A little bit of perfection
February 20th, 2007
I like what Angnes Martin has to say about perfection in art.
I suppose recently I’ve been making art with more intention than I did before I was studying, and that has made me question what that intension actually is. I’ve been reminded of a summer I was painting with a landscape artist here in Wales who I admire hugely. One day someone asked her why she painted. She said it was because she was searching for truth - she said it honestly with no hint of irony and I loved her for that openness. It strikes me that Agnes Martin is saying much the same thing. Truth or perfection, it feels like it’s all about trying to reach something other. I like that.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:40 pm
oh dear you see I actually think that a work of art is alive when this is a fault in it! There is a wonderful quote from Charles Rennie MacKintosh ‘ There is hope in honest error, none in the icy perfections of the mere stylist’
I’ve got it as an ink stamp - if I find an ink pad I’ll send you an imprint.
February 21st, 2007 at 6:16 pm
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I agree with you completely - that fault *is* the perfection. Language can be such a heavy handed way of expressing ideas isn’t it?
What I mean (and what I imagine Agnes Martin meant) is in creating something (faults and all) if we hit on a hint of truth, a hint of something perfect, then the work is alive. For me a feeling of something perfect is often that line that is just too long, that accidental mark. I’m probably still not explaining myself at all well, I’ll go and draw something instead…