#22 Lynn Hanson (Visiting Painting)
#23 Michael Rosenfeld (Response Painting)
I was approached to participate in the Circle of Truth about eight months ago [circa February 2010]. Initially I declined. I understood it to be a project where one reacts to a work of another artist, and that is contradictory to my process. More recently and in an unguarded moment I accepted the invitation and quickly realized my first impulse was correct. I was presented with the most beautiful crate I had seen, containing a blank canvas and the work of another artist whom I understood to be someone the curators thought appropriate to pair with me.
At first I understood what they were thinking, but I also immediately recognized the artist as someone I had previously been in two group shows with. The artist paints, as do I, in monochrome and using strong and recognizable iconography. The work presented depicts two birds, one on a wire and the other seeming to struggle on it. I thought, “Birds on a wire, there’s the theme,” and went about thinking how to relate this in my own terms.
Then I stopped, as I realized that this is not how I make art. While my work can be described as illustrative, what makes it art is the conceptual nature of the decision process wherein I choose what to paint. Once that is accomplished there is of course the journey of execution during which and hopefully unplanned nuances may take place. The joy, freedom, potential and challenge that a blank canvas represents to me was killed. Sadly and with a sick and vaguely claustrophobic feeling, I placed the two canvases back in the crate, and informed the curators I could not complete their exercise.
The curators informed me that any response, even a blank canvas was a truthful one, and that I was not off the hook. I took a breath, pulled the blank canvas out of the crate, leaving the finished work in and set about creating the work, which now comprises my contribution. To be fair to the project I will state that my piece would most assuredly not been created under any other circumstance, and it really did consume my attention until its completion.