difference

On the paradigm of delay - new ways in painting
by Martin Heine PhD

“The centre of the autonomous work of art does not itself belong on the side of myth but is inherently dialectical; within it juxtaposes the magical and the mark of freedom” (Adorno)

After many years of art practice, I initiated a way of image making that allows me to invigorate the notion of painting. Looking at the visual outcome, I consider my practice to paint a ‘delay of immediate gratification’. The basic idea is to shift the artist realm of making a painting, from the front to the back of the canvas. To reverse the creative focus from building up paint on canvas, to the concept of pushing paint trough the canvas, represents for me a new relationship in painting. My gesture of inversion liberates the painted image from compulsory restrains set by the artist and hence forces me to undo all the paint baggage and reveal the painted image as an open-minded entity, an authentic art composition, a philosophical outlook embedded in a natural flow of paint

The concept of delay is a breading space that works contrary to arts exertion, dependency on technological wizardry and uniform outcome. During many years of engagement with art and practitioners involved, I learned, that to overcome a fixed standard in painting would entail an objective to resist conventional paint praxis. I decided to differ to the repetitive act of brushing paint onto the canvas and I choose to liberate my creative work from dependency on commercial outcomes. Altogether I want to interchange the place of the artist, from an entertaining act in front of the canvas, to the silent and private space behind the painting. I intend to bring my creative desire to the foreground, undisturbed and not manipulated, offering an unorthodox way of looking at my painting.

The years of Andy Warhol are gone, fifteen minutes of fame are not important, what remains is an anonymous artist and the liberating potential in a work of art. Since the notion of the genius artist is not valid anymore, I was looking for an alternative concept, one that allows me to work from a creative basis of liberation and anonymity. To arrive at such a liberating concept requires one to shift ones exaggerated senses of self-importance, from working at the front to the back of the canvas. I realised that indeed, everything I want to paint must be inverted. For these reason, my paintings are ‘reverse studies’ works that disclose an awareness of inverted significance to all things of artistic conventions.

It is because of the just mentioned liberating art practice that my research entails to paint first what others painted last. I do not rely on building up paint in front of you, but on the desire to push paint away from ones field of vision. Liberation depends on the act to create from memory and not exclusively on relationships of design and gratification. Within this new invented modus operandi I liberate my desire to transcend mainstream dictation and reveal visual alternatives that encourage the notion for ‘difference’ in contemporary art. Conventional painting in my opinion is inadequate to let audiences surpass the controlled and the trendy. Alternatively, indirect paint control - as in my reverse studies - encourages the individual to go outside of conventions and enjoy the silent resistance of a transposed paint application.

Contemporary artists restrict their identity and creative mood to a closed system of control and the fashionable. They do follow a deception trough which their restricted way to paint trendy, causes widespread ‘banality’ and collective introjections by which everyone acts as individual, and yet the acted 'individuality' is the trend of many. It seems that from here on, contemporary art emerges as a fixation of group individualism, resulting in stereotyped painting, getting globally neurotic by the day.

I am aware of the fact that to paint from behind the canvas works contrary to the painters bad faith, inversion provides me with a liberating starting point - a kind of artist studio that is manifest on the back of the canvas. Invisible though to the audience, my liberating space becomes a creativity pool through which I can reclaim a philosophical basis to overcome conformist painting. At this moment, ‘time’ and ‘place of art labour’ turns into a creative liberation, where I set my self apart from an affirmative concept of art practice. I turn painting back to front (not on its head) and disclose the character of paint as a material resistance, a reverse idea, that allows the audience to engage with a singular sensation in art

One can appreciate the work like looking at a ‘paint performance’ where intuitive engagement with memory and application bring to forefront (pushed trough) a performed relationship with material, resulting in a texture of impasto and colour combinations. For the first time the artist physically illustrates - via pushing and squeezing – an image that combines the private and the public in a unspoilt way. The viewer in the gallery finds the picture surface liberating, almost like a performed happening, where everything is for the first time.

To that purpose one can speak of a performed paint act - done from a anonymous space behind the canvas - a gesture that transpires the picture surface and reveals the image as a liberating form. In my reverse studies, a painted substance raised from an invisible space and forms colour fields and images. At this moment my reverse paintings are signs of collaboration, between artist and material, a creative endeavour of defining moments as painted resistance.

In my work I reveal a open relationship with the audience one that shares concept, creativity and material in order to establish a picture plane that is visually liberating and uncorrupted.