Gestural Painting and the Zen connection.

 Gestural Painting, the marks of Zen.

 

Child at Play ink on paper 1995.

Currently I’m exhibiting a number of works drawn from examples of paintings I  produced over the years, four decades in fact, and as often happens you come across work that has not seen daylight for quite a long time. Work that has been in hiding in my studio behind more recent arrivals. One series of paintings I found were watercolours dating back to my time in Rome during the late 50’s, when like many young painters I became enamoured with Zen Buddhism, ideas that influenced abstract expressionism and other forms of minimum art.

My first experience attempting to produce drawings spontaneously, that is without any preconceived thought occurred during a life drawing session at Desiderius Orban Art School at Circular Quay, Sydney. Orban a Hungarian artist had deserted Europe during the 1930s’ to escape the Nazi Government backlash towards modern art. Australia at the time was fortunate in acquiring several European artists familiar with the latest artistic development. Orban insisted on immediate and spontaneous response to subject matter without preconceived ideas about the result. He would run up and down the studio shouting faster, faster as students attempted to produce fifteen, thirty, or sixty second drawings. Draw from the shoulder not the wrist he would say, only then will you produce spontaneous drawing. This approach to creativity eventual lead to Pollock’s action painting in America, and the gestural work of Motherwell and others.

 

During the immediate post-war period Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir existentialist philosophy became popular in intellectual circles. Artists influenced by the interchange between subjective perception and objective reality in the world, lead many artists to engage in exploration of abstraction. As far as I was concerned the idea of a total mediative state as a starting point for creative expression seemed like a great idea, Zen offered an encouraging entry point. This eventually lead to many gestural drawings and paintings were marks made on a surface by unconscious physical action becoming closed statements, where a viewer often could not interpret the resulting image in any meaningful way, this still remains a barrier for many people viewing abstract work.

 

My drawing during this period took on the appearance of Oriental calligraphy without any meaningful reference to any existing text or writing, they were calligraphy marks on coloured ground as simple as that. A Japanese artist Roy Kiyooka dismissed the idea as meaningless, which was fair enough being a highly structured painter and Japanese, but it seemed reasonable to me that the subconscious was able to connect with the objective world even if gestural association was not intended.

 

On later reflection I realised that some point of entry was required for a viewer beyond the decorative, this would enhance their experience and hopefully enjoyment. Thinking back this no doubt was what Orban was trying to instil in us as students while retaining the spontaneous approach. In re-engaging with this idea after rediscovering these early painting I have decided to reintroduce a gestural approach in my work. Such an approach is the closest a human being can give physical visual presence to their subconscious. Dancers often move to sounds without formal interpretation of the music, their movements a spontaneous reflex  response, so there seems no reason two dimensional work should not also.

 

Hanging figure ink on paper.1959.

 

 

Tsunami.

Wreck of the Laura. 1996.

 

Musical instrument. 1959