Mod502 final schumacher by KJ Schumacher

Collecting, Composing, and Altering Marks

KJ Schumacher, MFA Candidate, Transart Institute Module 502, May 15, 2015

Collecting, Composing, and Altering Marks

This project researches the intrinsic power of the mark in contemporary experience by focusing on three types of marks: the found, the created, and the synthesized. This project studies these three terms as they pertain to art making. The found mark may occur in nature, by another, or both. The created mark is one made within this practice, whether intentional or unintentional. The synthesised mark is one which draws liberally from both the act of collecting marks and making them anew. The mark presents a standard in human existence in that it is a record of how we interact with our environment. It is omnipresent and yet, mark-making is not a necessary endeavor for survival; the creation of marks is a nonessential activity. The collective culture of the image, both historical and contemporary, the culture of art, places a hierarchy upon the value attributed to disparate marks. For each of the these three types of marks (found, created, and synthesized) I will further my research with practice-based experiments elaborating on each type of mark. The first body of work is comprised of two distinct practices: the first, photographic documentation of found marks in digital format and the second, a simple recording of found objects documented as monotypes. A second body of work will involve created marks. A particular focus in this practice will be the way in which the creation of new marks produces additional marks as byproducts. Within this practice, I will investigate the duality that exist between accident and intention, and how each produces new marks. A third body of work encompases the first two as it juxtaposes the found and the created, the intentional and the accidental, and the object and mark in concert. The aim of these experiments seeks to answer the questions: What is it that happens when an artist takes something and does something to it? Why is this act important? â&#x20AC;&#x2039; My praxis consists of making and collecting marks and objects, and re-presenting them in made and found situations - inside and outside the studio. This project elaborates on my studio process and builds upon the existing belief that the physical mark

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holds an intrinsic importance in human experience. The project investigates why this is important and identifies my role within the dynamic by presenting a series of such physical transformations and material manipulations, and, by citing how my intentions function within the process.

The found mark is a natural beginning. These are all around us whether natural or man-made. In contemporary experience they are all the more pervasive as there is a physical material world and a digital, virtual world full of images and visual noise. The volume of stimulus from which the artist may draw allows, or perhaps requires, a sort of open editing that is characterized by an intuitive approach. Jered Sprecher is an artist whose practice is based in the painting studio. His catalogue of references is as varied as types of marks one finds within the paintings. Addressing this concept, fellow artist Wendy White argues:

...rather than imposing a system or converting a limited vocabulary of forms to a pseudo-consistent aesthetic, Sprecher has adopted a largely intuitive approach, conceptually rooted in our inability to aptly process the flood of images in contemporary culture. Acting as a hunter and gatherer, he finds each image and reinterprets it, refusing to define it with one overarching concept or a single painting style.

White, Wendy. Jered Sprecher, Truth in Tension . N.p.: Art Gallery of Knoxville, 2007. Print.

As such, and particularly rooted in the concept of the gatherer, the mark becomes an object. Toward the keeping of these objects, photography presents a solution which is at first documentary; the found mark is recorded. However, this characterization is only part of a larger practice of choosing marks from the vastness. Doing so becomes an act of curating. Just as marks are collected from pixels, they are collected physically in the studio. These two practices yield raw materials, foundational research, and whole work.

A recent series of photographs demonstrate the way in which found marks form a basis in my practice. These works, taken on the occasion of my arrival in Berlin for residency, elaborate on the act of curation within the framework of creating. Presented with the stimulus of a being in an unfamiliar city, I gravitated to the pastiche of fragmented imagery on walls. This was not a documentation of graffiti, but rather choosing a marks related. Returning to White and her discussion of Jered Sprecher,

...seldom (…) recognizable objects or forms, or even identifiable parts, the paintings cannot be labeled non-representational - nor are they truly abstract. Based on what Sprecher refers to as an "eclectic aesthetic," they hover somewhere in between.

White, Wendy. Jered Sprecher, Truth in Tension . N.p.: Art Gallery of Knoxville, 2007. Print.

In the Berlin photographs, the cropping of the compositions forces the viewer to take in only those marks which are selected and documented. The Berlin photographs are pulled from the fabric of their context, taken for the purpose of being viewed in their singularity as physical objects. The compositions are both abstract and completely representational.

Another example of the way in which the collected mark plays a role in this practice is evident in a collection of acrylic plates and their accompanying monotypes. The collection came to be with precisely the same intention as the Berlin photography: visual pleasure of the mark/object as a metaphor for experience. In the case of the acrylic lites, they are physically and metaphorically the same. They are a catalogue of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s broken in my teaching studio. The collected plates are only those which were broken among the dozens of plates collected through years of teaching monotyping. The notion of them being broken relates to some personal insecurities related to the decision to vacate my teaching position at the end of this term. In the same way, the Berlin photographs speak to a character that is unique to that city. However, consistent in both of these bodies of work is the underlying visual fascination with the mark inherent. The broken plates, the way in which each is broken, the shape, the texture, the whole form is what drew me to them as objects. After the fact, I see that they also speak to multiple histories: my own in the teaching studio, to the countless who used them therein as seen on the patina of each, to History in a larger sense as they recall recovered stele of civilisations past. Such found relationships between mark and meaning lay a secondary focus for this practice.

A fundamental element of this practice is creating marks in the studio. Direct mark-making links the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actions with a tradition of mark-making as old as human history. There is the plain physical act of laying down a mark in a matter-of-fact sense, as a labor, and there is the expressionistic element of

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mark-making. Beyond the act of making such marks there is a new phase of mark discovery. From this discovery comes a game of representation in recreating the marks in facsimile.

Its one of two types of representation in my work. Finally, there is direct representation, though it is difficult to pick such representations out in the work. In direct mark-making, it is the process that I find the most compelling interests. The process of creation creates within it a renewable process. Mark-making produces intentional marks as well as new marks (less intentional or unintentional) as byproducts. The renewable nature of this process means that the potential for new discovery in mark-making is limitless.

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There exists a welcome use of both what is intentional and unintentional in the results of mark-making. Indeed, there is a potential disconnect in my use of both indiscriminately, but ultimately each type of mark contributes to understanding and discovery. The following exchange between painter Jeffrey Kessel and Steven Cox illustrates some of the conflicting mentalities I see in my own practice.

The painting processes you utilize showcase many of the painterly traits of an expressionist painter, for your painterly vocabulary includes dripping, pouring, scraping, splattering, wiping, etc. Would you consider your own works as being expressionistic for your paintings do appear to be the personal battling and destruction of popular traits associated with current abstract painting?

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JK: No. But, these are paintings in the truest sense; painting, the act of making a painting is the core of the work....Despite the unrestrained spontaneity of my studio practice, the paintings can often be fairly tight and structured. It's true; I work intuitively and never plan paintings out in advance. I also work fast, its very physical. I'll wipe out or cover up a painting on a whim. I don't like to tinker. They stay fresh this way, it keeps them from closing in and they have energy because of it. But I wouldn't describe it as expression. Somehow they’re more pointed than that, representative of labor and physical materiality. Utilitarian in a way. These are striped down matter-of-fact paintings that lay themselves bare; they're not gratuitous in any way. What you see is what you get. Not grandiose or pretentious in the way I sometimes think of expressive painting. Nor about gesture in any profound way, at least that's the way I see them.3

Kessel, Jeffrey. “Jeffrey Kessel.” Interview by Steven Cox. Hunted Projects . N.p., n.d. Web. 3

Oct. 2014. < http://www.huntedprojects.com/jeffreykessel >.

In my studio, Painting has the additional â&#x20AC;&#x2039; utilitarianâ&#x20AC;&#x2039; function of creating the studio remnant, another source from which I derive raw material. This is the most obvious example of how process plays an important role in the ongoing evolution of the work. In the same way that the I may curate marks freely outside of the studio, I collect marks inside the studio. The collected marks, reused outside of the intentions of the original paintings in which they were created, attest to the raw power of mark-making. While this is desired from a conceptual framework (the intrinsic force of the mark), there may also be a further layer of distilled meaning from the types and ways in which material is reused. Another layer of this investigation is the copying of remnants. When I copy a mark in direct facsimile, or loosely, I am using a mark without cannibalizing the source material. The reasons for this practice are open to interpretation, but generally, I copy those marks that I find most powerful. In doing so, I seek to emulate the power of that mark. Future experiments will investigate what happens when I copy marks that I consciously dislike.

The found mark and the created mark in isolation are best contained within the scope of the theoretical in my work because most of what I create can be best described as a synthesis of the two. Found marks become assimilated building blocks. Created marks are combined with other created marks (or found marks) and therefore lose their singularity. Increasingly, I am using mark and object together, both as a way to underscore the held belief that a mark is an object in-and-of-itself, and, to break down characterizations about the distinct classifications of drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture.

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Re-using, synthesizing these myriad marks is now the primary focus for my practice-based research. Digital photograph begins as a documentary endeavor, albeit one that sheds light onto my own hierarchy for which marks are recorded. After finding and documenting, the first synthesis may be digital. Whether a simple cropping adjustment or more in depth editing, active compositional choices inform a finished piece. Even absent of these changes, choices surrounding presentation of final output can be as important as the mark represented in the first place. I see these choices as a form of mark making as valid as the original curating, or the creation, of the mark. Being a studio-based artist, compositional synthesis occurs more often through physical manipulation of materials. In the case of the Berlin photographs, I altered them in two distinctly different methods. One set of alterations comprise the “Drop Project” in which I inserted my studio remnants among found mark collections on walls and boxes in Berlin. Upon finding a stage, the setting, my intervention on the scene consists of two compositional choice: where to adhere the remnant and how to frame the photograph. Another type of direct synthesis of the found mark occurs directly onto photographic output. An example of this type of synthesized mark-making is the “Tape Paintings.” In these works I used fluorescent gaffer’s tape to alter the photographic print. Both the tape and photograph below point to elements of the experience of time and place from which the work was created.

A similar, series of work is the photographic monotypes. These works have as their starting point the same Berlin taped photographs (â&#x20AC;&#x2039; Tape Paintings)â&#x20AC;&#x2039; , but they have been digitally altered almost beyond recognition through cropping and conversion to grayscale. Beyond these digital alterations, they are further manipulated (redacted, amended, etc.) with monotype marks. This work points to the real potential of this process of distillation and distortion in my work, using the mark as a basic unit. This work has planted the seeds for another experiment, yet unrealized, in which photographic representations of paint in the studio are reused as base layers for subsequent physical alterations in paint, or tape, or another material.

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Finally, there is the notion of introducing the physical object into this discussion and investigating whether it is something distinct from the marks I present or the same thing. Prior to beginning this project, I investigated this question with a series of works titled “Remarks.” Paintings displayed alongside collections of used paint rags, palette scrapings, studio furniture, canvas support stretchers, and library shelving apparatus. The question I presented to the viewer was, “is there any difference between paint on the canvas, on the rag, collected from the palette scrapings?” In dealing with the broken acrylic steles, I am asking the same question. Is there any difference between the broken plate and the monotype it creates? For this yet underdeveloped project, I intend to contrive a way to present the stele itself alongside the marks it makes (monoprints). Monotype, as a technique is a rich process for investigating this idea of mark-as-object / objects-as-mark. What is a wet plate being used as a presser plate for monotype, other than a painting that has not yet dried? The process takes some measure of control from the artist and gives it to the material. The purposeful employment of the technique leaves open greater room for accident. I would say it is in that space that the mark is the most powerful.

This project is about expressing the links between theory and practice in my work. The theoretical inquiry is grounded three types of marks (the found, created, and synthesized). The methodological practice encompasses three working processes (curating, making, and contextualizing). In essence this process develops a pedagogy for teaching myself how to respond to the world around me. That process begins with theorizing and categorizing what I find in the public realm. In the second stage, as a maker, I seek to learn through copying and mimicking in the privacy of my own studio. In the third stage, synthesis, theory and practice come together as I create with knowledge and autonomy. It is a process of taking in, learning, and letting go.

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Works Cited Bell, Julian. What Is Painting? New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999. Print.

Berger, John. About Looking . New York: Vintage International, 1991. Print.

Kessel, Jeffrey. “Jeffrey Kessel.” Interview by Steven Cox. Hunted Projects . N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2014. < http://www.huntedprojects.com/jeffreykessel >.

Obrist, Hans Ulrich, ed. Gerhard Richter: Pictures / Series . Basel: Hatje Cantz, 2014. Print.

Sprecher, Jered. “Jered Sprecher Interview.” Interview by Michael Rutherford. Painter’s Bread . Michael Rutherford, 20 Sept. 2011. Web. 19 Sept. 2014. < http://www.paintersbread.com/2011/09/jered-sprecher-interview.html >.

Storr, Robert. Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting . New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002. Print.

Sylvester, David. The Brutality of Fact, Interviews with Francis Bacon . New York: Thames And Hudson, 1993. Print.

Varnedoe, Kirk, ed. Jasper Johns: Writings, Sketchbook Notes, Interviews . Comp. Christel Hollevoet. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1996. Print.

White, Wendy. Jered Sprecher, Truth in Tension . N.p.: Art Gallery of Knoxville, 2007. Print.

Appendix A

Appendix A contains 20 selected works that partially comprise the works referred to as Berlin In Situ . These digital photographs present studio remnants, which themselves are “found” materials, against marks found on walls in public.

Appendix B

Appendix B contains 40 works that partially comprise works composed of tape edits over printed photographs, referred to as the Tape Paintings . Each work is singular and composed on 4” x 6” photo paper with electrical or gaffers tape.

Appendix C

Appendix C contains 20 selected works that comprise a series multimedia works on paper. The base imagery is derived from the Tape Paintings . Images were transferred by hand from laser prints onto Rives paper using Xylol. Further edits were performed in India ink and gouache. Each image is approximately 8”x10” on paper measuring 15”x11”.

Appendix D

Appendix D contains 40 selected works that partially comprises a series of monotypes derived from the tape works. The images began as digital scans of the Tape Paintings . Scans were digitally cropped to alter composition and reduced to gray-scale. The images are printed onto 4”x6” photo paper again edited with a monotype process using fluorescent water-based ink.

Appendix E

Appendix E contains 20 selected studio-based paintings. All works are on stretched canvas and utilize one or all of the following wet media: aerosol or liquid acrylic, aerosol or liquid enamel, and oil paint. Some pieces also employ chalk, graphite, aluminum tape, gaffers tape, and additional draping in canvas, linen, vinyl, felt, or plastic. Sizes vary widely, from 7”x5” to 60”x72”.