Julie T. Chapman - ArtBlog

What spawns this post is another library book (in this case, “Contemporary Women Artists”, by Wendy Beckett - Universe Books, 1988…30 years ago contemporary, anyway) celebrating Post-modern artists of the female persuasion.

There’s a piece in the book titled “Dark Green Painting” by Edwina Leapman, 168×183 cm (about 4 1/3 x 4 3/4 feet) which is pretty much what you’d expect: a dark bluish-gray-green surface with, possibly, some slight variations in hue (hard to tell) and texture (also hard to tell). Here’s a fragment of what the author says about the piece:

“‘Dark Green Painting’ can certainly hold the attention for a long period…there are hidden colours, an elusive pink that only reveals itself to the attentive eye; there are almost imperceptible brush movements, soft clouds that seem to drift to and fro on the surface and to swim up gently from the depths. Unforced depth is Leapman’s special gift. She has said: ‘The surface is both above and below’, a very profound observation… Alan Green, a Minimalist painter…has said of Leapman’s art: ‘Each work exists as a demonstration of human frailty…their strength lies in the doing. These paintings actually have to happen…the time actually has to be spent and mistakes actually have to be made.’ ….if the making of a work demands such ascetic concentration, it is not surprising that this manual prayer, as it were, soaks deep into the canvas.”

There’s more, but this seemed enough for our point.

So. If this same critic were to confront one of my rodeo or grizzly bear paintings, would she be in such raptures of bemusing description? (I’m guessing not). Which begs the question, is non-objective art - with no particular center of interest, and no drawing or other skill required besides manipulation of medium - perhaps more engrossing for a viewer? Does it allow for more interpretation on the part of, and therefore more involvement by, the viewer? And, ultimately, does that make it more worthwhile, or give it more longevity?

I’m working my way through a massive library find, Artoday by Edward Lucie-Smith, which attempts to survey modern art from 1960 to the late 1990s. It’s an enormous undertaking (the book, not my reading of it) and both interesting and thought-provoking.

F’rinstance … I perceive a bias on his part against representational work. Maybe he didn’t mean it, but quotes like these are hard to interpret otherwise:

“…an entirely studio-bound painter who depicts only what he sees…his work has no flights of the imagination.” (on Lucian Freud), or

“…seems like a fairly limited theme.” (on Realism), and

“This loss of stylistic direction … has led to a compensatory emphasis on content rather than style.” (on the 1990s New York art scene)

The last quote in particular struck me - is he saying that style really should matter much more than content? This doesn’t help me understand why people like some of the Expressionist stuff from the mid-20th century - I can’t forgive how deliberately raw, childish, and sloppy it is, and can’t look any further.

I spent a few hours at the Yellowstone Art Museum when I was in Billings about a week ago; YAM focuses almost entirely on post-modern Montana artists. Some challenging stuff in there, or just plain odd - although there are also Deborah Butterfield horses, and I really love her work. Why are plexiglas cubes filled with crumpled waste paper worthy of a museum? Or giant canvases with no discernible object, subject, or center of interest, and crudely rendered? For that matter, there’s a Montana artist who is well-known in this area (and in NY, I think) who has made pencil outline drawings of horses that look like a kid did them. I’ve seen these drawings humbly framed and offered for sale at $1200.

So am I just a philistine?

P.S. there will probably be more to say as a result of reading this book…not least of which is that it’s leading me down some interesting experimental paths.