Art & Inspiration Blog

The Manifesto of Post Conceptual UnGraven Image Art Theory has recently undergone additional tweaking and revision, yet the opening sentence that was scribbled on notebook paper during a Hampton Jitney ride into the NYC has always remained the same. It is: “The only essential material element of any painting or drawing is a stroke.”

When I began painting with symbols (letters) as strokes, my focus naturally turned to the strokes themselves. Here and there they needed to be seen and the layers and layers of tiny letters – tiny as they reference the pre-matter/energy of string theory – need to somehow be present in a work. Whatever the narrative imagery, the work is always preeminently about its strokes.

This style of painting and also sculpting is the flip from the way I was classically taught, where the strokes are made to create the narrative. For me, the narrative serves the strokes.

Focusing on the stroke(s) at hand tends to pull or keep me in present time, in the now of many spiritual positions, It is only possible to create or notice a stroke in the now.

Summer, always my favorite season as I can swim, or just be in water treading or floating, is full of glorious strokes in the water. Add in a canoe trip, another wonderful pastime for extra strokes.

A stroke is the smallest and essential unit of complete energy, which can be solidified into mass) in the smallest unit of time. As it always has energy, movement is implied. Movement requires energy, space and time. A stroke is hitting a letter of the keyboard with one finger. Releasing the keypad is movement I the opposite direction, so that is a different stroke. When my hands are keyboarding, I am actually creating many strokes simultaneously; as different fingers move in response to my thoughts (thoughts are energy). In response to the stroke of my finger the computer creates another stroke that is a letter and it, through various binary strokes appears on the monitor’s screen.

It is easy to see a stroke in a painting by Vincent van Gogh. The actual stroke*s van Gogh made with his hand that resulted on the stroke appearing on the canvas are implied. Thus strokes of a painting, drawing or doodle and the letters in a written work, even a shopping list are physical reminder of past stroke making moments. Of course, some art uses strokes that become words and symbols, Word and Post Conceptual Art being prime examples.

For all fauna life is full of movement, hence created strokes. A stroke is created when a butterfly moves its wing, a centipede lifts a leg, a bird slightly tilts its head or a fish moves a fin. When strokes are combined with other strokes intentions are realized and the butterfly will fly, the centipede will climb the stalk, the bird will find its dinner and the fish will swim away. Time lapse photography reveals the strokes of plants as their flowers unfold, but the strokes made by flora tend to be so small that we see the result—the flora, the bud, the fruit, vegetable or new leaf – but miss the strokes. Usually life has an intention, a reason, which may be conscious or subconscious for creating a stroke.

These are some exhibits currently in the Hamptons with strokes or assemblages of strokes that have added to my summer.

As I was working on the August newsletter for artnet.com when I attended Guild Hall’s opening for LARRY RIVERS: MAJOR EARLY WORKS, I did not also cover it in my blog. However, Christina Mossaides Strassfield curating achievement deserves a mention as she manages the seemingly impossible task of placing various works, paintings and drawings, etc., so that each one seems to stand apart capturing attention. That achievement was enormously complicated by the stunning and huge assemblage of Rivers famous work on the history of the Russian Revolution takes up an entire wall in the exhibition’s main room, which may be the only wall where it could fit. That work inspires me with ideas for assemblages of paintings and sculptures, too; it is a kind of full room installation all on one wall.

When it comes to assemblages of a repeated single stroke, Tara Donovan is one of the best artists around. Anne Pasternak, Creative Time’s President and Artistic Director, was invited to be a guest curator recently at Edsel William’s Fireplace Project, for a entitled, “INTIMACY”. There is much good work in this show, but focusing on unique strokes two stand out. First, a Tara Donovan assemblage made of standard white paper plates, which for me are the strokes. Donavan uses various materials the assemblages she creates using all the same items, which have been Styrofoam cups, white shirt buttons, and especially fitting for summer paper plates.

TARA DONOVAN
Untitled (Paper Plates), 2007
Paper plates and hot glue
17 x 36 x 28 inches

Tara Donavan’s assemblage was such an intriguing work of art that artist Ricci Albenda’s Chihuahua was struggling to escape his owners arms to reach it. Perhaps the all white sculptural strokes seem familiar as Albenda’s sculptures are a kind of luscious undulating sculptural stroke that moves across a plane. The one at the gallery was titled, Study for Panoramic Portal to Another Dimension (Deanna) #12, 2007.

Driving to Sag Harbor the following week there was a cloud that was like a huge white with a tinge of gray stroke that could have been painted by James Nares. It was large but only a few other wispy clouds were near it as it floated over the waves (also strokes) lapping in Noyac Bay.

In Sag Harbor, at the Tulla Booth Gallery, we discussed how a painting is complied of strokes, or at least a stroke that took time to paint from beginning to end, but a photograph is an all-at-once capture of a moment, all one stroke of time captured by physically taking the picture. Currently in the group show in Tulla’s gallery is a photo by Jake Rajs of one of the most glorious waves, caught in an elegant moment as hovers before crashing, bowed in the center as if licking the water beneath it.

Parrish Art Museum’s exhibit, “SAND: MEMORY, MEANING AND METAPHOR” organized by Alicia Longwell, Ph.D, includes many strokes of sand. There is work from a portfolio of photographs by Felix Gonzales-Torres of waves of wind swept sand. Richard Misrach’s large C-print mounted on Plexiglas also depicts one sunbather floating on waves and waves of waves and waves of sand, included here are also the footprints (another kind of stroke) made by humans and bird. A lyrical sculpture by Ernest Neto of what could be one long poured stroke of sand that flows into tendrils to end in pod-like feet.

Peter Marcelle’s Hampton Road Gallery, the “CREATE-ITITY ONE’ is solo exhibit of Philip Letts of blur photography that captures waves of light.

Art that includes strokes of water, sand, light and even paper plates – that’s the strokes of late summer in the Hamptons.

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.

Check out the limited and open edition prints in the estore.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey .]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 12:37 am and is filed under Art Theory and Show Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.