Wednesday, October 04, 2006

I did, after all, go to school in Western Canada


Nearly all of my knowledge of paintings comes from books, and the reproductions they contain. It is more remarkable for me to have seen the work of an artist I invoke as influential than not. Maybe this accounts for the sway that the NNP has over my work(for that matter, this may explain the week or so of imitative work after visiting any artist’s studio, or gallery. Right now my colour work looks like Molinari, as I just saw his retrospective at he MDLC Hochelaga-Maisonneuve). I have seen a lot of their work.
My work is becoming increasingly difficult to photograph. I am making paintings that reproduce poorly. Not a concern in the studio, but one of great concern given how much sway photographs of paintings are given in jury selections, grant applications, magazine articles.

Going to see someone else’s paintings has always been secondary to the psychological and monetary weather patterns that will hasten or delay my trips to the studio to work on my own.
Out of my mouth fly statements which prop up the ideal of paintings being best, or only critiqued when one has seen them with one’s own eyes.
I wrote to Piri Halasz recently and included images of my work. She kindly and politely responded that she could not comment on any work she had not seen in person. As I am apt to do, I responded to the ill-defined question posed by the imaginary interviewer in my head: “This is the only respectable answer she could give, I would have discounted her as a critic had she given any other”. This answer positioned me in the heads of the non-existent audience as an authentic painter drowning in a sea of illiterate conceptualism. A position that is feeling shakier and shakier...no wait: more and more unwanted.


But in secret I couldn’t understand her inability to make devils or angels of paintings she had never seen. I had after all made a champion of Pia Fries(photo above) or Rosenquist(photo top left) and a hack of Dubuffet and Clifford Still without even seeing a stroke.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're mental! Clyfford Still is a brilliant painter! In fact, only when i saw his works in person was i schocked and dissapointed. And then i found that i loved his paintings all the more for the big surprise they gave me.
Who's painting is the stars and stripes number up top here? It's never yours!?

Anonymous said...

when you say that your paintings reproduce poorly, do you mean that they haven't quite got the hang of doing it, or are their offspring unsatisfactory.
Give then time. Perhaps after a few glasses of wine, some dinner and conversation under romantic candle light...

Wil Murray said...

They always just "go to the bathroom" with their coat and purse when I mention takin' some photos for m website.

The stars and stripes is Rosenquist, the other photo is Pia Fries.

Your Clyford Stil comment is funny because it is actually part of the reason for my post. I remember you coming back from New York and telling me about his paintings, and I was disappointed to hear that his blacks were not as velvety as I had hoped. The interesting thing is the various ways that people will fill in the blacks with desire. Their desire is more often dictated by things outside of direct physical descriptions of your work than your placement in some art tribe. So my assocations with any group or movement, or my being placed there by any writer or critic may not affect my studio practice, but will determine how reproductions of my work are interpreted.

Wil Murray said...

This all leads to my learning to paint illusionistically and eventually phot-realist quality in order to begin paintings with paintings of detail photos of other paintings, laying layers of gloss on top, and then proceeding with pouring paint. All the time cutting back down to an illusionistic space stretching back from the painting.
Vraiment psychotonique, non?
Funny that the drugs never made me a psychedelic painter. But now....whoa.

Anonymous said...

drugs DID make you a phychedelic painter dude; rejoice! one day they'll have lazer light shows about your work.
that rosenquist is hot hot hot (as in buster pointdexter - wait a minute, this could serve as a lovely soundtrack to your lazer light retrospective!)

Wil Murray said...

Them drugs...
More like "when i was on them I just wasn't that psychedelic". Trying to paint while high just means you forget to add the terror of blowin' one's own mind.
Ahhh..them drugs...for kids, you know.

Anonymous said...

that's a damned dirty lie!!! my spelling is always accurate. if my orthography doesn't accord with your dictionary, then your dictionary is wrong. rely on it.

Wil Murray said...

hey! no Edmonton rows...save it for Jerry or I'll come round and paste you both.
Stupid anglophiles.

Anonymous said...

Dear Dr. Webster,
Your Pointdexter style is good, grasshopper but it will never defeat my Veracious style.

Anonymous said...

oh hell.
i just looked it up. the correct spelling is 'poindexter'.
just typing out the word verification to publish this comment poses a severe challenge, so you may have a point, mcgee. or, is it 'poin'?