paintings and how they relate to the history of abstract art. I’m looking at modes of abstraction that I feel are the most significant things for me in making 13 abstractions. These are processes in making abstractions that I combine to make my images, and they include automatism, chance, abstracting form observation (memory of observation), finding the zone (flow theory), transcendence, mark making, and the searching for and collection/finding of shapes (ideas).

Working with improvisation and how I view automatism is very important in my artwork.

The way I define automatism is acting subconsciously while doing something you have done before as part of a routine, which allows it to enter the flow theory. This strong connection to my work can also be seen in my use of improvisation. My first strong connection to improvisation was brought to me through jazz music, where a true improvisation can never be repeated in the same way as it was originally played for the first time. I feel that this is very true in my artwork: although I might come to a work with an idea of what I’m creating if I truly use automatism properly I can’t recreate the original. When one is improvising one relies on some structure, so the improvisation will be grounded in something that is obtainable. For me this structure can be any number of things, depending on what the work has within itself. In my work the structure will often rely on an architectural form, whether it is by using some grid-like structure or through an abstracted observation of architecture, while I allow the more organic shapes to be more automatic.

When using automatism at least a small amount of chance is inherently involved, but unlike with other chance operations the user has a lot of control as well. When I think

14 about chance operations, it will most likely involve using a third party to truly leave the activity up to chance. I also will let my clumsiness of necessity act as a chance operation while making art work. When I’m in the studio I will have stuff everywhere while working, artworks as well as materials will be on the floor, on tables, and on the wall.

While pacing around artworks I will usually accidentally kick over water containers with brushes, and paint tinted water. This spill will then be cleaned up with drawings that are at different stages of completion. And the spilled water or paint then soaks into the paper uncontrollably, leaving a very fluid mark that might become part of a work. Another way

I will use chance is by using my paint palette as a mono print plate. This allows me to use up extra paint while also leaving off the mark making up to chance. This allows me to work as I normally do, but whenever I want to switch colors on the palette I will use a mono print technique to clean my palette, and because I’m not making the choice to make this a monotype surface to start off with, the nature of the paint changes depending on what I am painting, which adds another element of chance to the mono print aspect of my work. Even though monotypes are usually used in works on paper, I will do my version of mono printing on any surface that I am working on in the studio, whether it is paper, canvas, or a MDF panel.

When I was talking about improvisation I had mentioned that I would often use architecture as a structure in my improvisations. The architecture is brought into the image through observation, and reinterpretation of that observation. Observing the world around me is very important in my abstractions. Things I see in the world that excite me,

15 and helps me generate imagery, while making paintings and drawings. Though it is important to me to observe the world and then interpret it, it is also important that these things that I have use remain unnamed.

For me being in the zone and having a transcendent moment are one and the same.

Having a transcendent moment has always been very important for me in making artwork, whether this moment is spiritual or just a matter of gaining concentration while working through my creative process. When making abstractions I allow myself to be in the moment of creating. This moment of getting into the zone is a very important thing for me as an artist. Abstraction allows me to get into the zone because I’m not thinking about anything except making a formal image. Connections with transcendentalism were very important in the development of my abstraction, as using the subconscious and non- representation were done in the search of absolute understanding of the world. This was done to try and reach a spiritual enlightenment. While working though an image, the gesture of a handmade mark, then began to show a person made the work as an expression of the inner self. For me it goes back to the flow theory and being in the zone.

The mark or making of a mark is also a very important characteristic in my work. My gestures can be slow and large for the areas that they cover, or quick and small for specific areas. The gesture of the mark is also important in defining space and forms and outlining the differences between space and form. In my drawings the mark is more visible because of the differences in the mediums I use. Each medium has its own

16 characteristics, whether it is a fluid or dry material. Within the drawings dynamics exist that add to the formal dialogue. Because I will make most of my marks on the fly, they are improvisatory in nature, and therefore have a very casual feel. When I choose I will be very deliberate with marks to define specific areas or shapes to make the image have the specifics needed to complete an image. This contrast in deliberate versus casual marks leads to an interesting conversation within the mark making.

Mark making, chance, automatism, and being in the zone are keys for my art-making process. It is these variables that lead me to the most important modes in making works of art. When I work on an image, I am searching for an image while executing my studio practice. This searching will use all the other techniques before it to help with the competition of my work. While I’m working through this process I’m also searching through many works in process to help find something to complete those works. I search through shapes, compositions, drawing moments, and observations in the hope of finding the correct piece to the puzzle.

Chapter 5: Time and Quantity

I think that time is an important part of my work. The history of the work being made, as well as its relationship to abstraction through history, is crucial to me as an artist. The time I spend making a piece can vary greatly. Some pieces will be many different things before they become what they are. Recently I have been working on images for a more limited amount of time. Previously I worked on images over a few years, painting over them again and again. I have begun to work quicker in order to give the work more immediacy. So the way time is important in my work has changed. It no longer spans years, was the works are constantly changing and labored until completion. Now it is quicker, more intense, and more casual. This increase in speed has also increased the quantity of work that I am completing. Having more quantity of work let me add to the collection of my paintings and drawings.

My studio practice has become more concentrated and shorter than in the past. This allows me to use my studio at the key moments of creation mainly in time of complete concentration.

Chapter 6: Color and Plastic

I have wanted to work with color for as long as I have loved painting. My color palette comes from experiences I have and places I go; from a routine of daily life. Most of the colors I work with now come from my experiences with plastic. My grandfather and father both sold plastic coloring and other accessories for plastic manufacturing throughout my whole life. My father would bring home all kinds of plastic products from conventions that were held by companies in the plastic manufacturing industry. Most of the things my dad brought home where containers of other domestic fare. These items were usually matte in finish with very unnatural colors. If I received gloss-finished plasticity it seemed more unnatural than the matte-finished plastic. Seeing how light appear in and on plastic has stuck with me for a long time. It has been crucial to my use of color especially while using acrylic paint, which has a very plastic appearance. My color choices are a mix of remembered color from childhood along with more recently experienced color from my daily experiences.

Chapter 7: Studio Practice

In the studio I have many different stations that I work at. I do this because I like working on multiple images at once. Two of these stations are on tables making an L that divides the room long ways, very close to the corner and to each other. One has a cutting mat and a panel where I work on drawings, and the other has cardboard on the tabletop where I work with paint and drawing materials. I also use the floor on the other side of this table and the wall, which holds a lot of works in progress or at near competition.

Being able to work at these stations has helped me make more works because I can move them around at different stages.

Even though I have different stations I will often work with one color at a time. This part of my practice is left over from my time doing printmaking. In lithography I was only able to use one color per layer that I was putting onto an image. I have carried this practice to my paintings and drawings, working with one color. I will use this color on multiple pieces where I feel it will work with the other things within the images, until I am ready to move onto the next color. When I clean the last color off the palette is when

I will use my monotype process. My use of color gives my work a sense that I work in a serial manor, even though I wouldn’t classify it this way. Even with similarities that are shared in the work, there isn’t a deliberate intension of these works to be classified as a series. 20

As I have said, time is also an important element in my work and in my studio practice.

The history shown while work is being made is important to me because it becomes a documentation of my marks and process in what in the end will be a non-changing still image. The time I spend making a piece can vary, but each work will be looked at and considered for a period of time. This time is important because I read my work very slowly; it will often take a long period of time for me to look at a piece before I can call it complete. While looking at the work I start to pick up on some things that I have observed in the world that I have brought into the abstraction. These abstracted forms from the world will be collected and connected to other forms that have a relationship to them. As my work becomes complete it has gone through a cycle, and this cycle is a process that the work needs to become a complete art work.

Chapter 8: Drawings

Drawing can have a number of functions in my drawings and paintings. It can be part of a thought process, where drawing helps me understand what a work needs. It function on its own as a way as a work of art. Drawing can also be an exercise to help generate shapes and ideas for other works. Like most people I have been around paper most of my life. Whether it is books, newspapers, notebook paper, or fine arts papers I have had many experiences with paper, revolving around sight and touch. The relationship with paper that is the most important to me involves its texture and weight, once again the physicality. The paper can be smooth, rough, really thick, or very thin and transparent.

There are times where I use drawings as an exercise to help break a slump in my creative process. I will do this by making a series of drawings quickly in one pass; do it and it’s done. I will also use drawing to directly represent my environment. These drawings are done by looking at architecture or figures to devise a structure in which I will perform the drawing. Within a drawing I will sometimes add other paper to a piece that is being created, I will use collage. When I’m cutting up old drawings and collaging them to other drawings I think about Willem de Kooning and how he would use collage and tracing to assemble his images. Collage is a good way for me to bring in things from the outside that will help complete a drawing.

Drawings are completed in a large quantity because it is a more natural thought process for me as an artist. With painting I have more of a plan while working on them, and more often than not I will not just start a painting for the sake of making a painting, where I will make a drawing just to try and see what might come of it. For my practice drawing is more like a statement than anything else, compared to paintings which are more like questions that are searching for answers. When a part of a drawing, which is a statement, is added to a painting, which is a question that drawing statement can often answer whatever question the painting has.

The biggest thing that distinguishes my drawings from my paintings is that my drawings are more about making marks than the materiality of paint. In drawings I will use any number of materials to make a mark whether it is a dry medium or fluid paint. The most important material in the drawings is the paper itself. A way that my drawings differ strongly from my painting is how I use paper as a ground. In drawings the paper becomes a strong ground. In painting the ground is always an element added to the surface, where as the paper remains untouched. Letting the paper show through lets the drawings be open and have a feeling of being incomplete even though they are in fact complete.

Chapter 9: Paintings

When I’m working on a painting I think about the history of abstract painting and where my painting context may be seen it that history. There hasn’t been an “ism” recently that has classified what abstract painting is doing today. Though abstract painting has a fairly short history, many art critics and artist have already seen this mode of working as obsolete. For me like other abstract painters working today there is still a lot to explore and a determination to work the so-called dead medium. Because of this death, painters, myself included, are working through the obituaries of art history making connections between what has been recognized as art and the world that the painter is trying to interpret.

When I’m working on a painting, the work will go through several stages. These stages are different for each work but they share a basic structure. When the painting starts, it is quick and I will work in an automatic or improvisational way to build up a ground of active mark making and loose shapes beginning to form. As these forms take shape an idea of what the painting is about starts to become strong. This is when I will begin to add things from the outside world to complete the idea. At this stage of the work I will focus on finding something in the painting that will make it correct and complete.

My painting 11 windows and one form, problems of continuation (see Figure 3), has all the characteristics discussed above. When making any artwork, there are artworks that come together and make artistic sense. There are also paintings that fall short of acceptance and understanding. I feel that this is very true when I am working through an image to find what completes the work. In this particular work there are two problems that arise, one is that the linear green squares do not finish off the pattern that is started, and visually expected. Secondly the form has no direct relationship to the rest of the painting.

The first problem is one of commitment to an idea for the painting. Being a painting of observation of architecture, the off-geometric pattern feels neglected and awkward, without a conclusion. I desired to have a feeling of awkwardness in the painting. This particular canvas has had many images on it covered by other searches until it became red and spatially flat. When this happened in the studio the painting was forgotten and not worked on for awhile. When it resurfaced, I began thinking about fields and minimalism with no intentions of having it remain this way. Then I saw a grouping of windows isolated on the back of a building and the image stuck with me until I wanted to incorporate it into this painting. At first I added it with thin layers of red while leaving areas uncovered so that the pattern would begin. One of the earlier layers of the painting still stood out even with the red ground, which was being built up. With this build up the picture begins to take shape and is truly brought together through an act of drawing. By drawing with a light green a pattern begins to take shape but isn’t completed. Although

25 this painting has a subject, the window, and the painting is an illusion of the window, it has a conflict with a part of its own history of creation. This conflict is the second problem of this work.

Even though I had found this window painting in its layered surface, one of its past histories came back to haunt the painting’s new identity. The painting wanted to be about the picture plane as a window while also being very shallow spatially and incomplete as a pattern. Now, with what I will call a “figuration,” the thought of the window becomes more about the difference between geometrical structures and ambiguous figurative forms, with shallow space. So the question then becomes is this new context based on the geometry vs. figuration correct? Is it correct because this is what the painting became about because I have created it? Or do my intentions as the creator of the work no longer matter because of how the work is viewed as a finished painting? How are these questions it now creates as a painting answered properly?

It would be an easy answer to say that how it is read as a complete piece is how is, its meaning is about architecture verses figuration. But as the artist I still feel that it is about the picture plane as a window that it plays with a painting’s function in art history, even though it doesn’t hold that interpretation for others. This is caused by my casual attitude and my inability to take my original idea to competition. So now the painting has a flatness of abstraction but a label tying it to representation. This is my attempt at artistic sarcasm, and that may be the biggest down fall of the painting. So as a painting about

26 geometry verses figuration does it work? As the artist I believe it does. The work now has a strong contrast between the windows and the figurative form as well as a depiction of shallow and deep pictorial space. These two dynamics allow the work to ask many questions, but it has key answers allowing the work to be about the window, as a product of spatial depictions though art history, as well as be about geometry verses figuration.

The added bonus is that this painting also becomes about continuation and what happens when a pattern isn’t completed.

With the painting on MDF titled Back in the Saddle (see Figure 4), I am really interested in the red shape that is front and center in the painting. In this piece, it is this shape that was reused from an observational drawing. This collected form has been brought from the drawing to be a shape that goes off the picture plane at the middle bottom of the picture and point to the top two corners of the painting. I did this as a joke on the conventions of two-dimensional design which warns against placing forms in the center of an image, as well as it is bad to draw attention to the support, which in design is supposed to be viewed as a window. This becomes the subject of this painting very quickly showing that this red form should be front and center of the picture plane. There are green hand drawn squares that fill the space directly behind the red shape. These squares are drawn with two different widths of lines that are drawn with different materials. The thicker line is paint applied with a brush, and the thin line is drawn with a paint marker. The green lines are mirroring the square format of the support which can be seen as another two-dimensional design no-no. I did this in part with Frank Stella’s early

27 black paintings in mind because they were drawing attention to the support. Like Stella’s the marks in this painting are made freehand without a ruler but using width of his brush, and the space between the paint becomes the drawn line. I want these lines to show the imperfections of the squares that I have drawn. These imperfections are not to be seen as human imperfections but more as sarcasm, showing a deliberate decision to not use a tool to make a perfect square. I also show imperfection, by not completely following the contour of the support and allowing the lines to break the picture plane, so while I’m bringing attention to the support I’m also commenting on the importance of hand-drawn imperfections. This painting is also awkward because of the central placement of the red form: its transparency showing through the under painting seems very unimportant at first look but slowly plays with being in the foreground while remaining in the background.

The problem that arises in this work is that the prominence of the red form leaves very few questions unanswered. Does this cause this work to be answered too specifically?

Or does this work become a portrait of the red form and nothing else?

If the painting is a portrait of this red form it makes a lot of sense in its creation. When I was painting this work I was searching for something that I wasn’t sure of. I wanted to use colors that had relationships on the color wheel and really I was just planning to exploring color. Then when I was working on some observational drawings I saw this particular shadow that I had to draw. I drew it four times before it made it onto the painting. This shadow becomes the key red form in this painting. This red form completes this painting, mainly because it comes from the outside of the main original

28 idea. It helps complete the painting, so when this painting becomes a portrait of the red form, the painting is finished. So even though this strays from abstraction, it doesn’t make it a bad painting.

Figure 1. Large Arch

Figure 2. Wall Painting with Stripes

Figure 3. 11 Windows and One Form, Problems of Continuation

Figure 4. Back in the Saddle

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