FIGURATIVE ABSTRACT: 2001
Figurative Abstract: 2001
I recently
[2007] looked about to see what was written on “figurative abstract”
paintings. As, in 2001 I completed a series on paper that remained without
a written description of its meaning. When I say “looked about”;
I mean I used Google ™ to see what was written on figurative abstract
painting. Much came on my screen but all seemed to be of little consequence.
One article in the Christian Science Monitor by Carol Strickland was of
interest as it reminded me of the time when I returned to my easel painting
efforts in the late 1980’s, recognizing once again, how it seemed
that painting was dead. Strickland was commenting on a contemporary show
[2004] at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, selected by Charlotta Kotik and
her curators, from thousands of submissions. Some 198 were shown, works
in oil, acrylic, and watercolor. Strickland quotes Kotik as pronouncing:
“Suddenly painting is allowed to exist again”.
“In the past two decades,” Strickland writes, “ the
halls were chockablock with installations, photo-based work, conceptual
art, new media, and digital & video art.” I can remember that
along with Joseph Kosuth’s glib declaration that “painting
was dead’ were the many pundits who likewise expressed similar opinions
from the 1960’s onwards. Painting in Ibiza, Spain in the late 1950’s
I felt the same way, even if the New York school, or crowd, like Pollock,
etc, were making a big ‘name,’ ‘splash,’ or ‘drip’
for themselves and making “new” art sell, you couldn’t
help feeling that as a painter on canvas that you were one of a dying
group. The disenchantment years continued for me as I ploughed on with
my life, in and out of my passion—painting—until about 1985
when I dedicated myself to painting fulltime. Strickland [commentary 2004]
sees the ‘new painting’; “whether narrative, figurative,
abstract, decorative, or somewhere in between—aims to trace a middle
path between highbrow and low.”
My series “ Figurative Abstract”:
done in 2001; remained without a title until 2007.
Figurative Abstract Series 2001 # 1
The series is not without content, veiled as it is. Working at that time in Mexico using
Figurative Abstract Series 2001 # 7 |
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chapapote (tar) and spray enamels was unique. As far as I know I am the only artist that has been able to harness chapapote so it didn't come out as "oil", "petrochemicals", and manufactured products such as enamels as colors.
The tone in "Figurative Abstract" somewhat 'dark', the figures stick-like, the colors more or less monochromatic, with a strong line deliberating the figure--motionless--caught in the "tar"--restrained, held back from realization.