Biomorphic abstractions

Over the past two years, I’ve pursued color-rich biomorphic abstraction. These carefully crafted, curvilinear forms interact in visually playful ways, sometimes portrayed against wildly gestural backgrounds. The forms are quite abstract, some seeming more animal-like, some more plant-like. I’ve rendered these compositions in acrylic paints, oil paints, or oil and cold wax. Below: Polendra, Parallel Lives, Orbus, and The Color of Void.

Why engage in fanciful biomorphic forms? Viewers are more likely to uncover (within themselves, really) meaning and interaction when the forms seem organic – but are sufficiently vaguely rendered to prevent ascribing characteristics of any particular species. The paintings are also just plain fun to observe!

Through June and July, ryan james fine arts will present several of these large-scale works at its Belltown capsule gallery at 2207 Second Ave. in Seattle’s Belltown (Omni Dental), open MWF 7:30-4; TTh 9-6.  Take advantage of Belltown's second-Friday art walk from 6-9pm on 6/13 and 7/11 -- I'll be there and would love to see you!

What I'm reading

I've spent the past two weeks finishing a piece (What Could Be – which I originally wanted to title Infinity Awaits) that did not want to end, reading Bianca Bosker's Get the Picture, and reading a set of essays (titled Ways of Seeing) based on a 1972 BBC series of the same name.  

I devoured Bosker's book, though in retrospect I found the first section (about her toxic relationship with a deeply flawed gallerist) painful and useless.  The last quarter or so was uplifting, reminding me of the ways my eyes and mind were opened when I started painting.  I'm glad I read that before our upcoming travels -- reminding me to be as open as possible.

Ways of Seeing (edited by John Berger) takes the format of seven essays - three of which contain only photos.  The first essay essentially interprets Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."  The other verbal essays are critical screeds on capitalism and sexism in Euro-American beaux arts.  I had to keep reminding myself of the date of the essays:  to me they repeated the critical theory that I read throughout my time as an academic, but actually they were early applications of theory to art.

Art is communication

Art of any discipline is communication:

• from the artist’s background, desires, and image-ination, filtered through

• the medium of words, notes, paint, clay – and the artist’s technical ability, to

• the reader, listener, or viewer – but filtered by their backgrounds, hopes, and knowledge.

Thus, arts of any sort are only completed when read, heard, or viewed. That’s one reason why galleries, museums, concerts, and readings are important: They help complete the communication for which art is produced.

However, the audience’s interpretation is aided by – but doesn’t require -- understanding the artist’s background, desires, and imagery. A poem, dance, composition, or painting must be able to speak for itself. But we usually get more of the communication if we understand the origins of the dance form, the conventions of the musical form, the methods, intent, and symbolism of the visual artist.

At a gallery reception or an artist’s talk, you have the opportunity to learn about artists’ background, desires, and imagery.

So please – in the midst of talking with each other, identify a work that captures you, find the artist, and learn more about their motivations. Take the time to come to an artist talk, or listen to a discussion about producing and presenting paintings, sculptures, plays, poems, novels, music.

On The Impossibility of Knowing (4 of 4)

I’ll wrap this up for now —

All paintings emphasize presence.  There’s something there — even if it’s a white sheet of paper.

But a thoughtful viewer also thinks about absence: 

• Who and what are not shown, but are relevant to the scene? 

• What spaces lack visible marks or activity? 

• What could have been going on in those spaces?

In The Impossibility of Knowing, I’m trying to draw attention to absence. (You could do that via a large, blank canvas, but that’s been done.)

Two other artists in this year’s juried show at the Leonor Fuller Gallery at South Puget Sound Community College – on view now – also draw the viewer’s attention to presence and absence:

Stephanie Broussard’s Moonrise (above) visualizes a female presence in a skyscape of mountain and moon – a presence that is perhaps spiritual, real but unseen.

Lynette Charters’s Zarraga’s Naked Dancer Muse (above) from her The Missing Parents Series removes the actual painting of the two women in the Angel Zarraga’s 1909 painting The Nude Ballerina (below).

o   By painting everything but exposed skin, and carefully using knotholes and grain in her wooden board surface, Charters substitutes and amplifies the missing paint. 

o   According to her artist’s statement,[1] she wants to emphasize “the lack of societal appreciation and wage equality for childbearing and stay-at-home parents.”

In sum, what’s impossible to know?  Just about everything.

[1] https://spscc.edu/art-gallery/2022-2023-Exhibition-Season/SWJ/Lynette-Charters