looking out/ looking in (part III): notes from the ordinary

The previous post was an homage to the question about gazing outward to look inward. The third and final assignment was to look at how this question shows up in the day-to-day. Here is what I wrote.

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I The pulse of ordinary life: 

Half asleep, I could hear a steady sound: ksshhhhhhhhhh 

(air conditioning? cars whizzing somewhere?). 

I thought of John Cage, in an anechoic chamber, realising there is no such thing 

as real silence.*

II Extraordinary ordinariness: 

The evening light on the dining table was liquid gold. Crumbs cast long shadows. 

Andrew Wyeth’s work came to mind: The Blue Door; dark recesses of the shed, radiant light on the door. 

Not a ‘perfect’ beauty, but an imperfect one. 

Wabi sabi.

III Eternity on the wall: 

The sun sets on the same wall each day 

regardless of the season. It’s a big window and a big wall. 

If the house were to live for an eternity, we can safely assume that the evening sun will 

always fall on that wall. 

IV White light flight: 

My eye caught a flock of white birds flying north. 

They seemed to be flying in slow motion; their bodies glistening with each flap of their wings. 

The monumental in the most ordinary of sights. 

Their formation looked like this:

 |> |> |> |> 

    |> |> |> |>  |> |>

|> |> |> |>

      |> |> 

      |>

V Chop wood, carry water: 

Most days look like this: 

wake up, shower, breakfast, work, lunch, work, coffee, dinner, sleep. Repeat. 

I wonder what it all means.

Zen masters say chop wood, carry water. 

VI The fruits of insight: 

Cézanne’s fruits vibrate with a palpable energy. 

I look at the fruit in my kitchen; 

the plums have to go. 

Life, even in death, is full of life.

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*  Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats, John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists, 2012. Note: In the anechoic chamber (which blocks all external sounds), Cage heard two sounds, a dull roar and a high whine that came his body. The first was blood rushing through veins. The second was the firing of neurons. Larson says, “In the anechoic chamber, Cage sought perfect silence and instead found the pulse of ordinary life.”

looking out/ looking in (part II): a view of the horizon

the wall (absent)
acrylic on canvas, 36x48", 2019, © priya vadhyar

Continuing from the previous post, the second assignment was about writing an homage to the theoretical question distilled from the art review. We were asked to create a collage of "beautiful sentences" from art theory, literature, music, the internet, etc., and to to play with those sentences while thinking more about the question. 

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Antony Gromley’s sculptures at the ruins of Delos seem to gaze outward. And in doing so, notes Rachel Spence, “…our eyes turn inward.” Virginia Woolf in To the Lighthouse also speaks of gazing outward and being transformed by the act: “Losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry, the stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity; and pausing there she looked out to meet that stroke of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke… Often she found herself sitting and looking, sitting and looking, with her work in her hands until she became the thing she looked at - that light, for instance.” 

Becoming. 

Becoming.

Becoming.

Becoming the thing she looked at. Does the sublime evoke a similar becoming? Does one become the horizon; the expanse of time and space? Does one lose personality (the minute details of one’s life) to become that vastness? Back at Delos, I imagine a visitor examining one of Gromley’s figures and stepping between the figure and the view of the horizon. The gaze is obstructed, and now the figure gazes at the visitor. Who is looking at whom? Marina Ambramović’s The Artist is Present comes to mind. Looking into Ambramović’s eyes, and being looked at by the artist in return. A mutual gaze. What kind of transformation are we witnessing? “Time went by and the man at the table was no longer weeping. He was leaning in toward the woman. Everything between the man and the woman became microscopic. Levin felt that something was lifting right out of the man and creeping away. … The woman seemed to become enormous, as if she stretched out and touched the walls and stood as tall as all six floors of the atrium.”* 

Transmutation. 
Metamorphosis.

Transformation. 

We are transformed not only by what we look at but also being looked at in return. Do powerful works of art do just that? Do they look back at us? At our inner world that is just as vast?“For there was an entire universe in that room, a miniature cosmology that contained all that is most vast, most distant, most unknowable. It was a shrine, hardly bigger than a body, in praise of all that exists beyond the body: the representation of one man's inner world, even to the slightest detail.” Anais Nin says, “We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.”** 

Mirror.

Mirror. 

On the wall.

Why do we gaze outward to gaze inward? “I do think that there is a way in which the outer presence, even through memory or imagination, can be brought inward as a sustaining thing.”*** To ask questions to answers we already know? To remember when we forget? Again. And again. And again.

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* Heather Rose, The Museum of Modern Love  

** Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude

*** John O’Donohue in conversation with Krista Tippett nonbeing.org

looking out/ looking in (part I)

'6 times left', by Antony Gromley. Image: Financial Times

I recently signed up for an online course, Theoretical Thinking and Writing in Art, taught by An Paenhuysen. Each week we have an assignment. For the first assignment I had to read an art review and distill from it a theoretical question. I had to pay attention to the language used and mull over how the writer expresses her thoughts. And then my own thoughts that emerge. Here is what I wrote.

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Article: Antony Gromley’s Haunting Sculptures on the Greek Island of Delos 

Financial Times, June 14, 2019, by Rachel Spence 

Is a work of art an isolated ‘object' to be ‘admired’ in any unspecified space? Or can location transform the work to reveal or heighten its meaning? Or can the work of art and location feed off each other to create a new reality? 

Reading Rachel Spence’s review of Antony Gromley’s show Sight, set in the ruins of Delos (Greece), one cannot help but feel that it is the latter that is true in this instance. Spence draws the reader in right at the start: a solitary figure (Gromley’s sculpture) on the peak of Mount Kynthos looking out at the Aegean sea. Immediately she evokes both a sense of the romantic and the sublime. The contrast between the smallness of the individual and the vastness of the beyond is unmistakable. Spence talks as much about the venue of the exhibition, the ancient ruins of Delos (a Greek island 'steeped in myth’), as Gromley’s work. Contemporary art meets ancient culture to create an otherworldly (or perhaps a more true-to-the-earth?) spectacle. The island’s ‘primal solitude’ mirrors itself in Gromley’s figures. Spence calls the island being an ‘evocative venue’ for Gromley’s ‘timeless vision’. She then goes on to talk about ‘retinal tricks’: Gromley’s figures that sometimes blend and sometimes stand out in the ruins and landscape of Delos. Spence’s imagination takes flight at the sight of these figures in the unlikely setting of an island with rich history. It also alters her perception of time as she considers one of the figures and remarks on Gromley’s ‘gift for temporal sorcery’. 

Spence considers how we view art, interact with it and are transformed by it. Gromley’s figures seem to gaze at the horizon; and in considering this gaze, Spence makes a note about Gromley’s show title, Sight, and how the figures gazing outward “turn our eyes inward.” I imagine a visitor examining one of Gromley’s figures and stepping between the figure and the view of the horizon. The gaze is obstructed, and now the figure gazes at the visitor. Who is looking at whom? The concept of ’darshan’ comes to mind: of seeing and being seen.

exhibition news: continuum

Exciting news. I am happy to announce that I have two solo exhibitions coming up. Continuum features drawings, paintings and mixed media work across two exhibits - [Degrees of Separation] and [The Illusion of Edges]. The first exhibition, Continuum [Degrees of Separation], opens at Gallery Beyond (Mumbai) on September 6 and will continue until October 6. The second exhibit, Continuum [The Illusion of Edges], will be held at Carroll Community College in Westminster (MD) in Spring 2019. 

I am in Mumbai right now preparing for the show at Gallery Beyond. The opening is just a couple weeks away! Stay tuned for more information.

snow and steady

The sound of thunder far away

a shell (a curled ear) 

listens ⏤

rain begins to fall.

On days like today, when the snow falls steadily, there grows a deep need to immerse myself in the present. The snow falls unhurriedly and covers everything, including that little bump of a twig. The trees sway gently, accepting every snowflake that falls on them. It also makes me think of the heavy rains of Mumbai that can fall for hours at an even pace. Above the rain drenched trees and buildings dark clouds drift lazily. The mind settles, mimicking the steadiness of such sights. One feels connected to the body and its energy, knowing that the snow falls within us and so does the rain.

cézanne's mountain

Cézanne's mountain

orange

in the evening light ⏤

My feet no longer 
on the ground.

There is the singular, and then there is everything else. Looking out into the world, you are in a twilight state (half daydreaming, half aware); that in-between of states that brings out the hidden magic that is everywhere. Lights twinkle and things rush past you. Your eyes, unfocused, take in shapes and color, and create new relationships, new realities. The body (hair flying) laps up the wind, thirsty. There is music, every high and low note unveils layers of meaning and connections. The singular isn't only in the midst of all, it is all.

updates in and out of the studio

Things have been quiet on the blog. In my last post, I was on my way to India for a holiday. I returned to the US around mid-June and have since retreated somewhat. Since my show ((Mountain x Crow x Echo)) at The Drawing Studio in Tucson my focus has turned to creating a new body of work. Beginning new work is of course a time for some wool gathering. A time to let the mind wander and look at things in a new light. I have also been busy the past couple of months preparing to move to a new place. We finally moved last week. On moving day I said goodbye to my studio of three years, happy to have had the chance to work in such a wonderful space. My new studio is a bit larger with lots of light. I'm in the process of setting up the space, dealing with boxes and drop cloth, thoughts and second thoughts about how to arrange things. Then there is life in general, which brings its own share of changes. I will talk about this when the time is right. Suffice to say that life has a way of making you pause and look both inside and outside yourself. And so it's a been a busy last few months with a number of changes. I have been taking this time to "wander at ease," as my teacher and mentor Josh Goldberg says with regard to painting (and life too). 

notes over the atlantic

Yesterday on my way to Mumbai. Somewhere over the Atlantic:

The light outside goes from pitch dark in the west to pale blue in the east where the sun is rising. The vast horizon offers a glimpse into the nature of things; the flux that always is. Where does something begin and where does it end? The sun keeps rising and setting at the same time. 

And then there is a landscape of clouds; mountains and valleys, caves and river beds. The rivers are dark and deep. Who knows what secrets lie in those depths? All I know is that way below the waters is a deeper ocean. The clouds are moving, shape shifting, undecided on what they want to be or can be. The possibilities are infinite.

the universe in a room

"S. lived in a space so small that at first it seemed to defy you, to resist being entered. The presence of one person crowded the room, two people choked it. It was impossible to move inside it without contracting your body to its smallest dimensions, without contracting your mind to some infinitely small point within itself. Only then could you begin to breathe, to feel the room expand, and to watch your mind explore the excessive, unfathomable reaches of that space. For there was an entire universe in that room, a miniature cosmology that contained all that is most vast, most distant, most unknowable. It was a shrine, hardly bigger than a body, in praise of all that exists beyond the body: the representation of one man's inner world, even to the slightest detail. S. had literally managed to surround himself with the things that were inside him. The room he lived in was a dream space, and its walls were like the skin of some second body around him, as if his own body had been transformed into a mind, a breathing instrument of pure thought. This was the womb, the belly of the whale, the original sire of the imagination. By placing himself in that darkness, S. had invented a way to dreaming with open eyes."

- Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude

the endless expanse

I have a memory

of a distant future -

I look up at the sky and see

an unending vastness 
mirrored.

I imagine that if you were to set your eyes on the endless expanse, there could be two possible reactions. You would either be terrified or you would feel a great calm. No matter what your reaction, you would understand what you were looking at. To conceive of its boundaries would be a futile attempt. And your conception of time and relative size would crumble. You would see yourself in these limitless depths and recognise your place in it all. It would seem like a meaningless accident or a grand miracle. Or both.

when you paint...

When you paint, you walk out the door...

...Into the hurried blur of the busy streets, the little shops and big buildings, the cars, and dogs walking their people. Later, you find yourself in a bus, which turns this way and that, until finally the city is behind you. The view changes to green fields and wild flowers, and a large sky that is a wash of blue. The view is wide, and it makes you not-think. You get off the bus when the urge strikes. Standing there, in the middle of nowhere, you look around to take in the view. Soon you are walking. Maybe something far away catches your eye. Now you find yourself climbing a hill and down the other side. There is a dirt road leading to a farm. Along this dirt road you see cows grazing. You stand there, enjoying the scene and the sounds of the earth. Some time later a farmer drives your way, and you hitch a ride. You say goodbye as you get off near the railway tracks. The winding track is quiet, without traffic and goes on for miles. On either side are tall trees obscuring everything else. You come to a tunnel. Inside the tunnel the air is damp and there is a deep darkness that seems to go on forever. But soon you come out into the sunshine. The clouds in the sky are moving just as you are. Up ahead, you see a dusty old sign post that says '...... Trail'. Intrigued, you take this trail through the woods. The birds are chirping, and a deer stares at you as you walk past it. The evening light, orange, peeps through the trees. Now, night is falling. You don't know where you are, but you sense you must keep walking in a certain direction. Suddenly you reach a clearing. It's a meadow. Stepping into this clearing, you see the lights of a town far away. Then you look up at the sky. The same sky that was a brilliant cornflower blue is now a deep violet. The stars are out, and they are twinkling.

When you paint, you walk out the door and then come back inside.