Metamorphosis   2010-11

In the series, Metamorphosis, I’m interested in aspects of individual and group evolution. Language from both representation and abstraction are used in order to articulate this concept uniquely in each composition. Figures are depicted in ambiguous narratives which offer viewers multiple interpretations deriving from their own state of mind. Expressive applications of paint mirror one’s own sense of the world, which is not static but constantly changing and uncertain. Paint functions both to create the illusion of depth and to break this illu ion in favor of surface qualities which suggest movement, strength, and ethereality. My interest in the concept of metamorphosis stems from the transformative changes I’ve observed in others and in myself and the extraordinary coping mechanisms employed by man.

In my work, I’m attempting to challenge the viewer through an experience that is poignant and personal. My process of constructing and deconstructing aims to reveal just enough to create a spark in the viewer’s mind, yet not enough to solve the mystery suggested. I’m inspired by human behavior and use figures as subjects in order to communicate the essence of each character. I am drawn to the articulation of space created by novel combinations of shapes and forms as well as the visceral sensory stimulation that expressionist language can provide. Paramount to my paintings is a study of relationships: formal relationships in regards to design; spatial relationships in regards to the illusion of depth; and psychological relationships in regards to the figures’ interaction with each other and their environment.   Michael Azgour, 2011
 

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Excerpts from Published Texts

From Notes of a Painter  |   Henri Matisse  |  1908

What I am after, above all, is expression.Expression to my way of thinking does not consist of the passion mirrored upon a human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The place occupied by figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything plays a part. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the various elements at the painter's disposal for the expression of his feelings. In a picture every part will be visible and will play the role conferred upon it, be it principal or secondary. All that is not useful in the picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements.

Composition, the aim of which is expression, alters itself according to the surface to be covered. If I take a sheet of paper of given dimensions I will jot down a drawing which will have a necessary relation to its format-I would not repeat this drawing on another sheet of different dimensions, for instance on a rectangular sheet if the first one happened to be a square. And, if I had to repeat it on a sheet of the same shape but ten times larger I would not limit myself to enlarging it: a drawing must have a power of expansion which can bring to life the space which surrounds it. An artist who wants to transpose a composition into a larger canvas must conceive it over again in order to preserve its expression; he must alter its character and not just fill in the squares into which he as divided his canvas

Both harmonies and dissonances of color can produce very pleasurable effects. Often when I settle down to work I begin by noting my immediate and superficial color sensations. Some years ago this first result was often enough for me-but today if I were satisfied with this, my picture would remain incomplete. I would have put down the passing sensations of a moment; they would not completely define my feelings and the next day I might not recognize what they meant. I want to reach that state of condensation of sensations which constitutes a picture. Perhaps I might be satisfied momentarily with a work finished in one sitting but I would soon get bored looking at it; therefore, I prefer to continue working on it so that later I may recognize it as a work of my mind.

Supposing I want to paint the body of a woman: first of all I endow it with grace and charm but I know that something more than that is necessary. I try to condense the meaning of this body by drawing its essential lines. The charm will then become less apparent at first glance but in the long run it will begin to emanate from the new image. This image at the same time will be enriched by a wider meaning, a more comprehensively human one, while the charm, being less apparent, will not be its only characteristic. It will be merely one element in the general conception of the figure.

If upon a white I jot down some sensations of blue, of green, of red-every new brushstroke diminishes the importance of the preceding ones. Suppose I set out to paint an interior: I have before me a cupboard; it gives me a sensation of bright red-and I put down a red which satisfies me; immediately a relation is established between this red and the white of the canvas. If I put a green near the red, if I paint in a yellow floor, there must still be between this green, this yellow and the white of the canvas a relation that will be satisfactory to me. But these several tones mutually weaken one another. It is necessary, therefore, that the various elements that I use be so balanced that they do not destroy one another. To do this I must organize my ideas; the relation between tones must be so established that they will sustain one another. A new combination of colors will succeed the first one and will give more completely my interpretation. I am forced to transpose until finally my picture may seem completely changed when, after successive modifications, the red has succeeded the green as the dominant color. I cannot copy nature in a servile way; I must interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. When I have found the relationship of all the tones the result must be a living harmony of tones, a harmony not unlike that of a musical composition.

If in the picture there is order and clarity it means that this same order and clarity existed in the mind of the painter and that the painter was conscious of their necessity.

My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory; it is based on observation, on feeling, on the very nature of each experience.I merely try to find a color that will fit my sensation.

What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape but the human figure. It is through it that I best succeed in expressing the nearly religious feeling that I have towards life. I do not insist upon the details of the face. I do not care to repeat them with anatomical exactness.

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which might be for every mental worker, be he businessman or writer, like an appeasing influence, like a mental soother, something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue.

The role of the artist, like that of the scholar, consists in penetrating truths as well known to him as to others but which will take on for him a new aspect and so enable him to master them in their deepest significance.

I have no doubt that from a study of the works of Raphael or Titian a more complete set of rules can be drawn than from the works of Manet or Renoir but the rules followed by Manet and Renoir were suited to their artistic temperaments and I happen to prefer the smallest of their paintings to all the work of those who have merely imitated the "Venus of Urbino" or the "Madonna of the Goldfinch." Such painters are of no value to anyone because, whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, preferences and delusions. All artists bear the imprint of their time but the great artists are those in which this stamp is most deeply impressed.

 

From American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artist  |  National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.  |  1978

'It is not their intention either to create or to emphasize a formal color-space arrangement. They depart from natural representation only to intensify the expression of the subject.'  Mark Rothko, p15

'The term 'abstract expressionism' points to the essentially synthetic character of this art-to the extent to which it is itself an energetic synthesis, summary and elaboration of pre-existing styles. For the New York School came into existence at the end of the modernist era, when each of its separate styles and impulses was in the state of exhaustion. The American painter in the forties was free at last to create his own amalgam of modern European styles precisely because none was any longer vital enough to command his absolute loyalty. The result was a series of inspired refinements on the inherited vocabulary of modernism.'  Hilton Kramer, p16

And while Rothko, Newman, and Smith also made works in the early 1940s in the surrealist manner, nevertheless it was ultimately surrealist ideas-rather than their particular results in pictures-which were primary.

On the formal level it was the surrealists' concept of automatism which was of crucial importance. Abstract expressionism is often described as a 'painterly' style: 'loose, rapid handling, or the look of it; masses that blot and fuse instead of shapes that stay distinct, large conspicuous rhythms, broken color; uneven saturation or densities of paint; exhibited brush, knife, finger or rag marks' are the characteristics cited by Clement Greenberg for the movement. While not all of these features fit all the painters (Pollock's works do not exhibit directly the tools of their making, and Motherwell's shapes generally stay quite sharp), nevertheless it is a useful description. Greenberg is certainly correct in viewing this style as 'a reaction against the tightness of Synthetic Cubism, [although] it used the same vocabulary at first.' But there is another factor as well: that the looseness of both definition and structure could create a form of picture making that was more spontaneous or automatic. This side of painterliness would allow for a wider latitude of personal invention of the one hand, and the enrollment of broader aspects of the modern language on the other. This same automatic flexibility is found in works of a less painterly nature as well-say those of Rothko and Newman, where their more reductive styles place greater emphasis on nuances thereby opening possibilities of expression.

It is important to distinguish the surrealists' imaginal automatism from the abstract and synthesizing variant we discover in the painterliness of abstract expressionism. For surrealists, as in the works of Miro and Masson, for example, automatism consists of beginning the picture with random, non-descriptive markings. But as the surrealist artist finds figures suggested in these markings, automatism is replaced by more traditionally oriented practices of description, which are used to articulate the images. The abstract expressionist's variant of automatism is not used to create figuration-or even create a situation of finding figuration-out of random markings. Rather it is confined (generally) to abstraction and plays a more continuous role in the work.  E.A. Carmean Jr. and Eliza E. Rathbone, p17

 

From Twelve Americans: Masters of Collage  |  Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York City  |  1977

Collage was born when Picasso, extending the picture plane surface in his experimentation with early Cubist devices, discovered that foreign material introduced into the picture produced pictorial enigmas which would eventually lead to radical changes in our visual perception of reality.

The term 'collage' is derived fro, the French verb coller meaning: to paste, stick, glue; it relates to the technique of cutting and pasting natural or manufactured materials on a surface which could be painted or unpainted.

Cubism produced abstract patterns which increasingly departed from, previously recognized representations of reality. When Picasso and Braque superimposed words and letters on paintings, along with tromp-l'oeil wood grain effects, they provoked questions about the nature of 'reality' and its representation. Des reality differ from, illusion, and in what respects? Does reality assume identity only in the cerebrations of the beholder? Is reality the logical absolute of the canvas?  Foreword

What the introduction of non-art materials meant to the Cubist painters was real planes to ply against the illusionistic planes of their compositions. Picasso's initial use of a section of oil cloth that simulated chair caning and Braque's use of wood-grained paper suggested a world of creative possibilities. Of one non-art material could be introduced and truly incorporated into painting and drawing, why not any and all non-art materials as potential elements of art.  Introduction

 

From Real Social Realism, Vision: Eastern Europe  |  Crown Point Press, Oakland  |  1976

The artist spends his time taking in information. The artist spends more time looking and listening than the layman, and is a trained observer, a private investigator. The artist translates what he sees around him in to a form, which in turn becomes part of the culture it defines. The work of art communicates for the artist his intelligence through the visual craftsmanship of the activity or the object. The work of art is not the object; the work of art is the information that is communicated, a stimulating experience that awakens the intellect through the senses.  Tom Marioni, p7

 

From On Finishing a Piece  |  Alexander Rutsch about Picasso  |  1952

"Picasso played a short but important moment in my life in Paris that affected my entire artistic future. I learned from him that it is not important if art is not aesthetically finished. It can be raw, uncooked, rough. If an artist feels he has said it--it is not important to polish or finish it. Because of Picasso, I learned that if I don't feel the need to finish--I don't have to.

 

Notable Quotes

"The artist must have the particular skill to achieve his particular end. If he has more, we are fortunate enough not to know it, for the exhibition of this excess would only mar his art.  You may be sure that the artist whose method is muddled betrays less his technical inadequacy than the incoherence of his own intentions." --Mark Rothko

"Although one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should copy; the second is perfection, which all should aim at." --Oscar Wilde

"In a successful painting everything is integral.all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness." --Richard Diebenkorn