What is modern, abstract art?
Defy social norms.
Make the most expressive brush stroke on the canvas.
Repeat. Do it once, twice, and 10 times. Do it one thousand times. It gains meaning every time.
In this painting, I tried to make the most expressive brush stroke I could. At the end, quite accidentally, I brought it back to earth by adding my two hand prints.
More Dots
I overlaid more dots onto a quadrant. The irony is that the more dots I painted, the more incomplete the painting became. I’m not sure when this painting will be finished.
Another trait of some modern paintings is the repetition of objects in a grid. This triptych is a series of grids painted in different ways with contrasting textures.
Dot Paintings
The repetition of dots led me to this journey. As I repeated the process, the paintings gradually metamorphosized into something completely different, a tranquil, soft inner peace.
I was interested in “multichordal” brushstrokes using different colors and textures in each brushstroke,
Apollinaire was a “cubist and surrealist” poet. He was shunned by society for his degenerate ways. During 1917, when Europe engaged in World War I, the violence exploded with near certainty of death for any volunteer.
Apollinaire volunteered twice, having been rejected once. Perhaps he wanted to “feel” life more on the edge of death. Who is more sane? The society which propels its youth towards death? Or Apollinaire, who all his life defied social norms?
This poem, “Mon Lou la nuit descend”, a love letter to his lover just as he is about to be called to the front, works pretty much like an abstract painting.
He evokes the image of La Tour Magne in Nimes, a Roman artifact. The tour rotates slow, slowly, darkening with the dappled, sapid glow of dusk. It dances slowly like a sarrasine.
Abstract painting is like Apollinaire’s poem. Where do we get our visual ideas from? They emerge from this earth, then slowly, slowly, they become something else, with the emergence into light.
I will try to explain what I mean by defying social norms by quoting a portion of a poem.
La tour Magne tournait sur sa colline lauree
Et dansait lentement lentement s’obombrait
Tandis que des amants descendaient de la colline
La tour dansait lentement comme une sarrasine
Appollinaire
