14 April 2020
Brokenness and the hand of Monk
As I’m sure I’ve said before, to convey an emotion from one human to another is really the whole point of all art. But today, context often takes precedence over that general understanding so naturally everything can sometimes appear upside down.
This is not my world, like they say, I just live in it. It feels like a world wherein art has been fused with an engine that's fuelled by philosophy, advertising, and the ironic sleight of hand.
Though I go on about ‘feeling and emotion’ a lot, I am really no longer an emotional man which means basically that I don’t rely upon my emotions to make many decisions in my life. But I used to.
But in saying that, I admit to being an emotionally charged painter of the Romantic tradition, though just not really a passionate person. I’m still wild about Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Brahms Intermezzo suites, but in another orbit, I'm mad about both Monk and Jerome Kern. In another life of my youth, I adored the melancholic folksinger Tim Buckley. And there are books of poetry and fiction I’ve read over and over again, like Nine Stories, by J D Salinger and The Dubliners, by James Joyce. So I am a hopeless Romantic in all things artistic. I'm just not a sentimentalist.
Mostly, in painting, I really love the sensuality of oil paints, I love that mushy feeling when my brushes push up against the soft buttery creme of one colour against another. I’ve always loved that and I sometimes wonder why I didn't become a pastry chef.
But in Painting, like in my life, I’ve also come to appreciate a restrained enthusiasm for all this exuberance over unbridled creativity that I often rave about, because like a bridled horse, in private, I’m a reserved and discreet person. It’s what I appreciate so much about a painter like Piero della Francesca whose muted frescoes stand up fervidly with quiet reserve.
On the other hand, I generally retreat from the famously ambitious passion of Jackson Pollack because I prefer to navigate the shadows that surround so much feigned exuberance. In essence, I’m a composed man, to a fault. It's only in my paintings that I will abandon this secret and shy place that I normally keep hidden from the outside world.
In this study the fierce red cloud began as a stab of the brush on the right side of the canvas board and vigorously swiped leftward with the vehemence of an assassin. Immediately, I felt satisfaction like a pudgy zen monk in the corner of the garden after a successful ink drawing. “Yes!”
I think everyone is familiar with this sense of awe and surprise at their own small heroic acts that grace us from time to time. Athletes seem to experience these moments more than the rest of us. But actors too, I think also live in a luminous state of grace while on stage. That's why the rest of us mere mortals are so crazy about both of them. And for the rest of us, in all these small moments, we too, seem to win small battles and everything falls into perfect balance, and it’s a magnanimous instant when our human imperfections meet up with our mettle.
This painting above makes me think of Thelonious Monk who was a poet on the piano. In a crazy sort of way I think he was one of the bridges that linked the early Blues of the Deep South with Jazz and Bebop that came out of it later on. Because of that he was a transformative artist, enduring and uncompromising, and he speaks to a whole new generation of young people today who are thirsty for something authentic and unconventional.
My brother Mark is also a big fan and he thinks that all the old pianos he played in funky clubs may have contributed to his particular 'style' of playing because many of them were often out of tune. Who knows? Myself, I've somehow always imagined that Monk and Van Gogh were spiritual brothers themselves, both so singular and equally misunderstood. Monk was luckier to find a community of musicians who understood his greatness. Van Gogh was sadly excluded from that fraternity and although he did have a few admirers, he was basically an outcast.
Both artists now long gone, are at the top of the tree, artistically speaking. Full of feeling and able to express it all so authentically, these guys were the real deal. What I get from both of them is that they got right into it without a worry about style or technique and by doing so, they found their original voice to express pure feeling.
Monk had a habit of getting up from the piano during the performance while his band mates soloed to dance gently around stage. He said; "I get tired sitting down at the piano! That way I can dig the rhythm better.” Gotta love that guy.
But back to this study from the other day; when I wiped this red cloud across the canvas board I immediately felt good, like I knew it was right. It was a kind of incandescent claim on all that space in the sky that pleased me at once. Yes, it’s abrupt and discordant, and perhaps on another day, I might have tried to correct it with a more graceful and orderly transition, one perhaps more sympathetic to symmetrical unity, but I’m so grateful I didn’t, because I really like the brokenness of it. To me it says: “This is a painting made from a human hand”.
And though I am a sloppy painter, someone who can quickly displease the viewer, the ‘brokenness’ here cuts through any artifice of perfectionism that can hang over a creator’s life like a sword. A long while ago I struck a deal with the Muses; "Give me some light in these pictures, and I’ll forsake all the money and success of the world".
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