Searching for the Real

Strip away all thoughts and meaning. Start from there. That’s where the true artistic search begins.

Notice the drawings over there that look like scrawls, the ones that look like scribbles done with a wandering hand. Walk up to them and realize how each mark has been considered, how each line has been woven in among its neighbors, how they appear to be drawn in from behind. Notice how the space in the drawing begins to oscillate between infinitely deep and totally flat. Feel the tension between the lines and search for what it means to exist there.

What is true of objects is true also of their matters. Colors shift in close juxtaposition; lines taken as definition are seen now as defining the other. The space between takes on new significance as both and neither. The question of existence in this close space around the edges of things presents itself as the topic of perception. In the experience of it an opportunity for a new ideas about recognition arise. Individuals here exist not as delineated but as contiguous with their surroundings. Things no longer exist in isolation from their backgrounds but as aspects of a larger whole that one may recognize as one's self.

Some people believe that to experience art the viewer must complete the creative process begun by an artist who is no longer there.