MY PAINTINGS
PREAMBLE • PART I
At the outset if [I, we, you] regard a work of art as fusion of form and content then an artist [painter] creates an action in the painting covering form transforming subject matter into content. Also at this outset let us agree as [me] artist/painter and you [reader/audience] that this simple definition is arguable. I use it only as a reference point. I have been writing this definition in way too many writings and in way too many diverse directions over the past 50 years to continue it here. I simply want to strip away the bs and set down a base definition of what my paiting is to me so it means something to you; so you can engage in my painting instead of running away from it.
In very basic terms, my painting is about the making end of this activity and comes in two parts:
1) Internal information based on what can be seen in the work itself and can be divided into three categories: subject matter, medium, and form.
* Subject matter refers to those recognizable people, places, or events in the work for realism; shapes, colors, texture, etc.; for nonobjecive works — the paining itself.
* Medium refers to the material the work is made from. Medium, for me is also a subject for a painting.
* Form refers to the way the artist shapes the subject with the medium. In non-objective and non-representational work, medium and form may well predominant with no identifiable subject matter.
and 2) External information includes data about the time in which the piece was made, its social and intellectual environment, other works by the same artist, and work by other artists of the same period.
PREAMBLE • PART II
Once a painting is made the following aspects of my work are out of my control:
3) Interpreting: As maker and viewer we both do this from our own life history; including knowledge and/or the lack of knowledge on the subject of painting as a fine art. Set this aside. I as the maker can help the viewer understand my activity and its results by outlining the internal information as best I can. The internal information is very up close and personal to the artist/maker. It becomes a situation of how aware of detail in this internal information the artist is and how willing he/she is about revealing it. I tend to not want to reveal much of it as a lot of how I feel or what I think the internal information is can seem embarassing to admit what it is. I tend to not want to reveal that warts exist. Quite simply I don’t want to reveal to a reader/audience/viewer that I don’t know what my painting really is. Yikes!
3a) Interpreting external informaton: External evidence consists of information located outside the work itself: The artist’s other work, biography, gender, race, age, the social, political, religious preference, place [where the work was made], and time in which the work was made. Interpreting external information, for me, is also speculation. Points of data are certainly arguable as to their definitions and what elements that should be included or excluded. Interpreting external information also can be wrapped in philosophy.
However, all this being said, I believe that we all have to agree works of art [painting/s] are about something. I and you interpret our best understanding of the evidence presented [in a painting or paintings].
4) Evaluating: This activity focuses on judging the artistic merits of a work of art according to standards either learned academically or experiencially. These standards need to be addressed, clearly defined and outlined, and argued. Evaluating becomes a very personal activity. For me, I think it best that to evaluate my painting requires an open mind; open to a wide variety of source material known to a viewer and if not known, left out of the evaluation at the time. To best understand and interpret my paintings, it is best to study what you don’t know. Accumulated knowledge of the processes included in the above will make the engagement experience with my paintings much richer. 50 individuals look at the same painings and come up with 50 individual evaluations. I like to think that the internal information the viewer brings to the experience also plays a part. Thus, in this aspect of the experience, my paintings are mirrors. From this view, I ascertain that each individual that agrees to engage in one of may paintings or group of paintings will understand something that is revealed there. The specifics of this revealing may or may not be conscious and the feelings can run a gammut of human emotions. If my painting or paintings succeed the response to them is love or hate; never indifference. Indifference means that a painting has failed in some way for the viewer.
THE NITTY GRITTY• PART III
MY PAINTING IS
1) —about the medium and how it can be manipulated to construct an event-like interaction with a viewer. The event usually takes form as an emotional interaction. Sometimes the logic of this manipulation is obvious; sometimes not.
2) —about the medium and how its unique quality defines it. Each medium —be it oil paint, acrylic polymer paint, polyvinyl Acetate Paint, encaustic (hot and cold processes), watercolor, gouache, ink, pencil, crayon, etc.— creates its own unique mark on the same support using the same tool. Change the support and the mark will change also [see item 4].
3) I like to think that how I approach making a painting is closely related to how a Zen painter takes the time to create a meditative state within which to set down the brush and ink mark or marks. Directly related to this approach is my use of the surrealist technique of automatism.
4) My painting is also about the uniqueness of the support selected and how the medium of choice responds to this support when the paint is applied. Each support takes the paint differently. For example, visually compare how oil paint looks and feels when applied to paper (sized or unsized— each accepts oil differently), primed and unprimed canvas, primed or unprimed woods (different wood species also accept oil paint differenlty). Now take the samples described in 2) and observe the differences in each of the interactions between the medium, the support, and the application tools. This simple process, for me, has enuff mystery, problems, and excitement to engage me in exploring the same issues over and over and over. However, it is the nature of this making process that the same problem never really presents itself from one painting to the next.
5) My painting is about color. Attach color to all that has been described so far. For me it is a tall order to make sense of how this stuff functions at the basic making level; making a mark on a support with a medium and a selected color using a selected tool. I keep hoping the next painting will clear a mystery. It doesn’t. Then on to the next painting. On and on!
6) Whew! What is next? The next painting takes this exploration to a next order. Defining the order is a topic for another discussion. Defining the order or discussing this order is the stuff of philosophy and speculation. It takes my painting deeper into the realm of the personal. Herein lies an elementary fact regarding order. We as individuals like and dislike something according to a privately designed rule or paradigm; personal preference if you will.
7) At first, when I started painting in 1960, I really liked the abstract expressionist painters of the first and second generation. I had a strong emotional-feel-good-response to what I saw. It didn’t take me very long to realize that I didn’t feel the same experiences they did when they formed this approach to painting [art making] in the 1940’s. First, I am not an urban person; born and raised in a small city in Iowa. Second, I liked what I saw mainly through magazine illustrations. There was little or no actual samples of this kind of art to see, feel, etc. where I lived. I had to imagine what surfaces were all about; how the paint was handled and applied. I saw my first in-person abstract expressonist painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1965; Hans Hofmann’s yadayayay. I melted before the painting. When I tried to paint this way I got discouraged in a hurry. I discovered that I wasn’t Hans Hoffman and my attempts to use his structures and color didn’t come close to “being” in the same way. I had to adjust my painting to “be” me. I am still adjusting today in 2009! Over the years I tried-on other artists as I learned of them only to get discouraged quickly. They weren’t me either!
8) My painting 2009 is still all about what I have described so far. Over the years my programs swing between simple structures, which are somewhat minimal or sparce, and structures that are complex and busy. I am not an abstract expressionist! Although I appropriate some of their outward visualness. I focus on the medium and its unique qualities, how it holds color, brush stroke and other elements this uniqueness reveals.
I haven’t mentioned space and painting. Yes! My work incorporates space. Space is a secondary issue to medium and color.
I haven’t mentioned psychology and painting. I haven’t mentioned literature and painting. I did mention emotion and painting. I don’t consciously use psychology or literature as a structure in my painting. I am a horrible story teller so I don’t use literature or tell stories with my art. Following closely to this, I don’t place hidden or classic psychological attachments to my colors, textures, spaces, sizes, or techniques. I do, once in a while, like to use a surrealist element of surprise; something, an element, that when observed within a painting, doesn’t seem to fit and clashes, or indifferently exists in the painting. These surprise elements sometimes offer no logic to their existence in a painting. I will place a word or a number in a painting because I wanted to include it for what it is. Simple to me. No logic to others.
9) Projects 2009: Acrylic polymer paint on canvas, paper, linen, and wood; encaustic (hot wax) painting on wood, paper, linen, and cotton. Approach: Generous involvement in the Automatism process to make 2-D visual art; some use of appropriation— using solutions by other artists because, frankly, I find it easier to use their solution to solve a painting problem— saves me time and mental energy; generous use of various tools to manipulate the paint and color. Conscious restrictions: 1) do not tell stories, 2) do not use realism as this opens the door to literature in my painting.
10) My painting and a general reference to a definition of what my painting is in context of this writing— simple is good and drawn-out explanations tend to get lost on personal and hermetic philosophy on what I think painting is generally and what my painting is to me.
11) Up to this point in my life, this is what I believe to be my painting and what it is about.
David Novak
Matthews, NC
Sunday, June 14, 2009
David Novak - life in flat land 
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