CONTROL

Only the “concrete” can be controlled, never the “abstract”. A painting is ultimately an abstract experience. It’s an inanimate object which we apprehend. All the artist can do is try to hit the “bullseye of truth”. Many works get on the board, others get close but the best hit the bullseye and the result is the acknowledgement of this truth by a viewer, just that: an acknowledgement that makes us go “yes”. If I am looking at a great painting, I don’t feel anything, I am not moved in any way, I am not interested in any narratives, symbolism or allusions. The artist may well have put these in there, yet all great painting is beyond the artist who made it - it is always more than they can comprehend, it comes from somewhere deeper and ends up somewhere “beyond”. Subject matter and anything else such as technique, process, all of it within this “middle zone” drops away and the true content, the inherent truth of the work transcends it. We cannot choreograph the outcome - that is up for grabs. What we can control, though is the intent in the making - the input (not the output), the actualities of the concrete. Too much art is made with predictable outputs, so to speak. They are simply hollow vehicles for extrinsic issues to ride along in. Clearly such vehicles are diminished as works of art. Dealing with the reality of the paint colour and surface through the drawing (making) leads to the believability of the work. It has to convince in its reality. It has to realise itself through the concrete.