My prime influence, as an Artist, Art Tutor, Curator and Director of an art centre that I created, the past 40 years has been the Quattrocento and Cinquecento art of Florence. Through this exhibition at various galleries, including the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Galleria Cestello, Florence and galleries in Germany and Scotland.
I wish to share all the inspiration that has guided my entire artistic life.
I was born and grew up in New York, and have lived, worked and taught the past 28 years in Scotland.
Practical Objectives:
I would like to propose an exhibition of my most recent artwork: 15-40 drawings, depending upon the available wall space, all of which are self portraits. All are framed and ready to be installed with none larger than 55cm wide.
Thematic Objectives:
How do we look at, and thereby, finally, accept ourselves, as we enter the fourth quarter of our lives? We all are beautiful, we all can reveal aspects of our beauty, but how many of us would freely say so? My intention with these drawings is to find: adventure, curiosity, attraction and beauty in myself - as my own muse, and to share this inspiration with others, that they might also see themselves, through this ‘newly restored mirror’.
The obvious destination of our journey, is Self. The circle begins as a wholly trusting baby, then we set out on our way as seemingly ‘immortal’ young beings. We create profession, family, friendships, always looking outwards, learning how to both belong and individuate - a concretisation of our ego.
Yet in the final quarter we can complete the circle: arriving again 'home'. Releasing the bondage of the ‘self’ that we have created to facilitate our survival, we now face a certain final-life period, with joy, surprise, or regrets. Yet the body’s changes make it all so clear - we are more than our accomplishments, more than our accumulation, more than the fashioned-self that we have shown the world to improve our chances of survival in a competitive, chaotic world, and to compensate for all our known and unknown inadequacies....all falling away, like the sullied, golden jewels found beside a body in some ancient tomb.
Who am I, in my absolute truth, beyond all my personality-constructions?: An artist, a father, a benevolent saint, a greedy scoundrel...
Seemingly all have pondered on this:
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” - Socrates and Aristotle
"Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world." - Ramana Maharshi
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” –Carl Jung
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – E.E. Cummings
In my drawings I approach myself very every angle, dressed or nude, hard or soft in focus. In all that I loathed about my appearance, I now find fascinating patterns, exotic visual associations, even erotic metaphors. Last year I made a promise to myself: Before I die, I will accept all that I am....but who am I?
These drawings may be the entrance to a discussion, so that we may teach each other that answer. As the life-long crafted ‘icon’ of self slips away, perhaps the discovered ‘self-portrait’ of magnificence is revealed? After all, what could be, in our own very individualised time, the greatest subject for the artist, the writer, the performer? When I asked my Mentor, the great art historian, Ernst Gombrich, this question - he referred, surprisingly, to the self-referential; the ‘Self’.
Aesthetic Objectives:
I am seeking to create clear and palpable 3-dimensional form through the changes of tone in 2-dimensional pattern, by the use of line, shade and the suggestion of chroma. My overarching aim is to bring the presence of the figure into the viewer's experience.
My studies (4-years, Graduated with Honors), at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York City from 1974-1978, placed me exactly in the centre of New York’s avant garde; between the most progressive and innovative conceptual and anti-establishment arts zone, Soho/Greenwich Village, and the East Village, the birthplace of Punk, expressed in both music and lifestyle.
Yet I, at the age already of 7 had experienced beauty as a sublime, physical upliftment, which set my path as an artist and a student of art history. I studied the art of 1350-1550, only, as I followed that from which I could best learn.
I took a position of confrontation with my professors, as they were representing art, as devoid of beauty, relevant only to 1950 forward.
Though I graduated top of my class, I had learned almost nothing. I experienced the art of drawing and painting as anchorless and rudderless, not being able to turn to the past decades of ‘isms’ (Abstract Expressionism, Conceptual, New Image etc.) for my own growth and development. My personal direction had nothing whatsoever to do with ideas, but instead perception.
I turned to important art historians, with whom I could show my work and receive very direct and unsentimental criticism. My first mentor was Dore Ashton, Senior Art Critic for the New York Times, and my professor of Modern Art.
When, in 1992 I moved from New York to build an art centre in Scotland, I immediately contacted Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich as my new mentor. I visited with him, annually, on a one-to-one relationship over the final 12 years of his life. Gombrich taught me, for the first time, to see, understand and master form: the clear and continuous illusion of 3-dimensional volume in 2-dimensional works of art. I reinforced this study with long visits in Florence, studying drawing, painting and sculpture, finding everything that I needed, and great inspiration as well, in Quattrocento arts.
In the drawings that I am proposing to exhibit at various galleries, I am immediately concerned with the clear portrayal of form, as I learned from Quattrocento and Cinquecento Florence, yet I am strengthening form through the use of pattern, which is more of a Germanic approach. The pattern never becomes decorative, it is always reinforcing the form, building up layers of pattern simply with an HB pencil, nothing else.
Generally one would imagine that pattern would function contrary to form, but I am bringing together my two great loves, to express clear 3-dimensional form, with strong 2-dimensional graphic as well as surface design, though that images never become illustrative.
Of course, this exhibition would fulfil my great and endless wish to advance my artwork, as I would appreciate the many sophisticated eyes that would see my exhibition and be able to share with me their critical and valuable responses.
