Friday, June 13, 2008

Oil on canvas, 14" x 14", 2008

4 comments:

  1. I like the fearlessness of this one. It has finesse, but not IN the strokes.. More like behind them. In the placement, color, and structure. it's raw

    what is drawing?

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  2. What is drawing. You're a troublemaker, aren't you. You know . . . it's like pornography; you know it when you see it.

    OK, sans any checking of what the experts say, I think "drawing" within a painting (figuring you mean in a painting cause that's what came up on the london site?), has to do with edges and structure as opposed to atmosphere and color.

    But when I said Tal R's drawing was somewhat reminiscent of Guston's, I also meant that in some paintings, the way he puts the paint down looks more typical of drawing marks than paint strokes.

    Of course, all of this is elusive and dicey. Is a Giacometti painting any less a painting because he draws with the paint? Is a Seurat drawing any less a drawing because it seems to be spun out of light itself?

    I don't know. You're the expert!

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  3. I'm no expert, except perhaps in the sense that I know I don't know anything. I think you're right on about edge and structure. Barnett Newman said once that if he had contributed anything, it was to drawing. His paintings are all edge.
    I think there is something urgent and dynamic about a work composed primarily of line, and sometimes color petrifies this freshness. At least in my work. Matisse is the model here for integrating them, but I wonder if any younger artist addresses the interaction between line and color. Maybe Brice Marden or James Siena? Or Tomma Abts if you want to talk about edge.
    I wonder if any representational painters address formal issues in such a central way as Matisse? Or does representation now depend on its position as a denial of the exclusivity of abstraction?

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  4. Hard to beat Matisse for what you're talking about (and everything else?!). Have always marveled at how what should be "outlining" with him becomes so much more. And that's only one of the more literal aspects of this integration.

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