Abstract Figuration
Abstract figuration, 1978-82
Variable dimensions Private Collection During this period, I became less interested in realism or faithful representation, as I was seeking a more aggressive and dynamic image. I found that retaining some elements -- recognizable features, body parts or forms -- helped maintain a sense of “the human” in these works and added to the feeling that the figures were in a state of stress, transition or had been acted upon by extreme external forces. The figure disintegrates, and so does the picture plane. That psychology was always a bit curious to me, in that it assumed that the depiction of a distorted figure implied that it was in fact a realistic depiction of something observed, and not the result of a separation from the visual at hand. In one sense, the notion that despite the obvious abstractions or liberties taken with form, some viewers persisted in the interpretation of the image as if I had reproduced by hand an image that I had actually seen—as if the artist was some sort of camera replicating a reality, or that I had depicted a desired form. Curious. |
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