Order and disorder
dyk...@bvc.edu
Your question about the brush technique in my painting gives me a chance to
comment on one of the most important focuses of my work.
I'm presently doing paintings in two seemingly different modes. While the
subject in both modes is the landscape, the interpretation in the one is
more abstract and expressive, and the other more referential. For the time
being I'm content to let these two modes travel in parallel, and I don't
feel a seriously compelling desire to work out some hybrid distillation of
the two.
I see the landscape as a collision between formal and dynamic elements. A
feature of this is the serene and almost sublime feelings which are evoked
by our specific contact with a particular scene. We are impressed by the
serenity and "peacefulness" of the scene and it isn't until we
intellectually consider the total that we recognize that what we are seeing
is the product of astonishingly destructive forces. So what we are seeing
is a kind of collision between order, appearing here as serenity, and
chaos. In my work then, I usually begin by composing a well ordered
"system" and then conducting the painting in a manner which continuously
flirts with disaster. In one sense ruination is a significant part of the
content of my work and while I hope not to ruin the painting, those
colliding aspects are the fundamental contnet of the work. And here's
where I'm not driven to bring the referential and abstract together. Even
in my more referential works I employ many of the same marks as the more
abstract works. It's just that the marks in the more abstract works are as
much about the marks as they are about the thing which they might
represent. In the deferential, (Wow! Freud lives!), I meant referential
works a few of the marks have to be governed just a little bit more.
Hope that helps.
Dennis L. Dykema
Brother Alphabet
This will be a message from : Jason A. Hutto (Brother Alphabet)
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ja...@ra.msstate.edu | http://www2.msstate.edu/~jah10
On 2 Oct 1994 dyk...@bvc.edu wrote:
> Your question about the brush technique in my painting gives me a chance to
> comment on one of the most important focuses of my work.
To begin Id like to say that I am very happy to see this...
A discussion of technique and individual perspective...such a novel idea!
> I'm presently doing paintings in two seemingly different modes. While the
> subject in both modes is the landscape, the interpretation in the one is
> more abstract and expressive, and the other more referential. For the time
> being I'm content to let these two modes travel in parallel, and I don't
> feel a seriously compelling desire to work out some hybrid distillation of
> the two.
I know what you mean...Many people have told me to look for a sort of
synthesis between the styles i work with...but i personally feel that it
would hamper everything i am trying to say while in these differing "modes"
If indeed i was trying to say anything at all....
> I see the landscape as a collision between formal and dynamic elements. A
> feature of this is the serene and almost sublime feelings which are evoked
> by our specific contact with a particular scene. We are impressed by the
> serenity and "peacefulness" of the scene and it isn't until we
> intellectually consider the total that we recognize that what we are seeing
> is the product of astonishingly destructive forces.
I am glad you said that. The way I am initially stricken by nature, or
specifically, the landscape, is with a feeling of utter chaos. The
landscapes that attract me ...or at least the unpainted ones i see as i
walk along or drive...are ones that are of elemental clashes. Not 'the
elements" like rain or wind...Elements like a tree, crashed into an
otherwise open meadow. An oddly existing rock, which looks as if it
shouldnt be there...
There is great power in these things.
> So what we are seeing
> is a kind of collision between order, appearing here as serenity, and
> chaos.
Yes.
> In my work then, I usually begin by composing a well ordered
> "system" and then conducting the painting in a manner which continuously
> flirts with disaster.
Flirts with disaster in what way? Disaster in composition or disaster in
the scene?
> In one sense ruination is a significant part of the
> content of my work and while I hope not to ruin the painting, those
> colliding aspects are the fundamental contnet of the work.
So the interplay of the accidental reflects also the nature of the image
itself...the chaos that is nature.
> And here's
> where I'm not driven to bring the referential and abstract together. Even
> in my more referential works I employ many of the same marks as the more
> abstract works.
So why do you do both? Why not stay with the abstract...or the
representational?
> It's just that the marks in the more abstract works are as
> much about the marks as they are about the thing which they might
> represent. In the deferential, (Wow! Freud lives!), I meant referential
> works a few of the marks have to be governed just a little bit more.
Why are all your marks not about the marks themselves?
All painting is the same, after all...making marks...
Jason