Emergence of a Man

There he is.

This is a passage from a larger painting. (See previous post). The black shape is composed of energetic brush strokes, with no intention of depicting anything.  But there he is, you can’t miss him and once you see the man in the black brush strokes, you can’t not-see him.

This happens all the time.  You think you’re slashing away with your big brush and your gooey oil paint, with no thought of representation, and, behold, humanoid shapes keep emerging, faces and whole figures.  IF you can see him, you have to count on others also seeing him.  At that point there’s nothing to do except to decide whether to keep the form or to rework it to make it ambiguous.

If you decide to keep it, you have to count on the fact that this humanoid shape will dominate the painting.  That’s just how our brains are wired.  I’ll give you something you can recognize, especially something relating to your own species, and WHAMO, your brain can’t let go of it.

Abstract painting—painting “nothing”—is harder than that audience out there thinks.

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The Wooden Figures–Humanoids

They’re totally useless for studying anatomy, of course.  Anyone can see that the limbs of these humanoids can be twisted and bent into impossible poses.  But, still, they’re fun to draw and in a drawing, not surprisingly, they often take on insect characteristics or look like extraterrestrials.

Above, in Janet’s drawing, notice how the humanoid’s head participates in a triangular configuration with the two large, visually dominant veggies.  This drawing basically consists of these three round forms and striped surfaces.  Because these two motifs dominate, the humanoid body doesn’t present itself as more important, which gives the overall composition a high mark.

In Gaby’s drawing the still life is irrelevant and instead she draws the hominoids from different angles and makes them overlap.  To do this, you have to visualize how they would relate on the page as a design pattern, without projecting some corny expression or narrative into them.

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

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