Most Painters emphasise a marriage between technique and subject matter, but I prefer to concentrate on tension between intention, reception and outcome. How? By way of giving into demands of image-making and use or misuse of any subject matter over technique. Adaptation is everything in Painting!!?! Why? Because all Paintings are not absolutely perfect representations of the subject matter, making all Paintings metaphors that vary on the distance covered away from the exact reproduction ! We evolve and we adapt! Let me misquote the film John Wick, instead of "Rules separate us from the animals", inaccuracy and human imperfection separates us from all tech including AI generated Paintings, that confirm the dynamism and the originality of humanity ! We humans are trial by error, where we have 'evolved to be imperfect'!! We are limited in rationalism and social, political and economic matters in which we experience reasoning as an after-thought and not an instinct. We are impulsive, given to hatred and ignorance throughout human history ! But we have evolved to be individually unique at all aspects , but especially unique by 'Iris' and fingerprints, which I hardly need tell you that those are the part of our anatomies crucial to Painting. So, we are without a replica, that is neither immortal or infallible, without us needing technical maintenance, application of digital, artificial software or prone to malfunction or beyond repair !!
Let us remember that our pre-modernist history is a guide and not just a template for the pendulumic swing of artists' relationship with Painting. Originally Paintings were 2 dimensional (before Giotto) forms of flat (almost abstract) non-perspective Art, that speaks to early forms of how modernism is influenced and will always be influenced by pre-Renaissance Art, and not just the interaction of the 3 versions (19th,20th and 21st centuries) today. It was the 3D Renaissance Art that was too conceited to presume that it (3D) was enlightened progress, but was it ? Now, contemporary Abstract Painting is often a 'black mirror' to the great British public because it is often without a context or narrative for most of us to understand and relate to. But it may have confused us by having a conceptual element hidden in a counter-intuitive justification only known to the Painter - now that's inconsistent right there. But it was also another paradox that remains unresolved ! Or is it? Isn't all Painting about the interplay and friction between the conscious and the subconscious? Isn't that what people call the tug of war between 'head and heart', Now, Surrealists often locate their work to unlocking the unconscious mind too, not just opening a door, but opening Pandora's box ! But what about our surrealism of today ? Follow the narrative is the most prescient part , in whatever tangent veers you away from realism you find yourself in, but also free yourself from Dali's of this world and find your own adaptation to expose and contrast our dependency on AI tech and all its anxiety making of an 'over tech society'!
Painters harness our Painting advantages of our circle of eye to hand, to brush, to paint, to canvas to eye, that is grounded by grey matter by heart/head, subconscious/conscious formula. We have evolved the human species and evolved humanities path that is often disconnected by our human failures, foibles and questionable logic .So can Surrealism be satire too ? Of course !. Our focal points belong to our evolved advantages that are central to our DNA, that is our inheritance and our legacy - we're biochemically active and connected just like our Painting ancestry. .From head to foot, from mind-set to human footprint, under which we have developed our soil and materials that make-up our paint, all coordinated by our grey matter painted on a piece of cloth. We are the human story and not just a modern interpretation of the human 'soul' (our proverbial heart) versus the empty reasonings of Global Empires dissolved into the sands of time. We communicate by our contact with our feet on the ground combined with our nearest anatomical biochemical contact with the stars (our head); we're a secular expression of body and blood of our expressive potential and our explorative human spirit. Our visual creativity, which is the very gravitational pull of our 21st century society that is physically sending us into space may be dimmed by our overwhelming human yearning to be understood , and be at the forefront of visualised human drama by avoiding deference and dependency on Tech and all AI from 'correcting human imperfections , whilst encouraging our stampede to be scientifically advanced; welcome to our human hubris that governs our contradictory natures.
But we have so many human limitations that we should and can convert them by intervention with better use of our polar opposites into a greater understanding of our common humanity. That is where Culture and the aesthetic, beauty, wisdom and brutal terror can be processed and made accountable, even appreciated holistically??! This is how our senses should be heightened and not sublimated or diffused, and sometimes we all struggle to break the code that individualises or homogenises the medium of Painting to hand down our total hitherto repertoire just to heighten our pleasure at the moment of 'self-discovery' !This is our asset that builds cultural bridges and brings them down again, and is a personalised act of finding a way out of the labyrinth of our human Surreal 21st century of technical extremism and socially challenging chaos -it is our cultural gravity to keep our feet grounded and to remind us of how we often do not have our feet on the ground or out of our ego's.
So, Paint in zero gravity will not work, it's almost impossible to apply and dry unless there is some force sealing it, so what does that mean to us? That terrestrial gravity is keeping our feet on the ground and our paint on the canvas, literally and metaphorically, leaving Painters to feel a validation and find their home on the same Earth where countless generations have stood?! It is the Painters true reconciliation. Painters don't need broad shoulders , just a spine, where the medium of Painting is the spine of culture! So, our ancestry ,our 3D and now all our Modernist(for me, our Surrealist 21st century) Painting is to explore technology running-away from human control. Paintings expand not reduce or repeat our image-making today ! Indeed, this today is our 'next perspective' in how to interpret and account for the technological challenges that face us. So, we have a repertoire that has never been so equipped to emerge with a multiverse of infinite possibilities or visual alternative Universes to explore ! We are the metaphor makers ! The distant but future worlds beyond today's grasp will be anticipated as if the Universe was our oyster !? That's a big boast , and perhaps a boast too far, but then I'm optimistic !
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