CONCEPTS,NOTES AND THOUGHTS ABOUT MY ART

Concepts, Notes and Thoughts about my art.                                         June -July 2012

How would you define your style or art?

The lengthy introduction above had a serious point. I wished to show that I question all aspects of art, and especially painting. I intentionally choose to paint, in the Western tradition, instead of working in the so-called New Media, creating installations, performance art, ready mades, etc. I think that there still is mileage in the Western tradition of painting.

I see my work as totally experimental and a kind of serious research. Not merely in a cerebral or rational manner, but first of all on a sub-conscious level, exploring how we think about life, objects,  feelings & emotions and how we perceive them, and subjective stuff,...  etc

I work piecemeal, slow sometimes fast and  something like a philosopher, exploring every detail of the process of painting, bit by bit. Some of these bits are developed into different series of paintings.

I do not have one single style, but gradually discovered that I unintentionally work in series (of 2, 3, 4, 5, etc). The only other artist I have come across who works in this manner is the German Gerhard Richter. I someone wishes to understand my work better they should study his work (as well as Paul Klee, Kandinsky and the Abstract Expressionists ) as he is my predecessor. I do not follow or copy him, but work in the same tradition as he, and they, did.

It appears as if I do not have one single style and that my work - the different series - are merely random, but this is not the case. The larger picture will reveal that all my work forms one unit, in other words the seemingly random aspects, as in the Chaos Theory, will be shown to make more sense in the totality. In painting as in writing, One thing leads to another.... like threading different marks, lines,shapes  and colors.

Given all the above, I question most aspects of the discourse or socio-cultural-religious tradition of painting, the manner in which our minds (thinking, perception, etc), emotions and consciousness operates - programmed for , that leads to what I termed New Styles, a style beyond one and all styles. I combine styles like a chemist combines different elements to get achive a result.

My work has a deeply spiritual side. Not in the narrow meaning of the word as forming part of a particular religion, but as tuning into the Ground or basis of existence of human beings, the earth and the entire Universe. Or rather the many universes or multiverse, as scientists are expressing it. My work originates on a pre-rational and pre-conceptual subconscious level. Colors ,shapes lines ,textures and as I mature, as a painter I aim for more refinement on certain aspects like the painterliness of a piece or like a musician mastering his instrument or compositions.

All this might appear to be very abstract, but painting and the process of painting is something totally concrete and real. But, by means of paint, brushes, etc I attempt to arrive more and more at the art of Creation, the underlying Ground or basis of all of Creation, of the building blocks of the Universe. This has many similarities to the research of scientists of phenomena that are not visible to the human eye, but that can only be thought in complex mathematical formulae. By means of painting I make Visible, that what is until that moment, Invisible to usual human thinking. Most people think in a dualistic manner (because they are socialized like that), but the non-dual way tells us that the subject who perceives, the object that is perceived and the process of perception is ONE whole (all religions, contemplatives and those who meditate attempt to arrive at this non-dual, direct way of perceiving,. or of being one/d with that what is perceived).

I express the above like this in the context of looking at my work:

Now that you know this please do not treat these images as if they are just more objects or things you look AT, but experience and participate in them.

I always express what I think abstractly in this kind of very concrete manner. And, by this simple example the point of all my seemingly abstract talk suddenly comes together as something very concrete, and thereby shows that matter ( concrete painting and the stuff a painting is made of) and the spirit(ual) is one - merely two different ways of looking at the same thing. Two perspectives on the same thing, like the two sides of a coin, or looking at a house from the front, the back, the sides, above. All the different points of view contribute to one thing. In the tradition of Abstract painting, Braque, Picasso and others tried to express this unity of many perspectives in a certain manner. I explore and express or do it in a different way, its my interpretation of those ideas and concepts

What inspires your work?

I am first of all a painter for the sake of the Western tradition of painting. by this I mean, if it were not for certain painters who existed before me and explored and developed this tradition of painting, I would not have been able to think the way I do, and explore the process of painting in the manner I am doing. I form part of this tradition. To feel part of this tradition is what inspires me to paint - over and over again. As Richter said: one must be passionate about doing this stupid thing of being all alone most of the time, because if one were not passionate about it, then for adults to play around with paint, colors, etc would be nothing but mere idiocy.

I paint because I must, I cannot- Not do it - like some people need to eat, drink, use adrenalin, I must paint. The last part of why is because, I paint for the handful; of serious painters of every generation or century who also feel obliged to paint. Therefore, first of all I paint for a few other members of the discourse or the interpersonal (intersubjective) community of artists or painters. If I could add anything to the discourse of painting, explore, question, modify and develop its interpre. I suppose I, like all serious artists, have a certain aesthetic ideal and vision, and that will be expressed as my work. That is the cherry on top of all the being alone, doubts, questionings, searches, and so on in the painter's life.

I think something does happen in or through my work, because I have come across a number of people who react with: stunning, as it pulls them endlessly into it, and they must look at it over and over again. That, is what a good painting always did to me. I had to look at a Kline, a Rauschenberg, a de Kooning and dozens of others, over and over again, and again return to look at them and study them carefully.

It is as if one is hypnotized by them, one's mind is blown away, one experiences or 'sees', something that has captivated the senses, the mind, the imagination , the poetic , bottom line is, art speaks to all of us in different and personal ways .
Everyday I learn more......

The dynamics and interactions between humans in everyday lfe's activities... fascinate me....I love watching and observing people ,specially here in Mexico where you can  almost stare at people without them getting all freaked out about it....