GOTTLIEB, ROTHKO, and NEWMAN. 1940’s.
...’Subject matters valid which is tragic and timeless...’ ('New York Times', 13th June 1943, taken from 'Art In Theory 1900-2000').
On some of their beliefs there are a couple of points that I concur with. They are simple points, that never the less are important issues to my own work.
‘Consequently, if our work embodies these beliefs it must insult anyone who is spiritually attuned to interior decoration; pictures for homes, pictures over the mantel...’ (Ibid)
These points are the same as mine. I experienced this attitude of the spectator at an exhibition. Perhaps this became a subconscious factor that, when the time began and I started to paint seriously, I realised that my traditional way of working was not my voice and then I chose abstract. For when I was enlightened to the ambiguity of art, whilst at college, I realised that what I wanted for myself as an expression of my feeling’s, spiritual etc. could only be expressed in an abstract format. That is to say, that my feelings could only be explored through an art form that is accurate for myself, but ambiguous for the spectator.
As the trio wrote in the same article, ‘there is no such thing as a good painting about nothing’.
The narrative that a painting holds should not be an aesthetic illusion, but allusive to make the spectator think of what the artist puts into his painting.
ZEITGEIST.