New Forms
Part. 1
A recent drawing of mine - The Great Drought Of 2022
Art which appears to be free of adult insecurities and exudes a playful, naïve quality is often the most attractive to me. Appearing bold, organic and primal with thick black lines and block colours to form symbols, poetic wording and semi-abstract figures. The work is painted, drawn and sometimes scratched into layers of wet paint, producing works that have the look of recorded trains of thought rather than the result of a single preconceived idea.
Psychic automatism plays a part in the mark-making (a technique utilising the subconscious mind to guide the hand). These ways of working were somewhat at odds with traditional artistic practice and thus considered ‘outsider art’ or art of the untaught.
Jean Dubuffet - Le Fauteuil II - 1966 (source: www.guggenheim-venice.it)
Art Brut and Neo-Expressionism were two movements which unashamedly displayed these characteristics. Jean Dubuffet (the godfather of Art Brut) left a formal art education in Paris and turned to such things as children’s art to inspire his practice. Cy Twombly had an extensive art education but later made efforts to “un-learn” everything he knew, even practicing drawing in the dark to re-capture the essence of primitive mark-making. His catalogues raisonne includes a series of drawings from his North African Sketchbook, filled with scribbled shapes and symbols inspired by the trip he took in the early 1950s. The sketches suggest he was experiencing a state of deep concentration, even meditation when creating them. Letters, words and semi-abstract figures come and go throughout the series.
Cy Twombly - Untitled (North African Sketchbook) - 1953 (source: www.matthewmarks.com)
This approach to artistic expression later impacted the burgeoning New York City graffiti scene of the 70s and early 80s, with Jean-Michel Basquiat becoming possibly the most well known artist to emerge from it. With bold colour and energy, he often addressed the discrimination he experienced as a young black man in America – something which set him apart from Dubuffet and Twombly. Perhaps with greater accuracy than them also, Basquiat had an innate ability to express his persona onto the support as if the wild application of paint was an extension of himself pouring out.
Jean-Michel Basquiat - Rubber - 1985
(source: www.sothebys.com)
The freedom that working in these ways can offer enables honest expressions of feelings and emotions. Prioritising spontaneity over precision is an influence these three artists had on artistic approach and is still visible today.
Toe
