Returning

Returning, oil on canvas, 36x36 inches, © 2009 Diane McGregor

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always --
A condition of complete simplicity...

- T.S. Eliot, from "Four Quartets"

White Light

"It is the happiness of eyes that have seen the sea of existence become calm, and now they can never weary of the surface and of the many hues of this tender, shuddering skin of the sea."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Emanation III, oil on canvas, 29 x 22 inches
© 2009 Diane McGregor

I'm working on a new series of paintings that explore the color white and how it interacts with other hues. The titanium white skin applied over the layers of deeper color beneath express a subdued resonance, and seem to have a calming effect. I have been exploring texture and how that relates to the veiling and unveiling of forms -- layering a brushstroke over a color produces a wonderful texture with the color underneath, and with the white produces a veiling effect that has always been an interest of mine. Using the grid as a matrix, I am pursuing a project which lacks lines, hard edges, and clearly defined shapes. I love the dream-like quality and the ambiguous figure/ground relationship of this new direction in my work. I believe that the grid structure I use to develop the paintings transcends narrative and reveals a pure abstract expression of nature's essence; the continuous, repetitive action of the brushstrokes open up the painter to something beyond the conscious mind -- an archetypal truth.

Wisdom of the Paint

Butterfly's Dream, oil on canvas, 24 x 19 inches, © 2009 Diane McGregor

"Intuition without experience is embarrassing and naive. Only when you have enough experience, can you trust your intuition. When I am painting I find myself in an unnameable world; it is undefinable, but tangible. I manipulate shapes that are completely invented and yet it's as if they must be this way or that. I realize that I am the only person who knows how these forms need to be.

"Now all you have to do is ruin a number of paintings to realize how many pitfalls there are in this process. Holding on to a good detail just for the sake of it is a recipe for disaster. Holding on to something that is not functioning with the whole will ultimately destabilize the painting. I have to be ruthless and throw away what is not functional."

Wise words from Caio Fonseca. This was also an important point that many of my professors would try to get across to us in art school. I believe the paint itself holds a kind of "knowing," and it is up to the artist to commune with the paint, the color, and the process of application. Sometimes, one must realize that the best part of a painting must be destroyed (i.e., painted over) in order to save the entire painting from failure. Over the years, I have become a little more experienced and a little more fearless with every painting I create. I think this is the reason why my newest work is becoming rather painterly and spontaneous. I rely upon my intuition to allow a brushstroke to just BE, without feeling that I have to tidy it up or blend it or "fix" it. This has opened up a new way of being with the paint -- allowing intuition to guide me, and trusting my experience to select what remains and what must be surrendered.

Influences

Crossing, oil on canvas, 18x18 inches, © 2009 Diane McGregor

Lisa Pressman has been orchestrating a wonderful project on her blog that she is asking fellow artists to participate in: what are your top ten artistic influences, and why. Well, it was almost impossible for most artists to stick with just ten, so she eventually raised the bar to fifteen. Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about this aspect of my work, how the influence of other artists has inspired my own work, and why certain artists have been so important to my development as a painter.

Here is my list (the names are in no particular order - I can't imagine choosing the number one artistic influence!):

1) Rebecca Purdum - contemporary artist who I've been following since the 80s - ethereal abstraction (shows at Tilton Gallery, NYC)

2) Sam Scott - my professor at University of Arizona, initiated me into the true painter's life and practice; lyrical abstractions of nature

3) 12th Century Chinese Southern Song painters - poetry of nature and the seasons, veiling and unveiling of forms, contemplative technique

4) Georgia O'Keeffe - paint handling, morphology of forms (the major influence upon my early work)

5) Agnes Martin - repetition, natural order, poetry of painting, the grid

6) Mondrian - composition, subtle balances and rhythms within geometric structures

7) Jackson Pollock - the spontaneous gesture; the importance of psychology and the unconscious

8) Rothko - the luminosity of color

9) Bonnard - light and color, paint handling

10) Turner - abstraction of landscape, use of thick and thin paint, use of light and dark

11) Kandinsky - for the spiritual in art

12) Cezanne - the importance of the underlying structure of a painting

13) Monet - the way he perceived light and color, the broken brushstroke

14) Donald Judd - clean lines, no-nonsense Beauty, repetition, transcending the grid

15) Joan Mitchell - abstraction of nature, luscious use of paint, use of the white ground, importance of the single brushstroke

Spirituality of the Earth

Emanation II, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, © 2009 Diane McGregor

I love this quote by Thomas Berry, who died June 1, age 94. This is an excerpt from his article "The Spirituality of the Earth" (1990):

We need a spirituality that emerges out of a reality deeper than ourselves, even deeper than life, a spirituality that is as deep as the earth process itself, a spirituality born out of the solar system and even out of the heavens beyond the solar system. There in the stars is where the primordial elements take shape in both their physical and psychic aspects. There is a certain triviality in any spiritual discipline that does not experience itself as supported by the spiritual as well as the physical dynamics of the entire cosmic-earth process. A spirituality is a mode of being in which not only the divine and the human commune with each other, but we discover ourselves in the universe and the universe discovers itself in us.

This painting is part of a series I'm doing about memories of growing up near a lovely lake in Connecticut. We had the quintessential babbling brook flowing through our one-acre property. It flowed under a bridge into Canoe Brook Lake, which was across the street. I spent hours at the lake, by the brook, in the forests, with American Indian artifacts and burial mounds. I don't know how many years I lived there, but it was magical.