Harmonizing Noise and Mayhem

Static and hiss can interfere with clear reception of a radio signal. If we want to listen to that signal we attend more closely.  Our attention becomes heightened.  If we dine in a cacophonous room, we focus with more intensity on our partner’s conversation.  We select out the information from the surrounding noise.  We participate with pictures in the same way.  As with language we begin by recognizing patterns and conventions. We are ready to finish one another’s sentences.  In painting, once we recognize a convention we easily move on unless there is obscuring static which requires us to elevate our attention.  When we elevate our attention we apply our imagination to hypothesizing what we think we see. We fill in the gaps of uncertainty created by noise with what we think should be present.

Artists have long employed visual noise and mayhem as a screen obliging our imagination to make plausible hypotheses.  Puzzling out an image offers a satisfying challenge because; we can and will hypothesize a solution.  There is no right or wrong, true or false, only our guess.  Visual noise and mayhem create a field of ambiguity which invites the beholder to make a guess, even to make multiple guesses.

The chiaroscuro of Da Vinci, Caravaggio and Rembrandt depend on our guess that darkness represents space.  The fuzzy edges and bleeding complementary color patterns of Bonnard have us guessing not only about the nature of the space but, the nature of the illumination and the variable color reflectance of surfaces (example 1).  With his squeegees and blurred brushwork Gerhard Richter regenerates some of the surface patterns and textures as surrealists like Max Ernst.  We see these patterns as vaguely familiar and their underlying references to landscape conventions compel us to look and see through the noise to a landscape beneath.  It’s like looking past the mullions in a window to see the landscape beyond (examples 2 and 3).

Example  1, Pierre Bonnard, landscape,

Example 2, Gerhard Richter Landscape,

Example 3. Gerhard Richter Landscape,

Richter refers to a much earlier tradition of painting landscapes in example 4.  His overlying visual noise uses distorted rectangular forms. We feel as though we are looking through a canted, smudged window.  Historically landscape artists set up tables with glass frames through which they viewed and recorded the landscape.  This distortion of Richter’s cleverly refers back to that process as he supplies us with a conventional landscape beneath his visual noise.

Example 4. Gerhard Richter, Venetian Landscape through a noisy frame.

Last week I introduced a shoreline/marsh grass painting with lots of noise and counterpoint directionals.  I later responded to that experience by creating an image in Photoshop which was an amalgam of photography and painting. I combined a shore-grass photo with a painting and, with another photo of a woodland pool.  This amalgamated image is represented in example 5.  From this noisy and confused image I generated different new paintings. Example  6 presents one such painting. Example 7 presents a revised version of example 6, a step two.

Example 5, the photo amalgam,

Example 6. Step one of the new painting, “Sparks on a Shoreline”.

Example 7. Step two of the new painting;

I tried this process again with a different painting and photo.  I merged the two images into a new photo (example 8). This photo became my point of departure for my next painting which you see as example 9.

Example 8, Photo amalgam, of painting and photo.

Example 9.  Landscape painting on enameled brushed silver laminated aluminum,
I abandoned the Photoshop process and went directly to distressing and confusing an existing landscape of mine, I simply tried to apply noise but, sustain chromatic harmony and a feeling of linear and atmospheric perspective. Step one (example 10) presents the painting as it was, a more conventional landscape. Step two (example 11) presents the painting after imposing a harmonizing mayhem.

Example 10, original painting,

Example 11. After harmonizing noise and mayhem,

I  invite you to join me in a variety of events. This Saturday October 8, 2016 I will be at the opening reception of an exhibition of my work at the White Gallery in Lakeville, Ct at 342 Main Street.  The opening runs from 5 to 7 pm.  I will arrive at 4 pm.

In November I have a series of workshops at Jerry’s Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh Durham, N.C.  from Friday November 11 through Sunday November 13th.   The Friday workshop, 9am to 4 pm, “Painting Reflections in Glass, Water and Other Surfaces”. The Saturday workshop is also 9am to 4 pm “New Trends: Merging Paint the Digital Photography”. The Sunday workshop, 9 am to 4 pm “Abstracting Nature, from Meadows to Flora”.  To register call: 800 827 8478 ext 156. These three different workshops are described on this website under classes and workshops.

“The Psychology of Art and Design” is a lecture I will be giving at the Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, Ct. on Sunday, October 16th at 4:30 PM.   How do we make, view and market art?  What are the subliminal forces that direct our intentions determine our responses?