Changing the Art Paradigm – Part 1

As I work in and write about the new art theory and emerging movement of UnGraven Image art new ramifications of the significance of the theory to the history of art become apparent.

When I began to experiment with paint using the Hebrew letters to symbolize the membranes (also called strings or “branes”) of elementary physics, I was aware that what I was doing was based on theology held by all Jews and many – I later discovered it is all branches and denominations of Christendom.

However, when I began my painting experiment, I was thinking about how the Impressionists strove to paint the light and how the Surrealists went about showing other realities. When I was an art student, I had tried, with resounding lack of success to somehow paint atoms and make a picture. Basically, I made something that looked like mud, even using oils. Recently, I have seen the work of artists who use mud and dirt as their medium, and while their work is intriguing, my original attempt was awful. My basic problem was that I needed to paint the nucleus, with its photons and neutrons, plus the electrons in their orbit(s). Each atom had different numbers of these subatomic particles. I was ending up with compounds and molecules that were chemically absurd and the more I attempted to rectify the situation the worse it became. I tried several times, ruining several canvases before I gave up.

That first experiment was unforgettable for me as it was the only time I ever tried to achieve something artistically and failed. Of course, that experiment was done on my own, as was the later one where I attempted to represent an even smaller reality (sub atomic energy/waves/particles) but the second time I began to succeed by using symbol strokes of Hebrew letters. By the time of my second attempt many years later, science had marched, or rather mathematically equated itself to smaller realities that the comparatively huge atoms. I was into what has become M Theory, symbolically representing the smallest sub-particles called branes.

The branes each have unique string like shapes (there are dissenting scientific opinions as to their exact shapes, though).  String-like shapes are certainly a way one could describe letters from many languages, as any young child learning to write the alphabet knows.

Once I saw that I could fashion a painting by using the Hebrew letters for strokes I began to consider symbolizing the branes with a different set of symbols. My first choice was the English alphabet, because I am a native American-English speaker and also professional writer. The other language I speak a bit of is French, but it shares a common alphabet with English. I now understand, and most especially can read a bit of biblical Hebrew, yet not as much as a student who successfully completed a year's training.

I did appreciate the Judeo-Christian theology that when the Lord creates the world in Genesis it is by speaking it into existence. As an artist I am especially taken with the biblical fact that the first thing spoken into existence is light. Without light, we cannot see and there would be no art. I also appreciated that the Creator saw the light and pronounced “it was good.” That reminds me of an artist stepping back from a canvas and deciding that what was just created is good.

The theology that I now know is fully held by all Christian and Jewish branches and denominations believes that the Creator's words in Hebrew , represent or are the smallest building blocks of the physical universe. So, as much as I appreciate various translations of the Bible in English, the theology only supports the idea that the original Hebrew letters represent the smallest physical essences. That Muslims also have this as part of their theology meant that only using Hebrew letters would turn what I was doing into a simultaneously scientific or secular and religious art. I liked the idea that these three great religions could agree and their believers could come together under a banner of art.

About the time I began to paint in the UnGraven Image way of using the Hebrew letters for strokes, the string theorists came to a conclusion that there are 11 branes in our reality. Before this they had been arguing that their were different numbers, but somehow the math also worked perfectly to indicate a physical reality based on 11 branes, and the fact that the scientists finally agreed with each other was news. Well, sort of news because it took a while before it was reported in Discover magazine and on various shows like Nova , where I learned of it. According to the physicists, there are 11 membranes that make up our universe while their opposites are in alternate universes. So, 22 in all. Well, there are also 22 basic Hebrew letters. That cemented the idea of using Hebrew letters tp symbo;ocally represent the branes in my paintings.

Plus, around that time it also dawned on me that since I was only painting words, primarily from biblical texts (sometimes I have used hymns) then actually all the paintings are not graven images as all. All I actually paint are words, which cannot by definition be a graven image.  My work may look like a landscape, or a portrait, or an animal, etc., but all that is actually on the support are letters from words in Hebrew. That is when I decided to call this new way of art, UnGraven Image as it clearly adheres to the commandment not to make a graven image.

By this time I also knew that Hebrew Torah font is a binary font, in that each letter is fashioned out combinations of one or both of two Hebrew letters, a yud (looks like a comma only at the top of the line) and a vav (looks like a spear or somewhat like an exclamation point without the dot at the bottom). This means that truly every stroke is a Hebrew letter (yud or vav) because as I write or paint other letters, they are comprised of yuds and/or vavs. So, certainly ever letter is a stroke.

Being a binary font meant that my work also related to Taoist theology as that is also binary. I liked the inclusiveness of that, even though I know very little about Taoism. Still, the idea that we can come together, agree on something through art never fails to make me smile.

When I attended this winters' ADAA Art Show and then the Armory Show, I found at the Feldman Gallery an exhibit of Mierle Laderman Ukeles 's work including Manifesto for Maintenance Art, 1969! Proposal for an Exhibition "Care" , which was framed page by page. I read it figuring it would help me batter understand Uklele's work. It did. It also inspired me to write the Manifesto for UnGraven Image Art. I had just recently completed a proposal for a show of the Genesis: Sunset-Sunrise series, which is being made available on paper and through a private section of my web site open by invitation to select galleries, curators and art spaces. I wrote my proposal because the books I consult advised doing it and it gave me a place to bring up some of my other plans, such as the book I am writing.  Reading the Ukleles' manifesto I realized that I had material for the Manifesto of UnGraven Image Art , not detailing a show but a whole new theory of art.

June 6, 2007

Go to Changing the Art Paradigm – Part 2 CLICK HERE