Creative destruction is the main theme of this hybridized collage. A few days ago, I cut out some images and text from a few old magazines I’d purchased at second hand stores. At the time, I fit them together into a spoked wagon wheel composition. I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d use them in a future design. Here is the result of that initial inspiration.
Earlier today (Sunday, April 17th, 2016), I was drawing some of my energetic abstractions I’ve developed over the years. After leaving the cafe I was sitting at, I started getting some ideas on how I’d use the cutout magazine material I already mentioned. I also knew I wanted to incorporate the drawings I’d just done. Upon returning home, I started scanning in the magazine cutouts and the drawings. Then I transferred them to my image editing program.
While at the cafe, I was listening to some classical music I feel explode with power and thrust. You see, when I first came to the cafe, I was listening to a classical station on the radio in my truck. They were playing Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances. I could feel the power chords resonating in that piece, but I hadn’t consciously formulated that assessment in my mind at that point.
So while I was in the cafe, I decided to listen to the Slavonic Dances on my iPhone. Then I decided to listen to the Overture of William Tell, by Rossini. I intuitively sought out more music I felt also had a powerful thrust to it. Then I thought of listening to the Ride of the Valkyries, by Richard Wagner. I topped off my desire for forceful, thrusting, power music with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Tchaikovsky’s Overture was an excellent climax because of the cannon explosions that can be heard in it towards the end.
While listening to the last two pieces I mentioned, I started to write some of my thoughts down. As I mentioned, this piece is about creative destruction. It symbolizes the awesome creative / destructive power of natural phenomena, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and vortices in water. The power of the classical music I listened to felt excellent for inspiring a person to clear out mental detritus, such as anxiety, hesitation, procrastination, cowardice and so forth.
I feel that destructive forces in nature are necessary forces that clean away old, rotting, obstructive, stagnating, lingering elements that have already served their purposes in the greater balances that constantly fluctuate throughout the universe. In this imagery, in which several parts coincide, I combine the power of thrusting, forceful classical music brimming with confidence, and an abstract depiction of a hurricane. It looks like the dark, swirling vortices have approached from the upper right from an ocean on to the bay of an old city, heading down across the land to the lower left of the picture.
The complex detail of the cityscapes, skies, and text would be near complete chaos if it weren’t for the wagon wheel composition around which they are all assimilated. I made sure there was also a straight line transversing across the entire picture plane. Another symbolic dimension I imagine that can be highlighted in this piece is a bow and arrow with the arrow aiming towards the upper right. I like to see multiple things in the abstract works of art I create. I am pleased when people see things in them that I’d never thought of.
I intuit that people generally gravitate towards art that isn’t too complex and chaotic. Identifiable objects, and simpler abstract shapes, are concepts people can grasp and feel senses of confidence and security with. An approach I’d been experimenting with for a while now is complexity. A philosophical idea I’d been pondering lately has to do with a polarity between absolutely void space, and completely filled solidity.
Art works that are amassed in complexity and chaos approach a paradox for me. I considered the notion that space is perhaps the ultimate filled solid, but its “matter” is so infinitely subtle that it appears to be a vacuous medium through which we can travel. Space, being one side of the polarity between itself and total solidity, is really just part of a polarized environment of creation. This ultimately makes matter and space one when looked at holistically; being and nonbeing are also dual parts of this greater existence. But the play of contrarieties must continue in order for the fluctuating spectrums of all existences to differentiate and experience something other than absolute unity.
In conclusion, I titled this piece Clocking the Mess because I used a magazine cutout of the face of a watch. Of course it represents time, and the main line transversing the picture represents the traditional Western linear concept of time. It also highlights the pathway for which the abstract hurricane is traveling across. The “mess” is all the intricate detail characterizing the image as a whole.
Art of eVan 