Pollock & Nougats

 

 

The memories I have of the Anderson Collection span nearly a decade and are many.  

As I wove through the galleries again this past November, the poignancy of a life dedicated to art-making reverberated from wall to wall--filling internal caverns with what only could be described as understanding and absolution.  I had been wracked with guilt for a long period, ignoring the pleas of my once feverish discipline to push ahead and continue with the work I was set to do.  Questions lingered: to where had my expression disappeared?  From what source had the overwhelming air of stagnancy come?  

While wrestling with these thoughts, I pressed upon myself to recognize life in its unadulterated form once more: the abstract, yet beautiful world of two- and three-dimensional bodies occupied by intention and meaning.  Revisiting works from Pollock, de Kooning, Diebenkorn, Jay Defeo, Wayne Thiebaud and Nathan Oliveira (among others) provided my noisy mind with a quiet parallel.  That afternoon, I ended up unpacking the past--one painting at a time, from one to another.  

-OH

The Fifth Piece

An Unfamiliar Autumn

2020, oil on canvas
40" x 60"

 

In 2013, I decided to close my series, Autumn Soliloquies, after the fourth painting.  Having labored greatly over the existing body of work, there grew a unique desire to protect it and its integrity.  Somewhere between the start and finish points of October's End, I became convinced it was necessary to divert my focus elsewhere in order to avoid a stalemate. 

Seven years later, in July 2020, I began working on the second coming of Autumn Soliloquies.

. . .

 

An Unfamiliar Autumn, in its current state, is the culmination of many months' work.

 

It is a portrait of days marked by uncertainty and masked in anxiety.  A portrait of fears and the attempts to assuage and overcome them.  An expressive study of humanity's regression in values and the excision of meaningful purpose.  It is a look at the overflow of thoughts, as well as the delicate threads by which individuals are desperately hanging.  A look at the dichotomy between External and Internal.  

 

It is a poem for abandoned truths and virtues, for forgotten places and people.  A poem for the natural world, for the scintillating celestial bodies that grace the deep ebony skies and the comfort they provide for those of us who are searching.  

And there are so many of us who are searching.

 

Multiple layers comprise the foundation to this piece and I consider each layer to hold individual value and significance.  Though I spent the last few years experimenting with different visual elements, I gladly returned to my trademark palette of earth tones for this painting.  Unsurprisingly, I also reemployed an amorphous composition, which is joined by floating, indiscernible parts and scattered lines.  These physical details were brought together in an effort to create a sense of harmonious union between the frenetic and fluid sensations occurring throughout the work.

  

. . .

 

The objective of An Unfamiliar Autumn is to convey the unfamiliarity of a period that feels both short and long, graceful yet embattled.  An unfamiliarity that extends far beyond one season and into an entire year that has been held captive by endless unknowns. 

May we work together to move past the unknowns.

-OH

See Cy, Part II

Museum Brandhorst - München, Germany (October 2019)

At every corner, at every turn, there he lived in all his glorious mark-making.

And at every corner, at every turn, there I had the pleasure of experiencing the pure magic of those very marks.

↟ ↟

When in München . . . See Cy.

Museum Brandhorst - München, Germany (October 2019)

By far, one of the most serendipitous events in my life.  

Traveling across the globe, München was probably my least anticipated spot.  Simply put, I was more excited to visit the Abbey Library in St. Gallen, Hallstatt in Austria, the Dolomites in Northern Italy, and the whole of Switzerland.  

During my first night in Europe, on a whim, I decided to Google contemporary museums in München.  I was not expecting to come across anything of significant personal interest, but I was every bit wrong.  I nearly toppled over when Museum Brandhorst appeared in the search results--boasting an inventory of over 170 Cy Twombly pieces.  I could not believe my good fortune.  I had struck gold.

The night before we were to make the trek to the art district, Kunstareal, my very real allergy to tobacco smoke (so many smokers in Europe) peaked.  Sickness slapped me like a slab of impasto paint.

Yet, for the few hours the following morning, when we were among his work, life felt extraordinarily surreal.  A dream state.  The fact I was there seemed eons ahead of my humble existence.  Maybe it was delirium settling into my feverish head, but I was convinced (and still am) that this was the reason our itinerary included München.

It seems serendipity has a way of bringing Cy and me together time and time again.

↟ ↟

The Rose (V)

Cy Twombly, The Rose (V) 

acrylic on wood panel, 2008

99 1/4" x 291 1/4"

The Roses XXVI

Infinitely at ease
despite so many risks,
with no variation
of her usual routine,
the blooming rose is the omen
of her immeasurable endurance.

Do we know how she survives?
No doubt one of her days
is all the earth and all
of our infinity.

– Rainer Maria Rilke
translated from French by A. Poulin Jr.

 

Third Floor, Twombly

"I don't work 9 to 5."
-Cy Twombly

Thanks for summing up my life ever perfectly, Cy.

Drawings of Serendipity

Cy Twombly, Scenes from an Ideal Marriage (1986)

acrylic and pencil on paper, 54 x 73 cm

(images from http://www.cytwombly.info/twombly_gallery.htm)

 --

Coming to terms with who I am completely has been a difficult maturation process.  People meet me, see my work, and are often surprised by my choice of subject matter.  I think it is because they expect to see paintings of flowers.

No flowers.  (At least not the easily identifiable ones.)

Recently, I have found myself pacing back and forth with the idea of normality.

Normality isn't something I will have the chance of knowing due to a number of factors (mainly, depression and OCD).

That is ok though.  

Given enough time and experience, everything finds its own.

Kind of like today.  We went to visit my paternal grandfather at his grave, and on the most ideal of spring days no less.  We go every April.  And as I type this entry at an hour past midnight, I am reminded that he was the one who first encouraged my brother, who now tattoos people for a living, and me to pick up a pencil and draw.  He had us draw lines and lines of oranges, eggs, and everything round-shaped or oval-formed; I'm talking fifty of each. 

(He taught us how to fold origami, too.)

He would be happy to know that both of my cousins recently proposed to their girlfriends and are now engaged.  My sister has been engaged to her fiance for the past year.  They all have normal, steady jobs.

While they shared their proposal stories (one happened in Aruba, the other in Hawaii), my mind took me to a quieter place.  This occurs often.  It is in this place that I sit and wait.  Just wait.

Marriage.  

Relationships.

The normal thing to want.  And for most people, they find it.

Again, normal isn't what I know.  And normal isn't something I can ask or look for and expect to receive or find.

Tonight though, as I was putting a deeper dent into The Wild Trees, a narrative nonfiction about tree climbing and climbers, I came across this passage from page 93: " . . . and Denison got up and, in a loud voice, spoke about partners who climb together for life.  'Marriage is a rope you tie between you,' he said.  'It's like a rope that joins two climbing partners and keeps them from falling.  Marriage is about rope management.  You have to take care to avoid knots and snarls in the rope that joins you together.  You can't keep the rope too tight, but you can't let it get too loose, either.  Each of you has to give your partner enough slack for freedom of movement, so that you both can reach the top together.'"

I may have very well shed a tear or two.

Several more pages in, I put the book down for the night.  I proceeded to google images of Cy Twombly drawings.  (What can I say, my mind jumps from trees to childlike scribbles all in an hour's work.)

I came across Cy Twombly Gallery, and upon entering the page, I was presented with over one hundred one-inch thumbnails.  After a quick peer at the tiny thumbnails, one in particular caught my eye and I clicked it open.  As I stared at the work on paper dated 1986, I couldn't help but smile.  

The title read, Scenes from an Ideal Marriage.

 

Maybe I can't have normal.  

But perhaps I can have serendipity.

And let's not forget drawings.

Many, many drawings. 

---

I first heard of Cy Twombly during my undergraduate BFA exhibit.  A gallery visitor mentioned my drawings held a Twombly-like quality.  Childlike-scribble quality, really.  It may have been one of the finest compliments my work has ever received.

And She Loved Them So

One La Grande stick is equivalent to eight standard sticks . . .

Sennelier La Grande soft pastels (set of 36) pictured alongside Sennelier standard soft pastels (portrait set of 100) for comparison . . .

Working with the standard size for the last handful of years has been great.  Working with La Grande for the last few weeks has been extraordinary.