And that is why the present stakes in Surrealism are high. Something far more (and distinctly less) than an esthetic consideration is involved in this phenomenon. Rather than out of a crypto-visual order, Surrealism drew energy from a conceptual and psychological deposit in which our condition is still invested. The modern eye has been crucially educated by Cubist spatial structuring and symbolism the modern sensibility has been compelled by Surrealism, in large part, to turn in upon itself. Cubism, obviously more than any other movement, had postulated contemporary taste but Surrealism, viewed under the panoply of its literary, cinematic, theatrical and social extensions or affinities, questioned the stability of consciousness itself. Pictorial inventions, even the most decisive, pale in comparison, or more accurately, tend to be subsumed by the largeness of Surrealism’s anxiety-its sense of dissolution that could be assimilated only as a permanent thrill or menace-or both. “How we shape our understanding of history,” wrote Lincoln Johnson (in introducing the Baltimore Museum exhibition 1914), “will be determined by what we find significant in it, and that in turn will be determined not by any potentially accurate view of history, but rather by the tension and balance that exist in our own time.” It is to the credit of Surrealism to have constituted, perhaps, the first epiphany of modern tension. Rather, the past is here quite consistently regenerated by the present. To re-define or rediscover the pedigree of work that interests us today does not seem a large enough formulation.

Such is the obvious empirical basis and incentive to scrutinize a movement that has escaped hard critical analysis, if not reams of evocation.Įssential to this overview, surely, is some kind of awareness of why we make it. Leaving aside all of Pop art, one has merely to think of artists as diverse stylistically as Helen Frankenthaler and Edward Kienholz (just as earlier there had appeared Miró and Ernst) to validate the lyrical or cancerous urgency of Surrealism in the current esthetic stream. Yet Dada, as it is almost axiomatic to say, and its rambunctious outgrowth, Surrealism, surround and confirm a swarm of present avant-garde works reflecting a confusing wealth of idioms. The example of the Bauhaus today sometimes fitfully re-emerges, but then mainly in forms alien to its own pedagogy. Cubism and Expressionism had ground down exhaustedly to an impasse during the fifties. It is important to get lost in the abyss of imagination.OF ALL THE DECISIVE MOMENTS in the tradition of 20th century painting, only one can be said to burrow still relevantly with in us, and to surface in ambitious works of art that show a sibling connection with the past. Constant exploration and experimentation is always thematic.

I like to explore surreal dimensions found in dream states or psychedelic experiences. I aim to disrupt that by often obscuring and manipulating the eyes on a face or any other defining facial characteristics. The human brain is so reliant on wanting to instantly recognize something or someone as soon as they see it. I am attempting to make silence with my work.Īnonymity plays an important part. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.” There is always something to see, something to hear. To quote John cage: “ There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. Space adds emphasis to the focal point of my picture plane, and in itself can, too, become the focal point. It symbolizes a rest or silence not often found in our cluttered reality. Space is very important and deliberately left open in my works. 'Your work uses space in a very unique way, can you tell us more about the use of space in your art.'

Surrealism warped reality