This is a painting resulting from searching. Outlines of different figures are visible behind the man and woman whom I ‘found’ in the process. The sketching use of paint is not the way I usually work. That’s part of what makes this picture interesting to me. It bridges drawing and painting which, for me, are usually sequential and distinct processes.

I made this back in April. Now I am returning to this limited palette and exploratory form of painting.

The Dutch have an expression, “fine painter.” I loath this expression, because it tends to force an artist into a position where “fine” (as in detailed, not loaded with spontaneous dabs of paint) becomes the goal of painting. “Fine” or “coarse” are of no interest to me as goals, only as means.

Do you sometimes switch between very different modes of expression, whether in painting, drawing, or photography? Do you think in doing so you are trying to find difference approaches to the same expressive goal? My feeling is that I am doing that, that there is an unity. This is part of what makes its so exciting.

Sandy Wenderhold is the CEO of Sansyl, a major adult media company based near Amsterdam. I interviewed her via email.

Karl: An influential New York art dealer remarked here on Art & Perception that art about sex — “painted pornography” — sells especially well in galleries. Is that surprising to you?

Sandy: Sex is the biggest thing people react on. You have a lot of people that love football or fishing or whatever. But almost everybody reacts on sex, so it is logical that it is a big thing in the art world. Continue reading Interview with porn CEO Sandy Wenderhold

Do or die list for artists

Art News Blog posted a great list of survival tips for artists. The one that made that warm, resonating tone in my head was:

Inspiration is found in the studio while you are working. If you sit around waiting for inspiration before you start creating you will have about 15 paintings finished when you’re 60.

How true how true how true! The corollary: don’t let a lack of inspiration bother you if you are not actually doing art at that very moment.

What a fool I am sometimes, walking in the evening and wondering if I am on the right track with my artwork. When I am painting in the studio, I know I am. That’s the opinion that matters.

In the post at Art News Blog, Dion asks what I will ask here: do you have other artist survival wisdom to share?

The problem with the blog is fixed and we are back in business :-)

I first posted this interview a year ago. Dan Bodner has continued with this work. A follow-up interview will appear soon.

To paint from a photograph is inherently different than painting from life. Some artists avoid photos, others use them, perhaps covertly, for practical reasons. But to American artist Dan Bodner, painting from photos is not merely a technique, but a way to focus on his role as an artist. I interviewed Bodner at his studio in Amsterdam.

Question: When you work from photographs, do you ever ask yourself, what is the point of making the painting, when the image already exists in the photo?

Bodner: No. A photo is a record of a moment that has passed, a dead moment. I don’t feel that I own the image as a photograph until I paint it as a painting. The photo itself always refers to the past. But a painting of the photo is a creation, which goes on living. The painting defines its own continuing moment in time.

Question: Does painting go beyond the goal of simply making an image?

Bodner: What painting is for me is part of human desire. Every kid smears his food, or shit, and that is really connected to what painting is. A kid makes a mark and has the satisfaction of knowing “I made this and it will stay there.” For an adult I think it is connected to fear of death, which is innate. And it is connected to the desire to procreate. As you get older it gets existential, of course. To take things out of you and put them into the world, there is an absolute satisfaction in that. To do this from a photo emphasizes the act of creation, bringing life to something dead.

____
In the next post more about how Dan Bodner uses photos, his subjects and his methods

A photograph offers so many (and so obvious) advantages as a source for painting as to raise the question: why would any responsible person even consider painting a landscape outdoors?

I’ve been thinking about this while painting outside lately. I think the answer comes down to this: I need to ask, what is it that I am painting when I paint a landscape?

Is it the landscape?

Or is it my being there, my reaction to the landscape? Continue reading Why paint outside instead of from a photo?

Last week Steve pointed out that a lens-based optical system like a camera or the eye can only focus at one field of depth at a time — meaning, as some sample images he presented illustrated, that other parts of the scene will be out of focus. The images Steve presented were of a landscape. In one image, some plants in the foreground were in focus, whereas a distant mountain was a blur. In the second image, the mountain was in focus, the foreground a blur. [Here I have combined them in one image.] Why, Steve asked for the original images, did painters — at least before the invention of photography — not paint the blur like this? More generally, why don’t artists paint what they see? Continue reading Art and integration — or, why artists don’t paint the blur

Sunil’s post Art, life: Separate or unified? raised the issue of whether an artist should try to be an artist all of the time. I commented that doing art requires intense observation and sensitivity — which is obvious. What is less obvious is that observation coupled with sensitivity are another way of saying “emotional reactivity.” That is, an insignificant input — the curve of a leaf — can cause a disproportionately large emotional output (that looks beautiful!!!!!) which, coupled with the act of painting, allows the artist to make the brushstroke that the moment requires.

Emotional reactivity is essential for making art, but out of the art-making process, it can be annoying, disruptive, counter-productive. The soldier and the policeman are trained not to have emotional reactivity, but the artist needs to develop it, harness it. The challenge for the artist it to be able to switch it on and off at the right moments.

There are the simply structural solutions for getting out of the art mode: don’t go to the studio on off-days, turn the pictures to the wall. The psychological solutions are more subtle: don’t think about that difficult painting or series at the wrong moments.

What do you do to take a break from art? Is it easier to get into “art mode” or to get out of it?

This photo of the train station in Haarlem has always caught my attention. In trying to figure out why, I noticed that the images contains blur in three flavors: blur because of movement, in the case of the passing train; blur in the case of an area out of focus, as with the distant cityscape; blur because of a translucent surface, as with the station windows.

Each of these elements of blur contributes to the impact of the image. The passing train is captured but transformed to something beyond our reach in the still reference frame. The sense of being inside the station is heightened by both the way the windows diffuse the light, and by the blur of the exterior space. The combination intensifies the feeling of being in a particular place at a particular moment, separated from the rest of the world by distance, glass, and velocity.

All of these elements of blur were unintentional. Their joint effect I only realized months after making the image, but the insight of the power of blur is something I can compose with in the future.

Do you have an example of blur in a photo which contributes to the impact of the image?

The design of web-pages for displaying art is a matter of great practical as well as aesthetic importance. One design that I find striking, because of its boldness, is Jannie Regnerus’ web-page. This page (detail below) is minimal to the extreme. It is so unlike what one is used to in a web-page that at first it seems confusing. But it is precisely this unusual quality that makes the layout a successful frame for Regnerus’ photography. One has the feeling of having left the noisy bustle of the internet and having arrived in a quiet place.

I say the design is bold is because, by departing from expectations, Regnerus takes a risk that visitors may be confused and leave the site before they see anything. For those visitors who do look more closely, the simplicity of the layout serves the intended role of providing a quiet context for the artwork.

Is minimalism inherently good for the internet?

Is Regnerus’ site a model for other internet sites?

First posted April ‘06 [note some interesting comments there by Arthur].

The minimal approach, Regnerus’ model in particular, has influenced my thinking about website design; the Art & Perception layout reflects this. Could we use more eye-candy? My thinking is that the minimal layout allows the latest post define the site visually — ideal for an art site, as I see it.

Mark Hobson: Art-making . . . I ‘think’ about nothing when I am in the moment of picturing. . . Don’t think about it now, just picture it ‘intuitively’.

Birgit posted this from Cezanne: “…if I think while painting, if I intervene, why then everything is gone.”

Hobson and Cezanne are both essentially saying: verbal thought, stay out of the art.

The surprise to me is that highly distracting stimuli — the guys working in the café kitchen next door, the book on tape, can disturb me and leave me un-distracted at the same time. My impression from my own experience and what I have read in the comments of the previous posts is that the non-verbal artist “within” for the most part doesn’t care what kind of distracting words are passing through the mind, as long as they don’t interfere with the art-making.

Cogito ergo sum

When we ask the question, “What do you think about when making art?” the real question is: “When we say ‘you’, to whom are we referring?” They guy/gal inside with all the words thinks he or she is in charge, but the real action goes on separately despite the jabbering.

A bit spooky, no? Because, if you think about it, all that art-making doesn’t just happen. There must be a huge amount of judgement, information processing — thought in essence — without words or access to words. The only way to appreciate consciously/verbally what is going on is, as Hobson says, to ‘listen’, listen to the feelings the work evokes. Not that that’s either easy (with all that distraction) or necessary. Better to stay out of it, Cezanne seems to say.

How to make use of that unnecessary verbal thought while working?

What to think about when making art? Last week’s post brought some valuable insights. First, Jay helped to refine the question. “Depends upon where in the project you are,” he wrote. “If you’re making aesthetic and structural decisions, then you will concentrate on the task at hand.” Steve agreed that there are different stages of work, adding that he finds satisfaction “in consciously working out ‘problems’” in making art. Continue reading What do you think about when making art? Part II