I conceive of the art of painting as the science of juxtaposing colours in such a way that their actual appearance disappears and lets a poetic image emerge. . . . There are no “subjects”, no “themes” in my painting. It is a matter of imagining images whose poetry restores to what is known that which is absolutely unknown and unknowable.
–Rene Magritte, 1967
In a letter two months prior to his death
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I am giving my annual Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery this coming Saturday, August 9. I don’t usually come in with a prepared speech, instead speaking off the cuff and responding to the audience, but I still prepare myself in a few different ways. One is to go over possible themes and clarify my thoughts on these subjects to minimize awkward pauses at the actual talk. Oh, it doesn’t eliminate them but it helps to have some sort of thought formed beforehand.
The quote above from Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte reminds me of an instance where I didn’t fully get across what I was trying to communicate in response to a question. While speaking to a regional arts group consisting of enthusiastic painters, some amateurs and some professional, a question was brought up about the importance of subject. Magritte elegantly stated in his words what I was trying to say that evening, that the purpose of what I was doing was not in the actual portrayal of the object of the painting but in the way it was expressed through color and form and contrast. To me, the subject was not important except as a vehicle for carrying emotion.
Of course, I didn’t state it with any kind of coherence. Hearing me say that the subject wasn’t important angered the man who was a lifelong painter of very accomplished landscapes. He said that the subject was most important in forming your painting. I fumbled around for a bit and don’t think I ever satisfied his question or got across a bit of what I was attempting to say.
I think he was still mad when he left which still bothers me because he was right, of course. Subject is important. It is the relationship that you have with the subject that makes it a vehicle for accurately carrying the emotional feeling you are trying to pull from the painting. While I am not interested in depicting landscapes of specific areas, I am moved by the rolls of hills and fields and the stately personae of trees and that comes through in my painting. Yes, I can capture emotion in things that may not have any emotional attachment to me through the way I am painting them, which was part of what I was saying to that man that evening, but it will never be as fully realized as those pieces which consist of things and places in which I maintain a personal relationship.
It is always easier to find the poetry of the unknown in those things which we know.
Hopefully, I will not be as inelegant Saturday as I was on that evening. I hope you can come to the West End Gallery around 1 PM and test me a bit. I think I’m ready. Plus, you might walk away with a painting from my studio!
See you then…
Redtree Times 