We want to see work which points ‘the way’.
We want to see work which shows us the new world.
We don’t identify ‘life’ unless we see it as new.
We want to make work which helps us see where we’re headed.
The best we can do though, is to shape our loss. We have to shape what is to be lost.
We have to reach the dead end which is a state of loss.
When we think of the artists who guided us, they all mapped their dead end.
Was there another dribbler after Pollock? Cezanne was the last proper synthesist. Sid Nolan did not map the path to invention. He exhausted invention’s scope.
Morris Louis owned the pour. Caro owned The Field of steel. The Italians owned poverty. Nobody else could emulate their poverty.
The Germans owned grief. Nobody could be sadder.
Everything great is an end game. A dead end.
Could there ever be another painting of lillees? Would bottles ever have another life after Morandi? Dots would never be configured without a Central Desert experience.
The best, the most we can do is to shape the end.
To find our voice is to find the shape of the end.
It’s hard to do when all we ever want to do is light the path onwards.
What the great artists do is light the present.
That’s what’s timeless.