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Addressing Artistic Dualisms
There is a very old Buddhist analogy that is often used to illustrate the
path towards enlightenment. One must first imagine encountering a tall
mountain. Once every century or so, a bird flies over this mountain
and brushes the peak with a feather. Eventually, the mountain will
be worn away until there is only a small mound of dirt at your feet
where the great mass once stood; and still you will not have reached
enlightenment. Of course, I don’t think that my art is helping me along the path
towards enlightenment (although one can’t rule out the possibility).
One may wonder how this metaphor is related to my work in any way whatsoever.
It is complicated I’ll admit, but I think there are definitely some
connections. And the connections are partially what I’m interested
in; patterns, repetitions, progressions, and connections between elements.
I tend to think about things very dualistically, and this theme is something
that works itself into my art time and time again. The ideas of East
vs. West, vast vs. intimate, and Nature vs. Society are always being
addressed
and always pulling at each
other in this yin vs. yang relationship.
The experience I’ve had over the past year- indeed over the past
four years- has been both an academic and personal learning experience.
I’ve studied art and architecture for a lot of my time here, trying
to be as objective of possible, yet always ending up with a personal opinion
about everything. I think that from being in school for such a long time,
you learn not only about the worlds of art and academia, but also an understanding
of the learning process itself. Of course, everyone’s process is
different but for me and my interests, understanding comes through repetition
and through pattern. Finding patterns and connections (both physically
and conceptually) allows me to see things clearer. I think the best way
to develop an understanding of something is through repetition, especially
if it is something that a person wants to actually practice such as architecture.
Pattern and repetition is one reason why I’ve looked so much at
Eastern art and architecture. Buddhist philosophy- especially Tibetan
and Theravadha
Buddhist philosophy- advocate the same idea of understanding through
repetition. This is why you see such intricate patterns and repetition
in Tibetan mandalas
and other forms of Eastern art. The earliest pieces I made this year
were working with modern cityscapes and trying to portray them in a style
similar
to Chinese landscape painters. I wanted to convey the sense of space
and motion, and the feeling of traveling through the painting in the
way that
the landscape paintings did. I also wanted there to be an association
between the feeling of the immense geological mountain formations in
the landscape
paintings, and the immense looming skyscrapers that make up a modern
skyline. Both of these effectively dwarf the presence of the individual
person,
which is minute when compared to how large the structures are (this becomes
even more important later). Then with the middle pieces, I was juxtaposing
mandalas which are metaphysical maps of the universe or blueprints to
how the universe is laid out, with city type maps or blueprints of the
way
the city is laid out. Layers build upon layers to create a mountain of
different systems that are all working together in one macroscopic entity.
I’ve used a mountain as a metaphor previously to describe the meeting
between Nature and civilization and I think it’s a nice image. The
division between these two ideas is where the majority of my subject matter
comes from, but what I’m also interested in is the connections
and patterns that emerge when we think about them.
Try to imagine encountering a large conical mountain. On one side of
the hill is a dense forest of virgin pines and tall redwoods. It creates
a
majestic landscape of green wilderness; completely uninhabited and undisturbed.
However, beneath the shallow layer of wild flowers, roots, and soil there
is a deep layer of granite, copper, and aluminum. On the other side of
the hill is a large strip mine that has slowly dug its way into the hill
in search of the minerals known to be there. It creates an equally powerful
image of the mountain’s true composition; completely solid and
inorganic. Which side of the mountain would you choose to stand on?
This raises the question; What is the true nature of a mountain? I think
of it as layers upon layers of various materials that have built up over
time. It’s a formation that has been pushed upward because of external
pressures. Parallel veins run through the mountain telling the history
of the mountain, even the history of an entire era. When we think of mountains
and majestic mountain ranges, we typically think of alpine forests and
snow-capped peaks but that’s only a very thin layer on the surface.
It says nothing of the true composition of a mountain which is actually
much more fascinating. The “skin” of the mountain that we see
as the subject of so many landscape paintings and photographs is really
an indirect result of the forces pushing it higher and higher into thin
air. At some elevation, the snow starts to appear, letting everyone and
everything know that you have been pushed into an environment that is strikingly
different than from that which you came. As you go higher you eventually
come to the tree line which is perhaps even more fascinating than the snow
line. Suddenly trees stop growing and all that’s left above is
rock and snow. The line is a symbol that the mountain has been pushed
beyond
its limits. It can no longer sustain life. There is no air to breath
and there is no food to eat. It can only grow higher.
How is any of this important to my art? What do mountains have to do
with my work’s process or content? I sometimes draw a parallel between
the nature of a mountain and the nature of a human community or urban ecosystem.
Like a mountain, urban centers tell the history of a particular place or
city. Many cities, like Baltimore or Washington D.C. often have historic
districts, and it’s possible to see a timeline of architectural styles
that have built up and progressed as the years pass. In the case of large
cities where outward expansion is no longer possible, the natural solution
(much like with a mountain) is to build up. One can draw even further parallels
if you look. As the mountain is pushed higher and higher by geological
forces, eventually you come to a point where resources (like trees and
oxygen) become scarce or even unavailable. I can see the same sort of process
occurring in urban or even non urban settings, where external social and
economic pressures make certain things (whether they are luxuries or necessities)
unavailable to people in certain areas. Just like when you’re on
a mountain, you can actually perceive a difference in the landscape,
and just like a mountain the experience can be overwhelming.
So here is an example of the type of connections that I’m interested
in. Being at a liberal arts college, we have the opportunity to look at
many things and think about different concepts that at first seem unrealted.
Then, one day, while your trying to tie everything you’ve read and
been taught together and figure out what it is you have really learned,
you suddenly realize that all this different material has connections that
you didn’t realize before. For me, this realization came when thinking
about the work I have produced as an artist here at St. Mary’s College.
Early in my artistic career, I worked mainly in drawing and printmaking
media. Recently I looked back through my portfolio, searching for some
common theme that is most prevalent in the work. I found that most of the
work (in which the subject matter was not pre-determined) dealt with an
individual experience of Nature. Yet as I progressed through school, I
became more and more interested in architecture and the experience of being
in a constructed space. I had often thought of Nature and architecture
as being two structural systems that exist in opposition to one another.
While I still do see them as being in a lot of ways antithetical to one
another, I’ve begun to notice that they do have a lot of similarities
in the way they function as macroscopic systems.
Over the year my art has evolved into this meeting point between the two
concepts; trying to illustrate where I see similarities and where I see
divergences. What it boils down to is basically the relationship between
man and Nature, and more specifically, the function of architecture in
our natural environment. For me, this meeting point is in the effect that
each of these macroscopic systems has on an individual at a microscopic
level.
Nature and architecture are obviously very broad concepts for me to try
and deal with. They are vast not only in their physicality and variety,
but also on a theoretical and philosophical level. Knowing that, I want
to focus on the individual’s relationship to the structures man creates,
and then to Nature and the structures that she creates. It doesn’t
necessarily have to be on the magnitude of climbing Mt. Everest, or looking
up to the top of the Petronas towers. It can be as simple as looking at
a herringbone brick pattern, or the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower.
As an individual, I think it is much easier to appreciate things in a scale
proportionate to myself. At this scale, the experience is much more intimate,
and the relationship to a space becomes more apparent and focused. My focus
being on the individual’s relationship to these systems; what I’m
interested in is the effect that one person can have on a space or setting
and then the reflexive effect that that has on the individual.
Because Nature and Architecture are such large themes, the effect can
be overwhelming; but one can also zoom in and find intimacy on a personal
scale. This is what my goal was when making the outdoor sculptures I
ended
with recently. I have come to the conclusion that the best venue to express
my dualistic ideas about nature and architecture, artist and archtitect,
and East vs. West, is through outdoor “public” sculpture.
With these sculptures, I can address the issue of architecture (which
can be
defined here as something that controls space) and Nature. The pieces
remain sculptural though, which allows me to address the issue of artist
vs. architect.
They were also designed and built out of western building materials,
yet are infused with traditional Eastern art forms. I looked for similarities
in form, function, materials and even numbers. For Building progress,
I
used Fibonacci numbers as a mode to illustrate a concept that is used
both in Nature and in architecture. Specifically for this project, I
was making
a progressive pattern using the Fibonacci numbers one through eight with
a brick that has a standard dimension of 8 inches in length. As I mentioned
previously, I am interested in repetition because it helps develop a
better understanding of the materials your working with. Knowing that
brick is
a very common material used in architecture, this piece was also about
a process of coming to a better understanding of the materials.
Making outdoor sculptures, I found it was necessary to look at the way
Earth-based artists of the sixties and seventies (and today) have been
using the same format. The most notable influences are Michael Heizer
and Walter De Maria. These two artists are interested in the same issue
that
I am; the function of architecture, and man’s place within Nature.
For Michael Heizer, this idea manifests itself in incredibly large, monumental
pieces like Displaced Replaced Mass Series, Double Negative, and his
recent work on City in the Arizona desert. It seems he is thinking about
the art
as a battle or struggle to champion or outshine Nature in its size and
complexity. While I respect this, as I said before, I want to create
an intimacy between the two, and a relationship that is more harmonious.
When
working on Rebar Garden, one of my goals was to create a space that used
modern building materials like rebar, and make them work comfortably
and without clashing in the natural environment. The garden was reminiscent
of a traditional Japanese garden, with all these long pieces of reinforced
steel, mimicking the form and function of the natural bamboo.
Walter De Maria as well is working at such a vast scale, it becomes hard
to find the individual within the piece. His most famous work Lightning
Field is over one square mile in area. How can someone possibly experience
a work like this except through photographs or aerial views? On the other
hand I found similarities between the lightning field and my work on
Earth Mandala , in that we were both using an intensely ordered geometric
pattern.
Perhaps more importantly though, we were both going into Nature, exerting
ourselves to have an effect on the Natural landscape, and giving the
work back to Nature to see what it will then do over time. For De Maria,
this
manifested itself in the interplay between lightning and steel poles,
for me it was the effect that rain and other elements would have on the
excavated
hole. Earth Mandala was also like Heizer’s replaced mass series in
that I was interested in a natural process having an effect on an object.
In Heizer’s case he was taking large boulders that had been pushed
to a high elevation as the Sierra Nevada Mountains formed, and bringing
them back down to a low elevation. He was addressing the nature of a
mountain as not only a large object or setting, but as a process or as
a function
of time. I was interested in the same idea, only it was about an individual
process, trying to have an effect on a particular setting.
I don’t want people to think of my art as being environmentalist
or conservationist art though. In fact, I think that those labels couldn’t
be farther from the truth. Architecture is a necessity, it always has been
and it always will be. With that in mind and knowing that we live in a
culture that is expanding, it follows that man made structures and spaces
are going to encroach on Nature to some extent. Not only do we require
more of the available space as we grow (unless we choose the road that
the mountain takes) but we also require more and more of Nature’s
resources. Clearly, many of the Earth’s materials such as various
metals and fuels exist in only finite amounts, and as the deposits become
exhausted it will become harder and more arduous to obtain more. It’s
a difficult issue and probably one that won’t be resolved.
We get such little exposure to architecture and architectural theory,
yet we spend so much of our lives living in and being surrounded by human
engineering.
We learn so much about nature and natural beauty, yet we spend such little
time there. So often I hear people talking about how great nature is,
but I think if people had a better understanding of architecture and
engineering,
then they would not be so opposed to its proliferation. I know a lot
of people have an appreciation for certain buildings and are often touched
by a structure’s beauty, the key is to find the same beauty in
the individual organization of the parts that make up the whole. Because
like
I said before, it is easier to relate to something on a more intimate
scale.
As a student who is now actively pursuing architecture as a career while
finishing my degree as a studio artist, I felt it was necessary to figure
out where in the spectrum I would fall between architect and artist.
I think there is definitely a large void separating the two fields, and
while
architects can be considered artists, it is not in the same sense as
we normally think about it. For this reason, some of by biggest inspirations
have been people who can successfully create not only as artists, but
also
as architects; namely Maya Lin and Isamu Noguchi. Both are artists that
don’t fall easily into one category or the other, but manage to create
work that defies the typical boundaries in which I normally think about
them in. What they do so well is create spaces that are not only sculptural
in their form (such as Lin’s Wave Field or Noguchi’s California
Scenario) but also architectural in the way they control space. What
I find even more engaging though is the fact that the spaces they create
are so intimate, which is in a sense my ultimate goal. Lin especially
is
able to create art like Wave Field or the Vietnam Memorial, in which
the individual can connect to the piece and is actually in a relationship
with
the work, not just looking at it or moving through it.
So for me, I have to consider all of these issues while thinking about
architecture and when formulating my ideas about Nature, but I also think
it helps to ponder how these issues would be addressed in the absence
of architecture. The two sides are right in each others faces, and they
make
their own claims about space and form that are very different, but I’m
not sure one could exist without the other. When we consider nature and
natural existence, isn’t it usually thought of as the absence of
all of our innovative modern ways of life? When we speak of a return to
nature, isn’t it done with a certain amount of disparagement towards
the modern urban culture? And on the other hand, how can we talk about
architecture controlling space without thinking about how space would
be controlled (or not controlled) in the absence of architecture. My
goal
is to try and find order and create harmony out of these dualisms in
order to better understand the world that I live in.
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