Materials
The use of painting media such as acrylic, oil, canvas, as well as digital and photographic technology is a link to the tradition of European and Modernist art that I am trained in. Along with these media, I experiment and incorprate natural materials into the work such as clay, beeswax, gold, silver and metal leaf, crushed quartz crystal, natural pigments and foraged plants and dyes. The materials all have their own qualities and energetic character in a kind of Joseph Beuysian sense. An important aspect to me is their character as either conductors or insulators. I think of the beeswax and the clay as insulators and the metal leaf and crystal as conductors, for example. Conductors of what? The layering of opposing materials create a metaphorical and visual “charge”, and perhaps hold the energies of the time and place of the works creation.
Compositional Strategies
The compositions of the works are improvisational and often reflect influential ideas in my thinking about painting. The principle of “Li” is important to me. “Li” is a Chinese term that describes the way in which you can look at the arrangement of the clouds in the sky or the bark of a tree or “the markings in jade” and though there is no symmetry, no geometry, no apparent conscious plan, we sense that there is still an order to it, an order that all living things manifest and feel at home within, an imperfect perfection where everything seems to fit “just so”. I often work up close to the surface of a painting spontaneously, without stepping back to plan an overall composition or depiction of anything in particular. Somehow, in this manner a compositional organization arises that is “emergent” and order is discovered rather than intended or forced.
The idea of cymatic “entoptic form” plays a role in my work. David Lewis-Williams work on prehistoric rock art theorizes about the importance of this neurological phenomena in the creation of human Art. The gestural markings in my work relate to this type of archetypal imagery and I am fascinated by it. It is a sort of visual “Ur” language that I see in everything from children’s drawings to European decorative motifs and the cross-hatched patterns of Jasper Johns. What marks do you make if you are not trying to make anything in particular? What are the marks and gestures of Nature?
The general concept of improvisational and spontaneous creation is central to my practice. Bradford Keeney’s work discussing the role of a subtle energetic life force and one’s surrender to its flow as the primary generative motive in human creativity has been influential. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theories regarding “Flow States” and creativity are similar and seem foundational to me in any artistic practice.
The practice of painting for me is largely unplanned, the final result of the work is a mystery that unfolds during its creation. The ability to work within a state of “not knowing” where the piece is going, is something that I cultivate and seek. The work always seems best when I don’t “know” what I am doing. In these spaces, ones instincts, years of experience with the craft and something beyond conscious, intellectual intentionality become the driving forces. You have to give the process over to those forces and then you either nail it or you don’t. I see the engagement in this process as a universal expression of the human spirit in all of the arts.
Michael Maxwell, 2022