Yves Tanguy, Indefinite Divisibility, Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 88.9 cm., 1942; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
An observant person said that my recent work reminded them of Yves Tanguy's surrealist landscape painting. I have always loved his work and on visits to the New York Met would stop to marvel at the geometry of his skeletal landscapes. Well maybe it was just one, and I thought this one; Indefinite Divisibility or something just like it. Before I ever started painting in oil for real it had a huge impact on me.
This stuff must have been pretty trippy in the day because it's obviously an early expression of psychedelia. The subconscious mind was represented by the disintegration of recognizable form rather than the odd arrangement or condition of them. Formally, I dwell in the latter category- more like Dali than Tanguy. But there's something very methodical and logical about the composition of abstract forms, and this is something I really relate to. They are solid and regular objects which cast shadows in barren landscapes with atmosphere and implied vanishing points. The structure more mechanical than organic. However the functional forms have no function, they are definitive sculptural concoctions.
Edmund Wyss, Viscera, 8.5" x 11", 2008, private collection
+SP.jpg)
Edmund Wyss, SP, oil on canvas, 18" x 24", 2003
Inspiring. Also, the guy's work doesn't change much for well over 20 years! No small issue for us artists who are afraid of repeating ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment