Journal
Practice & process notes
Occasional writing on my art practice, techniques, process, and the ideas behind the work.
16 articles on symbolism
June 16, 2025
What Dreams Wither
Fresh off the easel today is this new still life, my first classical still life in years, actually--a commission for a dedicated collector of my artwork featuring items of personal significance to her. "What Dreams Wither" oil on linen panel, 12 x 16 inches, 2025 (private collection) It was great fun revisiting these techniques and some dark vanitas subject matter, which was utilized heavily in my "Blood Rituals" series from 2016-20. I consider this painting to be the newest--albeit posthumous--addition to that series. The prominent use of the color pink in this piece is symbolic of innocence, naivete, and femininity, the crumpled tissue paper evoking fragility and gifts unpacked, wrappings tossed aside. The softness of the peony and the sparkling tiara complete the feminine symbolism, which is contrasted by the masculine hardness of the dagger, knife, and marble slab upon which the scene has played out. As with other pieces in the Blood Rituals series my focus is on the aftermath of events; quiet overlooked moments and the ephemera of some unknown human activity. These objects left behind and cluttered in a corner of a cabinet or hutch have a new importance as artifacts, telling the story of innocence lost, illusions pierced by hard truths, wisdom hard-earned through suffering, childhood dreams withered in the cold autumn of adulthood. A subtle nod to Jung and the psychological archetypes is given in the upturned cranial cap, the blood the life force and animator of the self. We spill it and drink it in, and someday it will be all gone. The vanitas still life reminds us of this fleeting cycle, urging us not to lose ourselves in the decay of material pleasures and the flesh, and instead seek the ultimate truth of personal enlightenment.
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August 2, 2023
Run Script: gaiatheory/upload.exe
I. Upload And Transcend Since Vernor Vinge’s work in the 1980s there has been a belief by some that, through an event called the singularity, mankind will in some way leave the organic temporality of this flesh and blood planet to merge with the digital data stream and ascend the eternity of space. The singularity of man and machine, or consciousness and data, seems to be the adaptation by futurist utopians of ancient spiritual traditions whose endgame is enlightenment, or the transcendence of one’s limited human form and consciousness. What interests me most about this lineage of evolving belief systems are not the specific details but the repetition of common themes and their overarching narratives that create universal archetypes which, like a cybernetic feedback loop, help mold and dictate the course of the human species. They are the casting of spells in our collective consciousness by the shamans of every era. II. Mother, Earth The mother archetype of Western culture arguably begins with the Earth goddess Gaia of the ancient Greeks: our home planet personified as a woman who raises and nurtures us. In the 1970s this idea was adapted by James Lovelock and others into a unifying theory that the planet Earth is a highly complex singular organism sustaining all of our lives: The Gaia Hypothesis. In the 20th century, the Earth once again became our expressed need of a mother to guide us, as our civilization simultaneously destroys it and seeks intervention from our short-sighted vices. If climate change studies are to be believed, one resulting popular nihilistic narrative assumes that our poisoning of this planet will likely doom the survivors of our species to cosmic vagabondage, searching the stars for a new mother who might adopt us and nurse us back to health in her embrace. If so, the Gaia Theory of life on this planet will need to be uploaded to the artificial intelligence systems piloting our search for our next home, preserving this crucial knowledge in the substrate of our new digital consciousness. Let us remember and preserve what it means to have a mother, to be nurtured and fed. III. Lineages In Pop Culture and Adornment These concepts of transcendence and the universal Mother are embodied by numerous popular science fiction stories of the hero's quest to transcend their own consciousness, many of which influence my work and this piece in particular. Another idea explored in this piece is our human lineage symbolized by the persistence of ornamental and functional headdresses worn through the ages, from the Pharoahs in the Middle East to tribes in the West and our current and future explorers in the cosmos. The adornment of the head, the home of our internal supercomputer, the source of the mind and the mystery of consciousness, seems to be a universal human understanding and a widely adapted practice. All historical images and cinematic stills are property of their owners and studios; please don’t sue me. Shout out to “Alien,” “Minority Report,” and “Total Recall” (2x). Click the next/back arrows to see more detail images.
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June 22, 2023
Cybernetic Karma Algorithm
"Cybernetic Karma Algorithm" / Oil on Linen Panel / 36 x 18 inches / 2023 The DNA of any two people on Earth is supposedly 99.6 percent identical. If such biological uniformity flies in the face of all of our supposed uniqueness as people, could there also be a universal algorithm determining the course of each of our lives? While the concept of Karma is often used in pop culture as a synonym for punishment based on an entirely subjective concept of deservedness, I believe it to be a description of the infinitely interwoven complexity of causes and conditions in our shared reality, like a universal algorithm churning out most likely results based on combinations of inputs. Under this logic, this very moment, our present selves, are the cumulative result of every decision and choice that we have ever made, that everyone has ever made, of everything that has ever occurred in the universe in an unbroken sequence since the dawn of time. It is not personal, nor does it care about intention any more than it being a lever of probability for certain outcomes. Similarly, identity and individuality has become precious in our culture, but contrary to this popular mythos of self, I often wonder just how few human stories are actually playing out. Swap out a few details of an identical plot or zoom out wide enough and the argument can be made that we are all treading through remarkably similar trauma loops and life trajectories, chasing the reunion of psychological wholeness through universally shared archetypes, like the “more-human-than-the-humans” android hosts of Westworld. A loss for our ego-based individualism, but, oddly, a win for our deepest spiritual truths of empathy and unity. So while our default psychological programming seems to be mostly myopic, I believe you can take a hyperopic look around and see yourself in anyone, because at our base psychological or karmic level we are all more similar than we’d like to believe, perhaps merely living out minutely subtle variations of a cybernetic formula so vast it becomes opaque to our biologically limited perception. The individuality of a being is a certain intricate form, not an enduring substance. In order to understand an organism, it must be thought of as a pattern which maintains itself through homeostasis – life continues by maintaining an internal balance of various factors such as temperature and molecular structure. While the material substances that compose a living being may be constantly replaced by nearly identical ones, an organism continues functioning with the same identity as long as the pattern is kept sufficiently intact. Since patterns can be transmitted, modified, or duplicated, they are therefore a kind of information. Based on this, Wiener suggests it should be theoretically possible to transmit the entirety of a living person as a message (which is practically indistinguishable from the concept of physical teleportation) – although he admits that the obstacles to such a process would be great, because of the enormous amount of information embodied in a person, and the difficulty of reading or writing it. control and communication in the animal and the machine "society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are destined to play an ever-increasing part." –Norbert Wiener the ability to cure all temporary truth of eternal triteness manipulating defensible metaphors creating equilibrium in a world of constraints and possibilities the science and art of understanding Influences and Inspirations The human machine Cybernetics is a wide-ranging scientific and philosophical field concerned with circular causal processes such as feedback, where the observed outcomes of actions are taken as inputs for further action in ways that support the pursuit and maintenance of particular conditions or their disruption, forming a circular causal relationship. In other words, actions, consequences, and lessons learned. Karma? The detective's bulletin board: an enduring showbiz cliché......not unlike the digital versions we all now use: windows of the soul © New Line Cinema / Se7en How few human stories? Jung's diagram of the self Bondage, fruition, expression © 20th Century Fox / Minority Report © 20th The Walt Disney Company / Family Guy algorithm [ al-g uh -ri th-uh m ] noun Mathematics. a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps, such as the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor. Computers. an ordered set of instructions recursively applied to transform data input into processed data output, such as a mathematical solution, search engine result, descriptive statistics, or predictive text suggestions.
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March 15, 2023
The Three Hands Of God
A triptych spanning 12 years and a few different eras of my painting and stylistic evolution, this trio of paintings addresses the tense and often fraught human relationship with power, and in particular the power of forces beyond our control–those within us, in our world, and the cosmos beyond. The concept for the original version occurred to me in 2010 while working on a series of paintings featuring surgical subject matter as a metaphor for the reductionist, manifest destined worldview I saw as predominant in American culture at the time. In this first iteration, the massive hand of the elite neocon / neolib political and cultural caste imposes its will on the flesh of this world. A few years later, in the wake of several natural and man-made disasters in the American Gulf region and beyond, while reckoning personally with the ideas of climate change and ecological destruction I saw as resulting from the worldview described above, I revisited the concept with another surgeon's hand, this time piercing the fragile veil of our atmosphere to wreak its destruction with pinpoint cruelty on the Earth. In this second iteration, the cosmic viewpoint of our planet leaves all of our insignificant and fleeting individual lives too tiny to be depicted or acknowledged. "The operation succeeded, but the patient died." In the decade that passed since that 2013 painting, so much internally and externally had changed, that when the spark of inspiration for this concept struck me again I knew I had to act on it, if for no other reason than to ironically demonstrate that in fact, nothing has actually changed. Our planet is still being destroyed, still largely by our own doing, and those same powerful cultural forces I believe to be the cause of this destruction still exist, perhaps in new forms. The present always suffers the consequences of the mistakes of the past. As if to drive this point home even further, in a regretful twist of life imitating art imitating life, a series of massive earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria at the very time I was painting the rubble of collapsed buildings depicted in the third Hand Of God installment. This poignant connection of symbolism grew more monstrous still, when a train derailment due to greed and negligence caused a toxic chemical spill in Palestine, Ohio at the very time I was painting toxic waste oozing from a broken pipe into a pristine river. At times like these, it seems as though the hand of God might very well indeed be that of a gloved cartoon mouse, amusing itself with sick jokes of frivolous caricatured violence that threaten our very existence. Finding reassurance amidst the destruction we are forced to bear witness to and solace amidst the shattered loves we must endure feels like a Where's Waldo search for our better selves. “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down / the master’s finest, finest tools are found / slack-jawed and placid amidst the cacophony / of screaming billboards and Disney-fied history” —Propagandhi, “Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes” As a sensitive and perceptive person, the angst and despair caused by all of this is something I've always wrestled with, and in eras past I took these emotional states out on myself and my closest relationships. But I've slowly learned healthier ways of processing grief while examining my relationship to power and my attempts to control that which I fundamentally cannot. One of these methods is of course, to make paintings about it, to transmute the inner state of grief into an external communication that may draw awareness to the most pressing issues of our time so that we can continue to examine ourselves and course-correct where we're headed. There is a little flame of hope that burns at the heart of all that, and it's a feeling I try to guard fiercely while harnessing its warmth as a positivity that drives me onward, "unburied, death-defying, unbowed."
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May 7, 2017
Blood Rituals: Redux
Photoshoots for last year’s Blood Rituals series of still life paintings yielded several interesting macros which did not fit the aesthetic of classical still life that evolved out of my initial brainstorming sessions. I extracted four compositions from these photos, and after perfecting them in the digital darkroom, recreated them as hyperrealist oil paintings. This miniseries pursues a different avenue of exploration of the same subject matter, presenting another aspect of my artistic vision and skill set as a painter. These claustrophobic and intimate closeups border on the abstract, as the complex color patterns of wrinkled plastic bags and condensation covered glass lose their original context of setting and scenery. Within this unfamiliar space, the jarring appearance of blood is a beautiful, rich and vibrant color that makes these compositions pop, while providing symbolic depth. The narrative of what’s happening and why is largely absent from these images–intentionally–as they strive for a disorienting sense of wonder by honoring the genre of true photorealism. Uncanny likeness to the “real” provides an illusion that in turn may open up new ways of perceiving the ordinary, mundane objects of the world around us. Our physical reality contains infinite detail, but to help us move efficiently through the world, our brains eliminate much of what our eyes are capable of perceiving. When given an up close, sustained glimpse of the material complexity we inhabit, the result is often overwhelming, surreal, and disorienting, as our simplified view explodes with new detail. This is the point at which assumptions and certainties are compelled to crumble, opening the intellectual space for new truths to be realized and deeper understanding to form. BLOOD RITUALS: REDUX (untitled), oil on linen panel, 8 x 10 inches, 2016 (untitled), oil on linen panel, 8 x 10 inches, 2016 (untitled), oil on linen panel, 8 x 10 inches, 2016 (untitled), oil on linen panel, 8 x 10 inches, 2017
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December 26, 2016
Blood Rituals Review, Part 2
After completing the review of my recent gallery show that I mentioned in my last blog post, staff writer at tattoodo.com Ross Howerton sent me some more in depth questions to learn more about the origins of the series. This interview made it into another stellar review of the exhibit on tattoodo.com, which you can read at the following link: “These insanely realistic still lifes at Sacred Tattoo tap into mankind’s deepest veins.” Source: Nick Baxter Draws Inspiration from His Own Blood | Tattoodo Banquet Of Suffering, oil on panel, 18 x 24 inches, 2016 For even more in-depth commentary that didn’t make it into the article, here is the complete interview: RH: How does working in different mediums, like tattooing and painting, affect you artistically? NB: Each medium feeds off of and informs the other, in a cycle of experimentation and learning that results in a more well-rounded skillset. RH: What is your favorite medium to work in? NB: For pure, unfiltered expression with deep symbolism I prefer painting, but for more illustrative or graphic work, and especially for the collaborative creative process between client and artist, tattoos are a perfect outlet for other aspects of my creativity. RH: As far as painting goes, you seem to have a preference for working in realism; why is that? NB: I love form—the way light illuminates the world we perceive—and I love seeing the illusion of a reality that’s so convincing it can transport your mind into the world of the painting. There’s a subtler aspect of realism that I also enjoy, which occurs with the most convincing pictorial illusions: that brief moment of disorienting wonder, a tiny temporary crack in the veneer of mundane certainty when the viewer who thought they were looking at a photograph realizes that’s not at all what it is. I’ve heard that moment described as the point where “emotional certainties waver, and taste loses its bearings.” I like trying to access that vulnerable place with what I do, I think an artwork can be impactful there. RH: How and why did you first become inspired to use your own blood as a reference point for your oil paintings in Blood Rituals MMXVI? NB: For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by the human body, the medical sciences, and all that’s hidden within us that makes us what we are. Blood in particular is such a powerful and universal symbol of life, and ironically, of death as well. I wrote in my artist statement for the exhibit at Sacred Gallery in New York City that blood “is the liquid life force that feeds our physical vessel, the container of our soul. Its hidden presence sustains us; the breach beyond its borders horrifies us. It plays an ever-present and meaningful role in the human lexicon, as a symbol of love and sacrifice, of familial bond and battle alike, its deep scarlet hue representative of passion and our most powerful, primal urges.” I’ve had my share of exposure to it through routine bloodletting procedures I must undergo for a condition of iron overloading in my blood called Hemochromatosis. Over the years I’ve compiled quite a nice collection of reference material from these sessions, which of course set the creative gears in motion over what to make with it, and eventually the idea of the Blood Rituals series was sparked. Luckily I had the help of my dear phlebotomist friend through this process, and her arm appears in the exhibit’s large centerpiece painting as the only bit of a human figure depicted in the entire series. But one of my primary goals, or hopes, with this series is to use blood imagery and symbolism in a way that doesn’t evoke the shock value of gore or the campiness of the horror genre, and I’m not trying to comment on a specific medical condition or treatment. So I wanted to surround it with unlikely juxtapositions and temper its visual power with an understated classical sensibility. My use of blood-related subject matter has several layers of symbolism, from personal struggle and loss to the brutality inherent in all human civilizations, ancient and modern. I hope these images cut through any immediate reactions of fright or repulsion to access the vulnerable state of emotional freshness or tenderness that lies at the core of all our psyches. The fact that it intersects with my personal life makes blood more powerful for me as subject matter, and I hope some of that translates to the viewer. RH: What was it like doing such an intensive artistic study on your own blood? NB: I had a lot of fun with it. Blood is just fun to paint, because it’s a living liquid that does so many things. Of course it’s visceral and shiny and incredibly vibrant in color, but it also separates, clots, coagulates, dries and cracks, forms bubbles, changes color. It presents so many great artistic possibilities, to say nothing of its powerful symbolic potential. RH: Why did you choose to paint only still lifes for Blood Rituals MMXVI? NB: Still life is my original genre, the one I learned foremost in art school and have the most comfort and familiarity with. I love the other classical genres too though, so I included a small nod to landscapes and figurative work in the series’ large centerpiece mentioned above, called Pull Me Through Time. RH: Do you consider the paintings in Blood Rituals MMXVI as still lifes or self-portraits? NB: Primarily they’re still lifes, as most of the symbolism is impersonal enough to have universal meaning, and many of the arrangements are mysterious enough to invite multiple narratives or interpretations. However, they are all quite intimate to me, carrying personal narratives inspired by certain events and struggles in my life, featuring various objects I’ve collected over the years. And needless to say, the blood I used for reference is me, in a very literal and existential way. One of the paintings is actually intended to be a much more direct reference to the self-portrait, and it’s titled as such. The viewer is invited to interpret the objects as parts of me and the arrangement as representative of my existence. RH: How would you recommend that viewers try to interpret the profound oil paintings in Blood Rituals MMXVI? NB: I love when people viewing my work engage with it deeply enough, and are informed enough generally about visual art, to formulate their own ideas about it. Hearing these is always fascinating to me; they’re like a mirror, reflecting back to me the effects of my visual communication, the aspects of it or elements within it that spoke something to someone. As an artist and a maker of visual communication, I can always learn valuable insights from these. On the other hand, I created this series with a very specific artistic vision and a premeditated intention, and with that comes the desire for people to engage with the images from a certain mindset. There are layers of symbolism and art-historical references that some viewers probably wouldn’t know how to decode without some prompting, so I included the artist statement quoted above with the exhibition, for those curious to know where I’m coming from. Aside from the statement, when a viewer sees the gallery show, I’d feel like the works achieved their aim if that viewer felt a quiet somber darkness, and the existential sadness of loss, which is something all the paintings depict in one form or another. The blood is lost from the body, the weathered shelves and rusted metal have lost their former shine, the skulls and various bones, the wilted flowers, the tattered books—all have lost. But all still remain. I imagine viewers perhaps also piecing together a loose semblance of a story being told by the remnants of some mysterious recent event—the artifacts left behind in the form of a still life arrangement. But I don’t need them necessarily to feel what I feel, or anything in particular, I just hope that they feel something. RH: Just to give us a sense of the symbolism behind your still lifes, what meaning do you intend a piece like “Banquet of Suffering” to convey? NB: Speaking of stories, I wrote a short parable about that particular piece, as an accompaniment to a future publishing of the series in book form: “In a world much like ours, there was a race of conquerors who spread death far and wide to finance their empire. They drained all the land of its lifeblood to hoard it for themselves and hunted those who dared oppose, a once vibrant population now reduced to a grizzled band of vagabonds and scavengers. One autumn eve, as frost turned the last of the green to black and night descended, this race of false heirophants and infant gods and gluttons gathered for a feast to celebrate their conquest. Drunk with power, intoxicated by greed, they gorged themselves deep into the night. Grown soft in their decadence, gloating in their spoils, they grew accustomed to the dark–indeed, foolishly thought their revelry would never end. But eventually the morning did come, as it always does. In the cool dawn, scavengers found the remnants of depraved merriment: a candle still burning, blood still fresh in silver bowls, chunks of bread and flesh as if frozen in mid-bite. They ate from the scraps and sipped cautiously, weary and watching for their vanished oppressors. As the rising sun revealed the murky depths of the banquet hall, they saw the bloated corpses, and realized with sudden relief that they were safe: the conquerors had gorged themselves to death.” RH: Do you have a favorite painting from Blood Rituals MMXVI and why? NB: I don’t have a favorite. I think some are more successful on an artistic level than others, in terms of vision and execution, but this is just a technical self-critique. Each piece carries its own particular meaning for me, and the process of developing each into its final form contains a series of memories, problem solving, and minor struggles, so they are all important and meaningful to me in unique ways. RH: What draws you to painting landscapes? NB: I’ve always been a nature lover, plain and simple, with an explorer’s urge instilled in me by my father, to adventure in the lesser-traveled and wild places of this planet. I’ve been determined lately to combine this with my artistic passion, so painting landscapes is a natural fusion of two important parts of myself. I especially enjoy the raw directness of plein air painting, which is an old term meaning on location, out in the elements. It’s a great counterpart to my controlled finesse process of studio painting. RH: As a painter and tattooist, who and what are some of your greatest influences? NB: Classical realism painters from antiquity and modern times, photorealism and its various offshoots beginning in the 60’s and 70’s, and too many other genres, periods, muses, artists, and amazing tattooers to name. I’m lucky to call some of them friends and colleagues. RH: Do you have any other art projects currently in progress and, if so, what? NB: For now, I’m just continuing to paint a few more related still life ideas that couldn’t make the gallery show deadline, as well as attempting some more complex and larger scale landscapes. Additionally, I ended up culling a few pieces from the Blood Rituals series in order to keep the desired aesthetic and narrative intact, as a few of them veered into pure photorealism and lost touch with classical still life. In the future those outcasts will form their own offshoot series, since I love photorealism just as much as I love classical realism, and they turned out just as good as the ones that made it into the series.
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December 26, 2015
Soul
The inspiration for this painting came largely from oysters and their far more notorious contents: pearls. The pearl has been a symbol of magic and purity throughout antiquity and across many varied cultures, from Western religions like Christianity to Eastern spiritual traditions such as Buddhism. Soul thumbnail sketch, ink on paper. In this painting a pearlescent lump of vibrant, growing flesh represents the human “soul,” or the mysterious essence of life that animates the decaying physical body, and for which modern science still has no complete understanding or explanation. Quite ironically, the only representation of this lifeforce that we mortals seem able to discern with any reliability is its supposed opposite: the physical embodiment. Here, its life-giving energy is co-opted by the encasement of confining machinery, which can be seen as representing the limited human form, and in a broader sense, the inescapable yet corroded impositions of society and culture. Soul, 11 x 14 inches, oil on mounted linen panel, 2015 The contrast between the hard and soft elements of this picture illustrates the human struggle to find meaning and fulfillment in the precarious balancing of vulnerability and armament. The title Soul references the mystery of what it is that makes our atoms vibrate with life, and our consciousness self-aware.
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April 26, 2015
Singularity
Singularity, oil on canvas, 18 x 20 inches, 2014-15 Here’s the recently completed work mentioned in my last blog post. Mankind’s increasingly intimate yet perilous relationship with technology and machines is the idea I’m working with here, and would like to explore further… Realized with influence from creative sources such as Ray Kurzweil Michel Foucault (“biopower”) Neill Blomkamp Guy DeBord H.R. Giger Terminator © franchise Metal and Industrial music Postmodern alienation Medical-industrial complex That’s all for now, but more soon!
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July 27, 2013
What Is Art? (Part 1.5): An Integral Approach
In a delightful twist of fate last week, an email appeared on my computer screen (via my subscription to the Core Integral newsletter) that advanced and expanded the concepts I attempted to shed light on with my last blog post, about what art is and how to use it as an effective communication. So, in an impromptu Part 1.5 of my ongoing inquiry, here is the text of that newsletter with a link to the lecture it refers to, followed by a brief review of its major concepts. “Think of a piece of art that you are particularly struck by. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be a painting, a piece of music, a film, or any other expression of beauty that you find yourself impressed with or inspired by. Visualize the piece in your mind’s eye—or, if you like, open a new tab in your web browser and Google it, so it’s right in front of you. As you admire your preferred object of beauty, ask yourself a simple question: how can I tell what this means? How do you answer? a) The meaning can be found in the original intent of the artist. If I want to know what a piece of art means, I should simply ask the artist. b) The meaning can be found in the artwork itself. The artwork is a whole unto itself, and everything I need to understand it is fully present in the actual piece of art. c) The meaning can be found in the response of the viewer, which means that a single piece of art can have multiple meanings, depending on who happens to be observing it. d) The meaning can be found in all the social circumstances surrounding the artist, since no artwork is created in a vacuum. If you want to know what a piece of art means, you need to consider where and when it was made, its historic and techno-economic influences, etc. e) All of the above. If you answered “all of the above” there’s a very good chance this talk is for you. But here’s the weird thing: people don’t always know that’s even an option. In fact, it’s still overlooked most of the time. Most artists, philosophers, and critics have devoted their entire lives and careers to just one of the first four choices, while passionately trying to negate the others. Listen as Ken describes each of these major schools of interpretation, how they originated, and how they all fit together into a more cohesive vision of art and aesthetics.” (An audio file of Ken’s talk can be streamed here. ) In this hour lecture, leading Integral philosopher Ken Wilber talks about the various schools of artistic interpretation that have arisen in the past few hundred years, and how each used in isolation is inadequate as a means of reaching the deepest or most comprehensive appreciation of visual art. He gives the historical and cultural context surrounding such movements as Formalism (too dismissive of an artist’s intention), Romanticism (too dismissive of external social forces), and other useful but incomplete -isms that have made major contributions to the art world. Ken argues that one must integrate as many of these schools of thought as possible, in order to build a more complete framework for understanding (or creating) art that accesses knowledge from each of the “4 Quadrants” that comprise reality (interior, exterior, individual, and collective). Ken Wilber’s theory states that all art is created by a combination of all 4 quadrants of reality, and therefore can only be fully understood with knowledge derived from all 4 quadrants. He refers to the concept of artistic intention quite a bit, which I was thrilled to hear from a non-artist, since increasing the level of intentionality that I paint with has been one of my areas of focus for the past few years (which I mentioned as part of my internal dialogue in Part 1: Self Inquiry ). What intention requires, as Ken eludes to, is knowledge and context: a framework of understanding broad enough to shed light on all the different choices an artist can make. The opposite of intention is what I’ve experienced as “the manifestation of indecision,” a state of ignorance or naiveté in which the art-making process resorts to blind instinct and shot-in-the-dark crapshoots that one merely hopes will look good or manage to communicate something in the end. What Ken doesn’t mention is that understanding all of this, of course, requires a level of motivation (to spend time learning) that perhaps only the most dedicated artists or enthusiasts would possess. So while I thoroughly appreciate his critique and advice, I feel it’s a bit of wishful thinking–if not a bit patronizing as well–and in being “over the heads” of many laypersons, it therefore still won’t solve the great debate for most. But if you’re an ultra art nerd like I am, and have a quiet hour to devote to a dry intellectual oration, you will love the complex yet logical perspective Ken offers as his answer to the questions “What is art?” and “How do we make sense of it?” “You really need to have a comprehensive philosophy of reality if you’re going to [effectively] interpret the meaning of art, because all of these dimensions impact an artwork, and therefore are part of the art’s meaning. And if you’re going to unfold that meaning, then you have to have a really rich, comprehensive philosophy of contexts.” –Ken Wilber
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July 13, 2013
What Is Art? (Part 1): Self Inquiry
“If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” This is the kind of existential crisis I circumnavigate when considering (read: having anxiety about) the effectiveness of my paintings and the symbolism I choose to communicate with. Am I effectively expressing my intended meaning? And is my intended meaning aligning with the viewer’s perceived meaning? Does it even matter? It can be argued that what makes something art is the group participatory act; it almost always requires someone other than its creator to see it. Art is, in general terms, a unit of cultural information that is put forth by participant A, and taken in by participant B. Hence, a communication. Always. A message is always put out, whether the artist intends to or not. This visual communication is even more fundamental than our ever-present and taken for granted verbal communication. At its most primal level, visual art certainly is more direct–it’s sub-verbal, it requires no complicating exchange of written or oral language. But, contemporary art in the postmodern era is often maddeningly indirect and complicated. A product of an exceedingly complex society, annd having been created either intentionally or instinctively on the foundations of modern philosophical thought spanning hundreds of years, it does actually beg the need in the viewer for a more advanced knowledge of the visual language of symbolism and metaphor. That red means “stop” or “danger” or “look here!” is basic and even primal knowledge. That a picture of surgeon’s hands manipulating opened flesh might symbolize the oppression of technological civilization and the material-reductionist paradigm which has separated spirit from matter and meaning from life is quite frankly, a lot less obvious to all but the most studied art critics and curators. That’s where the ‘art as communication’ issue gets complicated and sticky…and so necessary for any conscientious or ambitious artist to ponder. Anointing, oil on panel, 24 x 24 in, 2012 Having established all of this, I ask myself again the artist’s version of the tree falling question, “What is art?” In the case of visual art, I follow this line of inquiry to a fork in the road separating the act of creation from the result of creation or the art object, the painting that hangs on the wall. So when I ask myself what art is, I must remember this important distinction (thanks to the clumsy imprecision of the everyday English vernacular), because what I discover that I really mean is: what is an art object? I then find that this line of inquiry opens up the need for even more distinctions: Does intention make something art? Meaning, the creator intends the work being produced to carry a conceptual pretense, some kind of idea or symbolism beyond the literal depiction or the physical, material object. In such cases where there is presumably no overt artistic intention (such as photojournalism*, the simple documenting of events), does viewer perception make it art, retroactively? Following the postmodern ethics of subjectivity, a viewer’s perception can not be disproven; if someone says it’s art, then for all intents and purposes, it is…to them. (Insert Dada and Duchamp’s controversial urinal into the debate here.) So I guess what all this means is that part of my ongoing refinement as an artist is a constant evaluation of my message, its truthfulness, and its effectiveness, and in order to do this I have to dig deep into the world of art theory to prove or disprove–and IMprove–what I’ve done. What am I intending to say, and what do viewers think I’m saying based on the feedback I’ve received**? Do the two match up? If they diverge, how and (maybe more importantly) why? What symbolism and what artistic strategies can I experiment with to bring intention and perception into alignment to produce powerful, life-altering, inspiring communication? *Sometime between now and forever I’ll write about my love for this “artform” and the unintentional masterpiece in What Is Art? (Part 2): Photojournalism ** Praise be to the all-important critique session!
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April 24, 2013
Art From The Edge
My friend Addie over at Fuck Yeah Mad Pride clued me in to a fascinating blog featuring the art of people considered to be in extreme mental states, called Art From The Edge. Having made some art in years past while in some of these natural, non drug-related “edge states” I find this blog incredibly interesting, and it should be relevant to anyone addressing issues surrounding mental health in our society, or dealing with their own mental health issues. I can’t help but think of the recent Sandy Hook school shooting in my original home state of Connecticut, which recently brought these issues to the forefront of a national debate. Did the perpetrator of this unnecessary tragedy have a nonviolent, creative form of self expression–such as visual art–as an outlet? Could future massacres be prevented with more awareness of edge states and the role that creating art can play in diffusing and communicating difficult emotions? One glance through my paintings, with their intense nature, and one could easily conclude what I already know firsthand: how effective and therapeutic creating art indeed is. Included on the Art From The Edge blog is a beautiful explanation of its purpose and conceptual background, to which I would only do a disservice in trying to paraphrase with my own awkward writing style, so here it is: Art from the Edge, a virtual gallery and resource center by the creators of the Serious Mental Illness blog, is a blog dedicated to art created in and about extreme mental states. It is an open and public world wide forum for artists to share their visual and written works and their personal stories with all those interested in the connection between creativity and “edge” states. Much like art, which exists in a multitude of mediums and forms of expression, there are a plurality of “edge” states that inspire the artists who harbor them. For this reason, we leave the term completely open to our community’s interpretation, knowing from research and experience that this state could be driven by psychosis or trauma, or an altered state induced by drugs. It could be the offshoot of extreme depression or grief, or the aftermath of a spiritual or mystical state of consciousness. Ultimately, we are interested in the artist’s individual experience and in his or her sense of what it is that drove the creative act. The link between creativity and extreme states was first discussed by Aristotle who said that “There never has been a genius without a touch of madness.” Cesare Lombroso, an Italian criminologist, was the first to give this link a public platform by assembling a large collection of psychiatric art in the 1880s. He claimed that “Genius is one of the many forms of insanity” (Seldes, 1996, p. 102). A now substantial and ever-growing body of research is empirically verifying the strong connection between mental illness and creativity (Waddell, 1997). Post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh, the quintessential mad artist, experienced prolonged episodes of depression and possibly psychosis, spent considerable amounts of time in psychiatric facilities, and famously cut off his ear. The life and works of Van Gogh, as well as those of Sylvia Plath, Jackson Pollock, Martín Ramírez, Ludwig van Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Judy Garland, Robert Schumann, a few among many, suggest that creative genius is often accompanied by extreme mental states. Art from the Edge does not assume that all art has its roots in extreme states, nor does it champion the idea that all artists experience or have experienced extreme states. Its main purpose is to be a place for such art to be appreciated and for such artists to be heard––on their own terms. My 2010 painting Progression Through Unlearning (oil on panel, 12 x 12in) features the symbolism of scars and tangled audio tape to represent the personal struggle to overcome internalized negative messages received during childhood.
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April 5, 2013
Endgame IV
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, and resisted containment for an agonizing and appalling 87 days. By the time its crude flow was contained on July 15, 2010 it was considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Its effects on the Gulf ecosystem–already compromised by ruthless industry–are still felt today. Photograph: U.S. Coast Guard Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP Likewise, I still feel the knot in my stomach and the lump in my throat whenever I revisit those infamous photos of oil-slicked turtles and birds, and the brown stain spreading across crystal blue waters. With no small amount of internal conflict I revel at the heartbreakingly beautiful shots of fluffy smoke plumes ascending from a smooth field of blue that recedes forever in all directions, melting into a milky white ozone haze…the artistic serenity of the scenes always belied the senseless threat to life that I couldn’t help but know was unfolding. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP Equally inspired by both fragile beauty and tragic destruction, I recently painted another in my emerging series of vessels and catastrophe, with a working title of Endgame IV: Endgame IV, oil on panel, 12 x 24in, 2013 Endgame IV (detail) Meanwhile, lessons that could have been learned by the ultra-powerful, the elites, the vanguards of corporate capitalism have fallen by the wayside. Right now in my current home of Texas, a foreign corporation, TransCanada, is using the supposed 5th Amendment right of eminent domain to confiscate private land belonging to Americans in order to build a massive oil pipeline called the Keystone XL. This new profit artery will enable TransCanada to transport oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, in order to sell it to countries around the world. This is, not surprisingly, what got me thinking about and eventually revisiting those Deepwater Horizon photos again during my continued search for reference material for this developing series. As the status quo marches on, Our world, like the pristine and fragile vessel poised on the verge of ruin, is left to wonder: is the next deepwater disaster on the horizon?
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February 2, 2013
New Vessels
Lately I’ve been brainstorming and refining a new artistic vision, taking the opportunity of any downtime between large surgery paintings to complete some smaller, fast-paced still lifes with a much different palette and ambiance. These pieces utilize clean forms and simple compositions, attempting a confluence of opposites to symbolize the precarity of industrial civilization in the new millennium, the increasing sense of dread among many who see the global destructiveness and the coming end of late-stage capitalism: Serenity and catastrophe…the mundane and the dramatic…solidity and ethereality. Like much of my work these pieces are also influenced by Buddhist philosophy, with smooth surfaces representing the perfection of form that simultaneously experiences impermanence: smoke, flames, and ultimately, annihilation. These vessels are bodies facing their inevitable destruction through aging, inflammation and disease. These vessels are the purification of the ego, burning away its own delusion and illusion. Endgame II, oil on panel, 6 x 7in, 2012 Endgame III, oil on board, 6.5 x 7.5in, 2012-13 This budding series is an expansion and evolution of the themes broached in another less recent painting, which of course is also a metaphor for the edifices of civilization and their approaching collapse; the rise and fall of human achievement: Endgame I, oil on canvas, 5 x 7in, 2009-12 My plan (completely subject to change in the winds of artistic inspiration or be ground in the gears of other life obligations) is to continue to refine these concepts and build up to scenes of larger scale and higher complexity, as I wind down my Apostasy series this year. Who knows what will actually happen, but I’m excited and nervous about finding new challenges. So stay tuned for more updates on both endeavors. Small, medium, and large…
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November 15, 2012
In Review: Union of Art and Sport
The Rules of Basketball: Works by Paul Pfeiffer and James Naismith’s “Original Rules of Basket Ball” September 16 – January 13, 2013 Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin In an unlikely combination of history and psychology, this exhibit pairs basketball inventor James Naismith’s 1891 document “Original Rules of Basket Ball” with contemporary artist Paul Pfeiffer’s basketball themed digital works. In hindsight, the Naismith material seems like it’d be merely a passing curiosity for most, and only significant for true sports geeks and devout basketball fans, as the real philosophical and entertaining meat of the exhibit is the collection of work by Paul Pfeiffer. This basketball-specific compilation of pieces is dominated by enormous C-prints of mostly vintage and notable game photographs whose removed logos, names, and team colors imbue them with the ghostly hollow silence of a haunted house. Interspersed among these are tiny viewing vessels affixed to the walls, where short-length video clips run in fast highlight-reel styled loops. Pfeiffer’s knack for selecting just the right 3 seconds of game footage to convey his symbolism is evident in the same unexpected walk-through-a-graveyard, eerie feeling they impart. Some of the images and video border on absurd, utilizing the unreal juxtaposition of blanked-out team jerseys with highly memorable sporting moments. Taking all of this in, I found myself suppressing alternating fits of amused, snickering laughter, chest-vibrating tension, and fond childhood sentimentality. Paul Pfeiffer Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (08), 2005 Fujiflex digital C print, 60 x 48 in. Collection Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman NY, Courtesy The FLAG Art Foundation ©Paul Pfeiffer. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Like nearly all contemporary art, this work is primarily conceptual, deeply embedded within the theoretical realm of symbolism rather than in the organic lineage of traditional craftsmanship…what most tend to quickly appreciate as “skill.” As such, sadly, only the most informed viewers are likely to truly appreciate the full significance of what the artist has made (“Some photoshopped video clips–so what?”). And this, of course, embodies so much of what’s wrong with art in postmodern society, and isn’t necessarily the average viewer’s fault (but that debate gets complicated, and needs its own future blog post or 7). But, as guest curator for the Blanton exhibit Regine Basha insightfully describes, “Paul Pfeiffer frames media, spectacle, and masculinity [and, I’d add–race] in a way that sheds new light on the game of basketball.” His clever digital work “adopts today’s frenetic visual language in order to consider the role that mass media plays in shaping consciousness,” according to the exhibit’s press release. As such, Pfeiffer’s retouched photographs and manipulated video clips are sneakily at the epicenter of some of the most pressing and pivotal conflicts smoldering, unresolved, in the heart of our first-world empire of consumption and spectacle. In Germany in 2000 the Kunst-Werke Berlin e.V., Institute for Contemporary Art, presented the first comprehensive one-man-show of Paul Pfeiffer, offering a beautiful description of his symbolism and process: Pfeiffer’s digital videos are “moving still-lives,” challenging human perception as well as exploring long-standing issues of painting. Due to the accelerated repetition of short sequences, the essential codes of perception, such as the instant recognition of fore- and background, depth and surface, motion and unmoving, blur or cease to be of relevance. For example, in JOHN 3:16 Pfeiffer took found video footage of a basketball game and re-edited it in order to place the ball in the central foreground of the screen with the play swirling around it. The seeming fluidity of the image belies the painstaking nature of the production process: over 5000 individual video frames have been enlarged and repositioned to create the moving image of a ball in play. ( http://kw-berlin.com/deutsch/archiv/pfe/pfe.html ) As a lifelong sports fan, artist, and cultural deconstructionist I had three inherent and unlikely leverage points with which to appreciate this exhibit. Having long ago dissolved the barriers of the self-limiting, culturally-reinforced disparity between “jock” and “artist” stereotypes/archetypes within myself, I felt as though Pfeiffer’s work was made for–and was speaking intimately to– me. I was thrilled to stumble upon these eerily-altered iconic sports images on my recent museum trip, having planned my visit around the Blanton’s simultaneous exhibit of classic Western Americana paintings. Fragment of a Crucifixion (after Francis Bacon), 1999 (Filmstill) ©Paul Pfeiffer In one short video clip that’s both instantly terrifying and hilarious, digital editing and repetition turn the post-dunk celebratory scream of a basketball player into an unnerving, awkwardly aggressive expression of rage. What gives this art added significance to me–perhaps belying the original intent of the artist, who has purposefully removed any team, league, corporate or personal identifiers from the scene–is that I know the basketball player is former college and pro star Larry Johnson, who in Pfeiffer’s video was playing for the Charlotte Hornets, and whose promising career was disappointingly cut short due to injury. I used to watch him enact that primal ritual on live TV as a child, reveling in his athletic prowess, imitating it in my makeshift driveway basketball court, and collecting his basketball cards. It’s in this sentimentality that the work touches a deeper human chord within me, and I feel like a participant in Pfeiffer’s visions, embodying a small part of the very unresolved conflicts that his work calls forth.
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October 1, 2012
Influences 2
Light Shines Through was a painting I completed in 2010 for a group exhibition memorializing artist and tattooer Monica Henk, whose life was tragically cut short in a still-unsolved NYC hit and run incident. Featuring a surreal depiction of one of Monica’s favorite pieces of jewelry, this piece is about the persistence of hope, and a belief in the triumph of mankind despite the potential for monumental sadness and suffering inherent in the human condition. Light Shines Through, oil on panel, 2010, 12in x 12in One of the original inspirations for my choice of theme and symbolism in this commemorative painting was the writing of pioneering logotherapy psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. A Jewish holocaust surviver, whose harrowing memoir of life and death in a Nazi concentration camp is a moving description of the unbreakable human spirit, Frankl’s work has been an ongoing influence in my art. Throughout Man’s Search For Meaning he describes his observations, and concludes: We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves. Reiterating his powerful analysis, Frankl again poses the question and answers: How…can life retain its potential meaning in spite of its tragic aspects? After all, ‘saying yes to life in spite of everything’…presupposes that life is potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable. And this in turn presupposes the human capacity to creatively turn life’s negative aspects into something positive or constructive. In other words, what matters is to make the best of any given situation. … That is, an optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best always allows for: (1) turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment; (2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action. Though the hardships I’ve faced pale in comparison to his plight, my paintings have always been part of an over-arching narrative searching for meaning in suffering, and the process of finding hope through often difficult personal transformation. As such, I believe Frankl’s work appeared in my life quite auspiciously via energetic resonance rather than random coincidence (this, of course, in observance of the universal “law of attraction”). To my delight, this quantum phenomenon reared its head again when my recent foray into the Integral work of Ken Wilber revealed an unexpected connection to the symbolism of this painting, inspiring me to revisit and feature it here. Specifically, it was Wilber’s use of a poignant Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, which features the title of the painting and summarizes it perfectly: From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.
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July 28, 2012
The Inquisition
Painting #11 from The Apostasy series, finished a few weeks ago: “The Inquisition”, oil on panel, 12 x 12in, 2012 I wrote about some of the aesthetic decisions made during the painting process here. Regarding symbolism, this piece–along with “First Judgement”–deal with gender and the genesis of personal identity. For all domesticated humans born in hospitals, there is no escaping this moment of truth, which begins a lifelong process of psychological conditioning by the all-seeing eye of culture. To be binary: male or female. Gender assigned and reinforced. A life indoctrinated, molded. An inquisition of the vulnerable by archetypes of power, the first judgement (literally) marks the first loss of innocence, the beginning of a differentiation between self and other that many spend a lifetime trying to erase, or simply comprehend. And what of the uncertain ones? The ambiguous? Born damaged or incomplete? What happens when the wrong judgement is handed down? What happens when the gender binary facade is shattered at birth…when the entire construct collapses later in life? When we get sick of playing our roles? Get sick of enforcing the roles on others? Who do we find at all, when we question who we are underneath all that we cling to? “First Judgement”, oil on panel, 12 x 12in, 2012
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