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Artist Statement
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From chaos comes clarity…
"…and
then sometimes there are moments of perfection
and in those moments we wonder why we ever thought life was difficult."
(Martin, p.31)
I am at a point in my life where, as a graduating senior, I find that there are so many choices and decisions to be made. And, it seems that so many of these decisions have to be made at once. It can soon become overwhelming. For me, the grid is a symbol for the idea of making order from chaos. Each line and color in my drawings and paintings references a different way the grid exists in our contemporary society. But the grid is more than a symbol to me. I have found the process of creating grid based images a way to pacify this anxious time in my life. Everything about the grid says order. But surprisingly, I do not find it restrictive. It allows me to explore without becoming overwhelmed by the choices. The grid orders my work visually. Form, line, and color are fundamental elements that I use to create art that finds order in the disorder of my surroundings.
My decision to focus this body of work solely on the grid image has been liberating. I have found a sense of calm that comes from having rules to follow-here is a place in my life where suddenly I don't have to make a decision. Suddenly I find myself free to make art when before I was so stuck in my head that my hands produced nothing. I've been surprised to discover that order is freedom and not at all constrictive. It is freedom from the weight of decision and through it I have found my focus. By concentrating on the grid I can now explore the endless possibilities within its framework. I can investigate the process by which I create my grids and the visual impact that they have on my viewers. Through research on other artists and through looking at examples of the grid in our society I find that I can take those thoughts and put them into my work.
There is an organized
process to constructing grids. I have found a rhythm to working. First,
each and every line must be measured and drawn. Whether it is a hand-directed
line or one that is traced each is an aspect of the whole and must be
mapped out first. The spacing of the lines is the most important part
of the drawing and directs how each part will fit together. Certain spacing
will result in a perfectly symmetrical work, and a specific line width
will alter the grid's appearance. Although there are certain decisions
that need to be made for each individual piece the overall structure of
a grid drawing is rigid.
There is a formula
that I follow when creating grids and it is these strict guidelines that
allow the process of drawing to become such an unconscious experience.
A large part of my work is about this unconscious process that takes place.
Drawing a grid becomes an almost meditative state of mind. It is an obsessive
feeling of drawing line after line in an attempt to fill the void of the
paper. The repetitive aspect of the process is therapeutic for me. I tend
to forget about the world around me and just focus on the lines. It can
be described as similar to the feeling of flow that athletes and artists
talk about. Meditative flow is when you empty your mind and let your unconscious
direct your actions. During a drawing session I often don't use music
or background noise because I find it more of a distraction from this
meditative state. It is my goal that this meditative process that I use
to create my work is transferred to my audience. When someone spends time
looking at my grids they take part in that meditative experience and construct
their own personal meanings.
While the process
of making these images is the most interesting aspect of the work to me,
the visual quality of the work is also very important. I have come to
understand that my grids are very spatially ambiguous. No matter the size
of the canvas the grid always represents a smaller piece of a greater
fabric. Grids operate from within the work outward; they make us think
beyond the edge of the canvas or paper into where we can't see. Conversely,
the grid also makes us stare at the heart of the work to find where the
pattern begins. It makes us look deep into the piece, into the minute
spaces between the lines. This impulse to expand the grid beyond the space
of the paper is the thing that leads viewers into their own meditative
experience. Along with this visual openness there is also a conceptual
openness in my work. My grids are not images that have fixed ideas or
meanings. They can be interpreted as being simple marks on the page, metaphors
for states of being, cultural symbols, or even representations of grids
in our world. Because of this visual openness they can be read by each
individual viewer according to their own thoughts and experiences.
In order to give
each of my grids a way to be read differently I include color as an important
aspect of my work. Color can work many different ways in art; but here
I employ it referentially. The color in my grid pieces helps the viewer
to associate that drawing with a specific example of the grid in our world.
For example, Grid II, with its green and gray lines evokes the feeling
of graph paper, an object that all of us have a relationship to via elementary
and grade school. Grid V is a more personal reference; the blue lines
of the grid remind me of architectural blueprints. Architecture is an
interest of mine and I try to incorporate it into my art whenever I feel
the desire. Although many of the grids reference certain specific examples
in our world there are many of my images that do not have this aspect.
The color in those pieces is freer for the viewer to interpret.
To me the grid orders
my life and my art through its inherent structure and visual nature. It
is a rigid system that creates rules and eliminates decision-making. It
is the cornerstone of my art. But what is the grid to the rest of the
world? The grid is all around us; in both obvious and hidden ways it organizes
our lives. It is the basis of our ideas about urban planning and therefore
much of our infrastructures partake of it, structures such as transportation
systems, power grids, and network systems. New York City, as seen from
above is a giant mapped grid of streets. Our computer systems are based
on the grid. It even organizes the space in our public and residential
buildings. Just look down at the floor the next time you walk the hall
of a school. Grids are used to divide things and unite others; we impose
them on our world to keep it structured and ordered. There is nothing
about the grid that implies nature. It is inherently anti-naturalistic,
it is a system that was created by humans and because of that it is intricately
wound into every facet of our world. Many modern artists have used the
grid to create abstract works. Using the grid-a symbol that is seemingly
opposite to nature-in abstract painting it is used as a self-referential
system. The grid is "what art looks like when it turns its back on
nature."(Krauss, p.51)
The form of the
grid is ubiquitous in the art of the 20th century. It is the emblem of
modernity because it is just that, completely modern. (Krauss, p.52) What
is the quality of Modernism that the grid so perfectly expresses? The
grid becomes the hallmark of Modernist architecture because it is one
of the most fundamental units of all buildings. Modernist architecture
rejected aspects it considered untruthful such as applied decoration and
instead believed that a building should express something about its essential,
true nature. Thus the modern skyscraper in both structure and look is
one giant grid built to its own internal proportions.
There are many artists
that I've researched throughout this past year that share a love of the
grid with me. Agnes Martin and Sol LeWitt are the two artists that have
interested me the most. The idea of grid making as a meditative process
is something that I've found I share with the contemporary American artist
Agnes Martin. Although she is a minimalist her works are considered anti-intellectual,
they focus on the spiritual while incorporating the meditative reflections
of Taoism, a Chinese philosophy that advocates a simple life and a policy
of noninterference with the natural course of things. Taoist mysticism
encouraged people to go into self-induced trances to experience what is
believed to be the state of "true man." (www.religioustolerance.org)
These ideas coincide with the feelings of meditation that I speak about
when I talk about my work and the work of Agnes Martin. The state of flow
I experience when creating a work is similar to the meditative goals of
Taoism. The disciplined repeated action by which one creates a grid becomes
trance-like, where the mind literally empties and the body is unconsciously
driven. I had difficulty for a while trying to explain to others why I
was creating grid images. When I read Agnes Martin's book Writings, I
discovered her explanations of her experiences drawing grids. Suddenly
I realized that she and I were experiencing similar processes.
One of her works
that I find particularly moving is a drawing she did in 1973. On A Clear
Day is a grid drawing of hers that is so faint you almost question the
existence of an image at all. You wonder if your eyes are playing a trick
on you. In this piece Martin used colored pencils, drawing ever so lightly
she traces a grid over the entire sheet, they are so faint that they appear
to disappear at times. Each color is so light that one can almost not
discern it from another shade. Despite these pale lines the entire work
has an energy that is unmatched. You can imagine seeing Martin hunched
over a table painstakingly drawing each line, concentrating so hard on
the piece that all the world around her comes to a stop.
Another artist that
I find interesting is Sol LeWitt. When I first saw his work I instantly
knew that he was an artist I should look at. After some research I found
that his and my intentions were very different but we shared things in
common in terms of our ideas about process. Many of LeWitt's works involve
an obsession with completeness. In his piece, Variations Of Incomplete
Open Cubes, one can see that LeWitt is obsessively drawing out and mapping
each and every possible version of the open cube. It is in this process
that I can see a part of my own work. I too am seeking to explore all
possible variations within the limit of the grid format. Many of his drawings
as well hold this obsessive feeling of completeness about them, many of
which are similar to my images. In Circles, Grids and Arcs From Two Different
Sides, LeWitt obsessively fills up the entire paper with a pattern that
is visually overwhelming. He, like Martin, and myself explores the visual
stimulation of the infinite pattern of line on paper.
I think that art should be different, something to escape to when the regular world has become chaotic. I experience this escape through the process of creating grids. Simplicity is the word I would choose to describe my grid pieces; simplicity is the key to everything from the materials to the visual elements of a piece. They are hand-drawn and hand-painted images and a good deal of time went into making each and every one of them. At the heart of it they are simple creations in an otherwise chaotic world. My grid pieces are about giving organization to my chaotic plane of art. It is about my meditative process of creating grids, structures that are infinite in size no matter how you represent them. The process of drawing grids is a meditative one that is important to my art. I want the viewers to deduce their own meanings from the grids through their own meditative interactions with them. I produce images that are free so that each viewer can experience the piece on their own and through a meditative state of interacting with the piece, create a language of the grid in their own life.
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Research Bibliography
Banham, Reynor. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980.
Champa, Kermit Swiler. Mondrian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Choay, Francoise. Le Corbusier. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1960
*A look into the life of Le Corbusier including his travels and sketches.
There are also sections on the ideas and theories behind his designs.
Elgar, Frank. Mondrian. New York: Frederick Praeger Publishers, 1968.
Gage, John. Color and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism. Los Angeles,
CA: University of California Press, 1999.
*This book looks at every aspect of color from a more cultural rather
than scientific approach. Different cultures are looked at and compared
when it comes to the social aspect of color.
Green, Christopher. "Purism." Concepts of Modern Art. Ed. Nikos
Stangos. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1974.
*This book contains many different essays by different authors, each one
is written about a different art movement in history. They explain the
theory behind each movement and how it came about.
Krauss, Rosalind. "Grids." P.51. October. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1979.
*An article on the prevalence of the grid in modern art.
Legg, Alicia, ed. Sol LeWitt. New York: Museum of Modern Art Press, 1978.
Martin, Agnes. Writings. Germany: Cantz Verlag. 1991.
Mondrian, Piet, "Neo-Plasticism: the General Principle of Plastic Equivalence." Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Idea. Eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood. New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.
Mondrian, Piet. "Dialogue on the New Plastic, 1919." Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Idea. Eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood. New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.
Schapiro, Meyer. Modern Art. New York: George Braziller Inc., 1978.
Tuttle, Richard. What Does One Look at in an Agnes Martin Painting?:
Nine Musings on the Occasion of Her Ninetieth Birthday. Taos, NM: Harwood
Museum, Remarks given by Tuttle at a symposium, March 2002.
Found at http://nmaa-ryder.si.edu/journal/Tuttle.html
University Art Museum of The University of Albany website. www.albany.edu/museum