Like Leonardo pondered often in his note books - tell me if anything was ever made. Is anything ever done. Who decides? Richard Merkin said an assistant with a club! Brice Hobbs said it was done - I think it is a painting. The first one. Reminding me not to be so scared, not make it all so sacred. GO GO GO
Thanks to Boing Boing and procrastination I found this…
CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.
What the hell is going on. I have no clue. Or do I? Off course I do. I am finishing a big project and it is teasing me. I can’t seem to get it right. Is there a right? I wonder. And does it matter? Who cares? Who knows?
The questions arise faster than the answers and they pile up to a great uncertainty making my body and mind restless. I don’t have a go to move. There is no safe way out. Working is the only way out - but even that I am unsure of. I will finish, because there is a dead line. Will I be happy with the result - I hope so, but I don’t know. I don’t even know if it matters. I am properly not even the one that matters. Do I have to be happy with my result.
I am working in a process based fashion. My work is the result of a process. I have decided to appropriate the process of painting cars. That is what I do. I make panels like surfboards and paint them like cars, but I fuck up. I can’t even come close to the perfection required to satisfy a surfboard customer or the owner of car being painted. I try, but I mess it up. I make mistakes and I fix them and the result is a mess - if the point is to produce surfboards looking like newly painted cars. And that is exactly the point a mess. I make a mess of things, even though I try not to. I fail. Every time. Again and again and again.
I too am pushing a rock.
But I am also making paintings and sculptures. I am making art. Not surfboards or automobiles. I am making what essentially becomes abstract art. Non representational works of art. In the sense that they are not trying to look like anything else.
I make objects. Objects that represents themselves - they are what they are(like Popeye). The shape/form is what it is, the paint is what it is and the process is what it is.
It has been called minimal abstraction and I must admit that I have been in a reductive mode, taking away representation from the surface of the panels, in order to underline and enhance their appearance as wall hung objects shaped like paintings and not surfaces used to represent other things or surfaces being the basis for abstract marks. In short I am not making abstract paintings - it just looks like it.
I used to title all my paintings Happiness followed by the creation year in stead of untitled. Those thoughts have passed on, like many thoughts do, not to be forgotten, just laid to rest. I now title my paintings and sculptures equally random as untitled, but with remarks, thoughts ideas and descriptions of events from my life. Such as Always Always(From Void 2005 at V1 Gallery), which is the inscription on me and my wife’s wedding rings. In short my titles are irrelevant to the individual works of art, but add up to a very useful tool in analyzing and understanding my art work.
How do I know what is good and when to stop? How do I know when to change rocks. I have used the landscape of my childhood growing up. The memory from childhood of a lake, a forrest and a garden, seen from different vantage points, but a safe and warm place, that I know I like and trust. When I can see this composition or feel that comfort in a wall hung object shaped like a painting, I have been satisfied, but I am no longer sure that I can use this reference. My own life has surpassed those memories and the ones in the making are much stronger. I might be slowly moving out of childhood.
Vote for kiss of the year for the climate