Honesty in Art

Q1. What, if anything, separates abstraction from other forms of painting?

In key fundamental ways all painting is the same in that it’s about communication initiated by a visual catalyst and like all forms of communication it is reliant on language. All art forms be they dance, music or visual arts have their own unique language. When we think of language we generally think of aural language but in the visual arts, well in painting, we are looking at similar structures such as vocab, grammar and phrasing but it’s silent. A great painting gives back so much within this silence.

I think the main thing with abstraction is that its language isn’t dictated by any recognizable form. It can be dictated by composition (or lack of), colour or tonality but with all painting in the end it’s the success of the language that gets the job done so to speak and that comes down to honesty over technique. In fact, to stick my neck out here, it comes down to honesty over feelings.

Q2. Can you elaborate on the idea of honesty in this situation?

Honesty isn’t how you feel about things. They’re simply your feelings. Honesty is a perception from a far greater viewpoint. Honesty aligns with a personal truth, with a clarity not clouded by emotions. I’m not saying it’s clinical but it’s steady and not prone to swaying.

Most of us enter adulthood through a process of self-imposed and externally imposed boundaries. Some are short lived and others are almost hard wired. Some make life easier and others are very restricting. When a boundary is limiting then it acts like a fence and can constrict the conscious space we have to function in, to make decisions, visualize possibility and act accordingly.

I think with the notion of honesty within painting it’s not something that has a narrative, but it is something you recognize. It almost takes you by surprise like meeting an old friend. It’s one’s ability to leave an authentic imprint of oneself and is a tremendous affirmation of self. It’s very easy for our mind to tell us what we think and feel but often these thoughts and feelings are, on many levels, what fits the space we have created for ourselves to exist in.

There is this idea that one’s true creative voice lies buried deep within us and that one needs to find this personal truth to develop as a person, artist or not. This suggests finding something deep inside one’s psyche and this is the narrative that many might embrace.

 I like the idea of one’s creative truth finding you. So, you break the surface not to search and find, but release. In this way you’re not expressing this voice from deep within but now that it has come to the surface, and no matter how profound it might feel, it can be expressed with clarity and brevity as opposed to drama and gravity.

There is a myriad of ways throughout art history that artists have used to access this burning feeling of a personal truth. Many have used mind altering substances to alter perception. Some have stuck to discipline techniques like repetition, while others have embraced the notion that through struggle truth and honesty will prevail. I think with any personal journey there’s a bit of everything going on. The thing with the notion of struggle is that when it subsides you are so relieved you feel like you’ve hit the jackpot.

I mean who knows…maybe this sense of an individual truth is a bit over dramatic but as an artist you do want to connect somehow with one’s own inherent voice. Some artists feel the need to explore who they are and this will be reflected in their work while others the work just flows irrespective of their personal state.

The New Zealand painter Colin McCahon exhibited two large multipaneled works entitled Landscape Theme and Variation. These two works (Series A and B) were almost 8M each in length. Afterwards he said he now had the difficult job of becoming a better person to do better work.

Also, different artists have different needs. Some need a strong sense of structure and even a tension of confinement to produce their work.

Personally, I need total freedom, the idea of infinite space. This in many ways may account for why my work has developed as it has. Even the notion of a subject matter I find confining, in terms of being honest to an external form, rather than an internal impulse.

 It’s an internal sense of limitless possibility. For me it is not a heart-based feeling but like a welcoming cool breeze on the face.

What I’m saying here is that there are no rules or technique to achieve this but an artwork is a bit like a magic mirror and as an artist you want to be able to look at your own work and see yourself, your potential and your possibility.

Some processes thrive on rules and that’s how they grow. However, others are so limited by rules.

You must discover who you are and how you operate, create your own world and give your all to it.

Q3. In terms of honesty where do you see the artworld today?

I think for most artists they are pursuing that path of discovery.

I think it must be a challenge within the business of art. If you have a successful exhibition say and there’s a demand for your work, it must be difficult not to simply paint the same work.

Also, as I said in the main body of this blog, personal honesty isn’t something you can explain. As an artist you recognize it. It wakes you up to a bigger sense of yourself.

Aural language is becoming increasingly …well not important but required by the art world. Art is marketed by an artist’s story, and these can take on elaborate narratives that often become more important that the art itself.

Artists are required to talk and explain their art and how they achieve it. It’s all a bit “artist as celebrity “and so the artist’s story is the focus and read into every work whether it hits the mark or not.

There is a withdrawal from standing in front of a painting, looking and listening to the enormity of a silent realm. Every possibility is all too explained nowadays.

The punters are bombarded with what to think and look for in many instances as part of the promotion process…not all of course.

We are slowly losing the absolute luxury of being lost in an artwork.