At this point in time, color entered the picture as I began to experiment further and deepr with liquid rubber as a medium. But don’t call this minimalism.
Minimalism in visual art, generally referred to as “minimal art” (and many other stupid terms) emerged in New York in the early 1960s as some artists moved toward geometric abstraction. I missed all of this bullshit. I was doing figurative works when I began, trying my best to paint a realistic cloud in a beautiful sky with a tree growing out of a woman’s body (I can still manage this too). But this is not meant to be minimalist.
Why do I say, bullshit? Well. Geometric, Minimalism, etc all make abstract art seem emotionless. As if a circle over a triangle cannot be sexual, or geometric forms are not beautiful. This is a failure of recognition back then, and now, of what it means to work in the abstract emotionally.
I consider myself a surrealist in the sense that my reality is based on surpassing it, which by the way, is the definition I took for the word itself when I discovered it as a child. I believe abstract work is an expression of a journey, or a place that the painter visited in his mind, emotionally, painfully to sift through. The abstract then becomes the very real expression of that journey. The reaction.
When I took on the challenge of creating works using rubber as a medium, I formulated in my head that I was going to be on a path that was dangerous. If the work was rejected, I would be rejected. If the work was not deemed good, I was not good. But the truth is far simpler. And these thoughts rendered false. I took went, I documented. That’s all.
It’s my world. I create it. I get to visit it, and have experiences in it. You do not. Galleries do not, collectors do not. What you get to see in my works is the snapshot I took just before I re-entered the portal of space and time to return to this world.
But I do think I am a thoughtful person. I want you to see and experience my journey as much as possible. I am not hiding it away from the world. Portals exist, I say. Here is a door. You can walk through it whenever you want. Look. Touch it. Touch it!
