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Tag Archives: Linsley
Politics of Blogging
John Kelsey’s article in last September’s Artforum, with its criticisms of digital networking, combined with some comments from my friend Scott Lyall, provoked me to take a step back and ask what it is I’m doing here. This post is … Continue reading
The Price of Greatness
Readers of this blog will know that I am a great admirer of the work of Frank Stella. It seems I’m in a minority. I was talking to a friend who calls him the Leroy Neiman of contemporary art, and … Continue reading
Figures in a Landscape
Many of my works are figures, and many are landscapes. Since the overall rubric is “Islands,” I guess they are really all figures in a landscape. The figure might be found in the negative space or ocean, so figure and … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, figuration, landscape, Linsley, titles
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Approximating Nature
Despite my not so high opinion of the memoirs of Tapies, I continue to find interesting bits. This is his description of an early experimental phase of his work: “I was searching for images without knowing whether they were amorphous … Continue reading
How to continue
I’ve found that my smaller works tend to have more parts, and more detail. They are more intensive, you might say. The beauty of the larger works is in their ease and simplicity, but just today I looked at some … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, form, Linsley, method, self-reflection, series, technique
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The Facts
This blog has given a fair amount of time to Frank Stella, and my attention was moving to other things—there are a few posts coming up on the topic of time. However, my interest in Stella has just been revived … Continue reading
The Series
In my view, Richter’s important contributions to abstraction have been the color charts and something that I call “the edition of unique works.” The latter might be the most important, and I have talked about it on this blog. But … Continue reading
Infinity of Images
Reading Groys can also be encouraging. In my case it confirms the avant-gardist qualifications of my work—surprising to me as much as anyone. One of the strongest pieces in his book Art Power is the opener, “The Logic of Equal … Continue reading
Achievement in time
Reading Boris Groys can be both enlightening and painful, not least because what he says rings so true. For example, the following words are a good description of my work: “To be an artist has now ceased to be an … Continue reading
Redefinition
In the previous post I managed to avoid making a definition of abstraction, although I feel the presence of one near. It’s that feeling that should guide us, the pull of the future. Hope to survive long enough to talk … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, figuration, form, illusion, Linsley, meaning, time, titles
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Painting Off
Today one often hears painters whine about the supposed marginal status of their favorite medium in the art world. In 1991 Stella offered the following words of comfort: “Because we accept so readily the idea of the manageable whole or … Continue reading
Abstraction as Child of History
Any working definition of abstraction that I am likely to come up with will be a description of my own paintings—that can hardly be avoided. Recent intense looking at Frank Stella has provoked some ideas, but his work is not … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Italian Art, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, emergence, Frank Stella, illusion, knowledge, Linsley, nature, the inhuman, value
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All at once
I have to thank Mr. Stella for testifying to the strength of my own work, although he didn’t realize he had done so. He says that printmaking has “…one legitimate claim to superiority over painting,…it [creates] the surfaces it articulates … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, death, drawing, feeling, form, Frank Stella, Linsley
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Artists and Scientists
Like many, I read the popular books written by scientists because I genuinely want to learn about the world. Lee Smolin, Leonard Susskind, Brian Greene are some of the physicists I’ve followed, a few of whom I’ve met. In the … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, knowledge, Linsley, meaning, science, value
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The Mortality of the Work
I have belatedly found out that three of my pictures were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. When contemplating disaster, studio fires or things like that, I always thought I could handle it fine, because the important thing is the energy that … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, feeling, Jack Shadbolt, Linsley, time, titles
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Complexity and Simplification
Throughout the twentieth century, the formal complexities of modernist art have driven artists to simplify and clarify their work. Judd and the other minimalists were doubtless right in their feeling that abstract painting had become too fiddly and fussy about … Continue reading
Ink-jet Paintings
In the September Artforum Wolfgang Tillmans waxes rhapsodical about ink-jet technology. He observes that many works shown as paintings today are ink-jets. There is no problem with this that I can see, in fact I was making them in 1997, … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, automatism, form, Linsley, nature, subjectivity, technology, the inhuman, time, value
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Empty Forms
Still visiting Vancouver, I met Jordan Strom at the Surrey Art Gallery, in an adjacent suburb, and we discussed one of my earlier works. He asked about edges, and pushed me to an important insight, not far from what came … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, edges, form, Linsley, society
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Experimental Practice
The other night I gave a talk about my work at the art school in Vancouver, thanks to Elizabeth McIntosh, a professor there. I kept stressing that everything I said was taught me by the work, that none of the … Continue reading
Demons
Some readers might be confused by my references to demons, especially in the context of the quote from Boris Groys in an earlier post, which might leave the impression that they are personal. The demons I’m talking about are social. … Continue reading
Syntax of Forms
All of the recent thinking about literature and abstraction—Groys, Benjamin, Kitaj, Klee —has helped to clear up some lingering questions in the watercolors. Sometimes images appear, and sometimes that’s good, but I wasn’t sure how to distinguish when it is … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, autonomy, demons, Linsley, literature, meaning
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Turnaround
Diedrich Diederischsen‘s article in the September Artforum offers a welcome confirmation of my own ideas about non-participation: “Unfortunately, contemporary attempts at the creation of resistance, especially in the hysterical versions of activist political art that desires direct and unmediated action, … Continue reading
Ribbons
One of the pieces reproduced on this blog shows how interlacing is present in my Islands. As with internal articulation of the forms, it is implied but not completely visible. But now I see that one value of my watercolors … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Arp, Frank Stella, interlacing, light, line, Linsley, Picasso, Shep Steiner
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Overlapping, Interlacing
Arp’s figuration is a bit like Klee’s, it has an aura of innocence and a species of humor, both of which are bound to make it widely popular. But though it seems inoffensive and kind of cute at first meeting, … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Arp, cubism, Frank Stella, illusion, interlacing, Linsley, painted reliefs, space
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Arp
A glance at Arp’s reliefs places him as one of Stella’s predecessors. In fact, Stella has acknowledged him. The work has a charming minor quality but is still thought provoking. In this piece, for example, it looks as if the … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Arp, cubism, Frank Stella, Linsley, painted reliefs
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Profile
Some of the Moby Dick works present a clearly defined boundary or profile, which closes them off—at least from the front. From the side they will look very different. But what interests me is the articulation of form inside the … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, drawing, form, Frank Stella, illusion, Linsley, painted reliefs, space, transparency
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Inventors of forms
Why abstraction has to be literary in some sense, is, as Stella has also pointed out, because otherwise it may not have enough of the meanings that we care about, that it may be thin, shallow and dessicated. As Wallace … Continue reading
Off the Coast 2
I was wondering what Conrad thought of Moby Dick, which he surely must have known. He had some tragic captains, but mostly focused on the ordinary problems of work and career, certainly relevant to any artist. In any case, the … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, backstory, emptiness, Linsley, literature, meaning, nature, society, space, subjectivity, the inhuman
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The Sea
There aren’t very many unvisited places in the world, if any. So also the artistic adventurer will sail off over the horizon full of hope and then light on well populated islands, or places where the first arrivals have left … Continue reading
Insights after art
Was recently listening to a couple of art historians talking about Matisse and Picasso. Some good moments go by, but then one can’t help but think how profoundly irrelevant it all is. No matter how astute the insight, insights don’t … Continue reading