It's Been a Long While

Since a new posting has appeared on this Blog.  I apologize to those who ever so infrequently check it out.  However, if anyone out there is listening, DJE is organizing an exhibition to be held this May in Burlington, Vermont.  Below is a short announcement.  If you're in the area, I hope you can attend.

Profile New York: Art and the Aesthetic Experience is an exhibition of the work, in several mediums, of artists from around the world and working in New York City. The show is meant to reveal that art, both through its creation and observation, provides the viewer with an immediate encounter that exposes various subjects and conflicting themes which emerge from cultural and even mundane experience in a city so full of genuine diversity. Similar to Burlington, New York is an amalgam of original people, aesthetic styles and artistic sensibilities that blend so effortlessly providing each one of us that truly aesthetic experience.

The Creative Voice of DJE Fine Art's Newest Artist

Allegories Of An Intimacy And My Sleeplessness

by Alexander Percy

Melancholies come to me to turn them into passion. Color sensitizes my system. The spatula is my sword, my shield is the color and my inspiration is you. The night becomes my day, and the day is my torture. It is my ritual…my religion. In this city where there’s no sky, and what has not turned grey yet, will be soon, I battle. I work color, light and awareness. I feel free. Nature, religion, love, sex and life dominate my synthesis. With this body of work, I toy with human psyches, with reference to the imagery’s invocation, captured through lived life. The spectator’s past experiences confront the colors in each piece and interact on a very personal plane. The titles of the work create an uncertainty, leaving outsiders wanting to know more, questioning their own senses while transforming the work into a representative image of their existentialism.

Experimenting with metaphorical bohemian intimacy, I reveal myself to my muse. I become an ally of her sentence, protector of her emotions. I become reason for her feelings and companion of her pleasures. In one form or another, she dominates my aura. Images come and colors go to a place that becomes smaller as time passes, thoughts of color, meditated color. I am heard by my surroundings, we become one in each encounter. I analyze myself and become consciousness. On a stony route, I walk barefoot. I sacrifice my dawn to create my allegories, my nocturnal world, my strange destiny, but I am appreciating my legacy. Knowing the matter, I self medicate, thinking of my fears as my days become smoke and my nights a glorification. A burial silence watches me and lets me see my inner child, which loves you, lets you sleep, protects and kisses you. You travel inside of me every night like indomitable beast, filling the empty spaces of my core and helping me exist in an uncertain world, full of theories. 

At night, I hallucinate your presence. Letting me live the dream of having you, I die. In my nocturnal ritual, I belong to you. We become one and while the night leaves me, you stay with me. I ask myself, why does this angel cling to me?  Why does she love me? Why does she illuminate me? Out of breath when thinking about you, my fears disappear when I feel you close; your voice makes me smile and your air gives me life. In this passion where time passes and I don’t feel the ticking of the clock, where I am victim of time and

traitor of my rest, at the moment when my muse sleeps, I keep myself awake

in her honor and I give her my other self.

What is the Responsibility of Today's Artist and the Artwork Created?

I've been repressing an issue regarding the artists creating today and the work they create.  I've always been a firm believer in the concept that when someone dedicates themselves heart and soul to a creative endeavor, then the work's significance becomes inextricably linked to this pure and genuine sacrifice.  Too often, my friends, art world aficionados and especially critics dismiss such artistic creations as narcissistic self-absorption - Abstract Expressionism ended years ago, my friends exclaim, and true, quality art must present depth, complexity and a finely-tuned awareness  of the human experience.  Internal, personal struggles and an overwhelming sense of self-loathing have no place in art being created today.

Although I tend to agree with such critical analysis, I cannot forget the power and intensity of artworks created from the depths of the trouble subconscious, both in painting and poetry.  The greatest works of Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Frank O'Hara and, of course, Sylvia Plath, were crafted, in part at least, by their inner demons.

And this brings me where exactly?  I'd really like to know.              

New Art in a New Year - The Rebirth of Creativity

Too all artists, art lovers, art historians and anyone reading this post - I want to wish you all a healthy, happy and creative new year.  With these wishes of good spirit, comes the question where is art at now and where is it going?  Can anything original be created?  Or has it all been done before?  Trite, I know, but to many people I know, both art lovers and art haters,  the facts seem to point in one direction - the demise of creativity.

I, however, am of the belief that creativity is not dead; that there is still untapped originality in many of us.  But it takes time, hard work, dedication and strength - strength to believe in ourselves, strength to overcome our own fears and feelings of inadequacy and strength to confront those who will stand in our way because of their own insecurities.

Genuine creativity is a gift that cannot be feared as it will be wasted.  And right now, we need all the force and power and pain that truly creative art produces.  I'm tired of leaving galleries feeling, well, tired.  I want to walk out feeling elated or angry, excited or terrified.  Honestly, I just want to FEEL.

And when I do, and I know I will, I'll tell the world that creativity is alive and well.  
 
  

The Creative Process (Part II)

I hope that those who read our last blog entry on the creative process written by a favorite artist and good friend, Erik Von Ploennies, appreciated his honest and straightforward description of his creative process.  Not being an artist myself, simply a lover and student of art, I have always been fascinated by what drives artists to create and why they create what they do.

I'm asking questions that might have one but more than likely several answers, but I'm searching for something, thought I;m not sure what.  But I'm convinced, and always have been, that these answers can be found in art.  And right now, I am in need of answers and hoping that those who take the time to read this entry take a few moments to let me know what they think; what they feel; what they know.

The Creative Process

The Eye Should Listen

2009 - 11"x12", Acrylic, graphite, charcoal, newspaper, on wood.

Finished with two coats of Krylon Kamar Varnish #1312

(Private Collection - New York)

www.ErikVP.com

I am always fascinated to learn about the creative process of other artists, musicians, poets, and so on. It's probably the most common question I am asked about my paintings. Below is an example of how my creative process works.

I tend to paint on wood rather than canvas because my artwork is half painting, half drawing. Wood provides a flat, hard surface for drawing. Lately, I have been adding newspaper collage as a first layer. The Brooklyn Rail newspaper works well both for the quality of the paper, and the creative content.

Many of the images in my paintings are seen within the painting. This one is another great example. If you look at the photo above and below, you can see the faint image of the cat, before I have draw it in.

The cat on the right side is less obvious, but the faint image is there as well.

With the basic images sketched out, I then work on the detail for each cat. The black and white patterns are common in my paintings and originate from African and Egyptian art.

The flying eye will be explained later. It's an image I found doing a Google search, printing it out on paper, and gluing it to my painting.

In the image below, I added a horizontal line across the top. I borrowed this idea from Ethopian artist Wosene, although it's also common in Egyptian art.

There is a poem buried within the painting. Before I add any paint, I underline words and phrases in the Brooklyn Rail collage. I organize the words and phrases into a poem. You can also see where the title of the painting came from.

The Vibe Is Established

Blue poetry.

A particular obsession,

Between language and thought.

The eye should listen.

Language, a paradox.

Margins reverberate throughout,

Of proverbs trapped.

The possibilities.

Every dream is vital,

To the thinkers and stones.

Fused so seamlessly,

Without gray spaces.

Seeing a Chinese film.

Asking the same question.

Look, but not always.

The phrase "The eye should listen" stuck in my head and had some influence on the painting. The large flying eye is called The Eye of Horus and the image was taken directly from Wikipedia. I cut out the eye, glued it to my painting, and then painted it.

Why?

As I ask more and more people to contribute their thoughts and ideas to this Blog, I'm frequently met with "sure, but why?"  And the answer to that question lies in the contributions that have yet to be posted.  We are all searching for something, answers to questions rarely asked but ever present in our collective unconscious.  What better way to confront these once insurmountable obstacles than with the thoughts and ideas of a number of people also searching for their own answers.  One thing that I willingly admit to searching for is to become a part of a community of creative minds empowered to confront the uncertainty that once engulfed them because they are not alone.  Together we can discover true meaning and understanding through the utilizing the creative process and experience. 

I'm not certain if this is incoherent rambling or if I am getting to the point.  All I am certain of is that . . . well, I guess I'll have to think about that for a while.