The Meditative Surface

"A painting with a meditative surface turns in on itself..."
-- Carter Ratcliff

Bandhu, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor

Through the language of repetition and the grid, my work explores the physical presence of oil paint from a minimalist perspective. Formlessness rises within the grid -- there are no lines, no edges, no allusions. Gesture and brushstroke arise as agents of introspection and quiet contemplation. Artifacts of composition are carefully considered, and are either retained or released in service to the harmony of the whole. Within a matrix of layered brushstrokes, the weights of color and texture, light and dark, are delicately balanced and intuitively measured. The lush, deliberate surfaces of these paintings convey both a meditative stillness and an energy force of controlled chaos.

New Moon

Devamuni, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor

The moon was new yesterday, an auspicious day to finish another major painting, Devamuni.

I am honored to announce that I have joined forces with SMINK in Dallas, a company that specializes in exquisite contemporary furniture and objects from the Como Region of Italy. They will be expanding their fine art division, and I am looking forward to showing my work with them.

I had a lovely studio visit with Jennifer Smink last week, and this painting was still in progress during our meeting. Having just completed it yesterday, it will be one of the paintings I will be showing at Smink later this fall in a solo exhibition.

Summer Flowers

The pain will be born from that look cast inside yourself, and this pain will make you go beyond the veil.

-- Rumi

Suma III, oil on canvas, 18x18 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor

The surface
of the water
mirrors many things.
-- Masami Kato (1825)

Suma II, oil on canvas, 18x18 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor

...[T]he inner risks to the psyche that the best artists face every time they make work are much harder to quantify and to judge with dubious terms like "good" or "bad," "success" or "failure." This is the inner dimension of art, far beyond the reach of critics and curators. It is the path of practice, of doing, of riding the crest of the wave of the moment with no thought as to where it will land, or whether there are rocks just below the surface, or if the Self will survive the fall. This constant falling, the incessant quest for some unknown thing beneath, beyond, or just out of reach...
-- Bill Viola, "Artist to Artist," in Art in America, February 2010, p 64.

Suma I, oil on canvas, 18x18 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor

On the whole, however, modern art is not a denial but an affirmation. Like most of our scientists, the process of disintegration or analysis is not a wanton act of destruction but part of a process for the evolving of more comprehensive synthesis. And therefore modern artists have not left us merely with the members of the body of art strewn about, but they have reassembled them and revivified that body with their own breath of life. In short, they have attempted to regain a synthesis as complete as that of the primitive, based of course, upon contemporary considerations and point of view.
-- Mark Rothko, The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art (Yale University Press, 2004), page 61.

Meditative Landscape

Marava, oil on canvas, 48x48 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor

My work engages landscape without referencing specific places or times. I work very hard at keeping direct landscape objects out of the work -- my project is for my work to be reflective of a place in a spiritual and emotional context.

This is Marava. Four feet square, a large canvas to cover. Very thoughtfully considered, my technique is glacially slow, but quite meditative, and when the painting is finally finished one can see the energy of my efforts, the moments of decision, the different hours and moods, the meditative mantra of the brushstroke.

This is one of the most fascinating aspects of being a painter -- watching these moments at the conclusion of a painting, after sometimes waiting months (in this case, with Marava, it took 3 months) for the painting to be finished. The final stages of a painting are always my favorite times to work: it's when the painting starts to sing, the composition clicks, and you know resonance is approaching.

"Marava" is a Sanskrit word meaning "forming or situated in a desert." I kept thinking "desert" as I added brushstroke upon brushstroke to the canvas. I live here, in a beautiful, solitary desert, with only the wind and the birds -- somehow, I feel this painting is connected to a primal knowledge of land, space, sky.

Below are a couple of details of this painting, to show the textures and layers of oil paint.

New Work

Rishi, oil on canvas, 15 x 12 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor

"Sanskrit is a language specifically developed to bring out various powerful sound vibrations. Every letter in the Sanskrit alphabet has some beautiful, cosmic vibration.... Sanskrit is considered to be the most ancient language in the world." -- Sri Swami Satchidananda

Beginning with 2010, all of my paintings will carry Sanskrit titles. This decision has come about after a good deal of soul searching and listening to a higher calling. My paintings, as they've developed, have embraced a sort of universal openess and freedom, and a title can sometimes limit the boundaries of the image. I want more poetry than "Untitled," however. Joseph Campbell called Sanskrit "the great spiritual language of the world." I agree. Sanskrit words have a lilting, floating quality that I admire -- the sounds of the words themselves have a certain beauty and poetry to them. If a viewer digs a little deeper and finds out the translation of the word, perhaps he will come away with an even deeper appreciation of the imagery. But it is not necessary to know the meaning of the word in order to spiritually connect to the painting. I choose the words as much for their musical quality as I do for their meaning. I want to leave an air of mystery surrounding the work, and the title is just a furtive guide to the relationship between the image and the title.

I chose "Rishi" as the title for the painting above. A "Rishi" is a saint or guru, of which the Hindu and Buddhist cultures have many, each with their own individual symbols and names. This piece is actually one of a series of three that I'm working on.

I selected the word "Sandhya" for the title of the painting below. It translates as "twilight." I was thinking about twilight -- the delicate, resonant light of the early morning and the early evening -- as I was working on this piece.

Sandhya, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches, © 2010 Diane McGregor