Ynotartblog's Blog

“I really like them! These are really nice! Really really nice! Awesome!! The best! A knockout!” I have to write an artist statement. More fitting to use bigger words and less exclamation marks. After much groaning, I wrote and revised a few times the following:

A marble Greek relief of a woman walking, dated 1st century B.C., has inspired my art work in the past few years. For a long time, a copy of it from a book on Greek sculpture laid in a box with assorted cutouts, color paper, and odds and ends. Every so often it would capture my attention and wander off. And then a moment came when I was ready to investigate my fascination with this image. The copy did not go back in the box. The conversation continues.

No question about the beauty of the relief. The graceful pose of the woman caught in mid-step. The soft folds of her clothing. The warmth, silence of her face. The gentle contours of her arms, shoulder, and heel of her lifted bare foot. But what exactly was drawing me again and again to look at this sculpture? Where are my thoughts centered, as I take in the lines, shape, and story of this relief? And how was I to express this fascination? Questions led to more and more work as I happily explored my relationship to this walking figure. What about this woman walking from the past to now was most important? Movement through time? How do I express that? How do I present the wonder of movement in time? How do I use a reduced palette with geometric or simplified forms to evoke time? space? movement?

Art is a way to inquire, to investigate, to create a visual dialogue.

And at the bottom of my statement I quote Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting things.”

Deed done. I could have kept revising, but the deadline came round.

What’s most important, as a friend reminded me, is that I am feeling, yes! really, really good about this show and the direction ahead. So there…  Jaw-droppingly! eye-bulgingly! good. Really.