Edentical World
Size (h w d): 36 x 36 x 1.5 in
Medium: oil on canvas
When authentic pieces of Abstract art makes its debut it’s new to the eyes of the world or at least to the few it stands before. The complications arise when the viewer is coddled into thinking their opinions carry profound insight. Only the artist that created the work deeply knows for sure if the work is authentically just. He or she alone knows what was gleaned or pirated from the work and efforts of others. We often like to say we copy from nature after all who would question taking one’s ideas from the master creator, that form of expression is almost considered a homage to the source of all creativity and original thought.
We all seek accolades for our own self proclaimed originality but we artists are often fearful of revealing the true nature and sources of our inspiration. I personally fight all outside influences when creating my art, but only a foolish artist would deny the pervasive divine guidance that seems to percolate through the mind’s eye onto the canvas.
My painting Edentical World was created without any preconceived notions it just seemed to simply arrive on the canvas…I’m not sure how it came to be. Zero planning no real fore thought it just started to come together, selected colors no real mixing and stroke by stroke it evolved into the current work you see.
I recently visited the home and workshop of the furniture designer and woodworker Sam Maloof at the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts & Crafts . On the tour you have the opportunity to see many of the wood furniture pieces he created, everyone admired the beautiful wood and credited his craftsmanship in creating the appearance of the actual wood like how the grain created such interesting patterns but in reality wood has its own grain structure, like fingerprints know two pieces of wood are exactly alike the beauty lies in how the tree grows it’s environment, number of limbs and a whole host of other conditions that help the tree form and grow. It isn’t until the tree is cut and the boards are hewn do you start to see the beauty in the wood no one can ever know what will actually happen each piece of wood is uniquely Beautiful and possesses a charm and character that cannot be created by men. The best he can do is sand and polish which intensifies the structure of the grain. A painting often evolves in a similar fashion, like the grain in the wood the magic is hidden, and it’s not until one’s creativity is released from deep within that the hands of the artist can polish the work to reveal it’s hidden beauty.
If you were wondering about the title of the painting Edentical Would well it’s an equivocation as the painting represents no known reality, in which I can self proclaimed that this painting was in fact incubated in my sometimes fertile imagination.