ACTION

ABSTRACTION

Dear St. LouisThis letter is an introduction and a post-script to the more colorful essay on Convergence and to my own painting style condensed into the Work in Progress flipbook. Scholarly speaking, I believe the Action Abstractionists to represent the moment in which the extension of gesture and the importance of timeframe began to surface in the process of art making. Although existent beforehand, these qualities finally became conscious and thus integral to how to make a painting or a sculpture. The liberation of psychology and imagery learned from European Modernism became physically present in the timeframe and energy of the New York artists gesture. If Harold Rosenberg focused in on the act and Clement Greenberg on the abstraction, I believe in actuality that both points coalesced to define the true nature of the movement. The purity of Greenbergs vision depended directly on the force with which the artist expressed him or herself. It follows that both the brutality of De Koonings line and the lyricalness of Pollocks motion extend through brushes into finger tips, up arms into bodies to unite with physical, psychological, emotional, and intuitional forces. While painters and sculptures had been termed painterly or mannered previously, by the post WWII era artists began to connect visual representations even further with concrete, lived experiences. Painting and sculpture sessions transformed from symbolic representations of feelings to literal embodiments of events from the time-period. As artists loosened up toward action and abstraction, the psycho-physical consequences of such artistic processes also became more evident. Whereas many other world cultures contain metaphorical structures that help sustain such fluidness, Western artists of the 1940s-60s lacked the fundamental supports to metabolize what they lived and felt while making art. After breaking free, artists faced the question of the abyss alone, hence the self-destruction so prominent in the era. The innumerable metamorphosis of De Koonings Woman and Pollocks longest dance Convergence see essaypushed these limits of consciousness most intensely. These and other extended, more ecstatic sessions changed art from image making into a time-based project through which to experience reality. Artists mediums transferred from raw materials to raw energy and emotions, toward the brink between insanity and intuition. The artistic quest became about freeing oneself up and meshing with the space and time surrounding.

ACTION:ABSTRACTION
Passing through Color Field Abstraction and Jasper Johns methodical methodology, and hence beyond the scope of the Action/Abstraction exhibition, one could imagine Richard Serras energetic, molten sculpture or Sigmar Polkes layered, alchemistic paintings as other precedents to my Enamel Gravitation paintings. In this sense, as artistic mediums continue to pluralize, I believe those who flow through life integrate with the same subtle continuum as their ancestors. Artistic production is not about avant-garde per se, but rather about the degree to which one transforms ethereal glimpses into concrete reality. Art history follows this arch of united experiences as it coalesces through time, not as it one-ups itself.

As the seasons change forms, my Enamel Gravitations integrate into this continuum in a subtle stair step of wayspause for imagination. Most important for this essay are two elements of my painting process: the knowledge of prior chemical reactions that orchestrate the chance flow of nature. These two conditions extend my gesture both backwards and forwards in time, respectively, while I expand my consciousness in the present, moment by moment experience. A typical point of concentration is the force with which my finger dances on the support, connected to consequential tension or lack thereof through the rest of my right arm and shoulder. Feeling tension usually leads me to realize that my mind is in another place, that I am not wholly in the painting. Lack of tension is the result of a more intuitional experience with the painting. A completed work is the outcome of these lived forces. In order for the texture of an Enamel Gravitation to chemically react and evolve, I must maintain the continuance of a session for various hours daily during the span of a few weekssee flipbook. As mentioned above, by extending timeframes, I simultaneously intensify physical, energetic, emotional, mental, and intuitional states within my being. Compared to artists of 50 years ago, however, I feel better prepared to metabolize the effects of such an art adventure as the opening of global consciousness has offered me the possibility to become both an artist and a yogi. Through my practice I exercise and distribute lived forces through my whole being instead of simply my psychologypause for contemplation. This expanded consciousness provides equilibrium, and consequently more transparent, fluid visions. By realizing this base of consciousness in action, one can also grasp the true nature of abstraction. In essence, the imagery doesnt matter; rather what interests artists, scientists, yogis, athletes, and many others is to find his or her true medium. In doing so, one merges with the current of reality and understands how action becomes abstraction.