I've recently been realizing that my work as a whole is taking on aspects of a myth or narrative I thought in the beginning was no longer possible. Wallace Stevens in a poem says it like this.
A mythology reflects its region. Here
In Connecticut, we never lived in a time
When mythology was possible -- But if we had --
That raises the question of the image's truth.
The image must be of the nature of its creator.
It is the nature of its creator increased,
Heightened. It is he, anew, in a freshed youth
And it is he in the substance of his region,
Wood of his forest and stone out of his fields
Or from under his mountain.
—Wallace Stevens, A Mythology Reflects Its Region.
My first ideas about Art had to do with drawing the figure. I went to SVA where I had a teacher who held workshops with multiple figures posing. This practice leant towards thinking about a figure composition, and most people drawing there knew art history.
This all pointed to the old Italian frescoes such as Giotto, Massacio, Piero, and Mantegna. Paul Georges, an older artist that attended the workshop in particular talked about the massing of figures in Massacio, and the perspective and drawing in Mantegna. I read Bernard Berenson back then and it was still thought a young artist should go to Europe and see these frescoes in Europe. I saw most of these except the Signorelli in Orvieto which I still hope to see someday.
I returned to the US with the understanding that a universal or national myth or belief, which created these Frescoes was impossible today. As I developed as a painter reading most criticism, the universal was under attack. I continued to love Piero, and his form I thought to be a modern surface, the hard clearly delineated surface of fresco which create this whole.
It is interesting that this seems so very old fashioned now. There was an even deeper pocket of old fashioned traditionism back then, as the 1970's were also the beginnings of a brand new Minimalism and Conceptual Art. These new trends made figuration look hopeless and Clement Greenberg railed against figuration as regressive.
This all was counter to the Abstract over all painting style predominately going on. I was lucky to come around at the cresting of the wave, at the initiation and wedding of both styles.
My first paintings were naive figurative paintings. I soon progressed to understand the abstraction inherent, necessary to make a more interesting work. At about the same time I became aware of Abstract painting which had separated out these abstract principles to stand on their own.
That time, around 1980, became to be known for putting the two together. That became the form of my work. Now abstract and figurative are separated once more in 2010. The most interesting painting though I think still explores this idea of putting the two together and maybe the idea is gaining ground once more.
