Abstraction to Taste
I paint in intuitive response to some idea or theme about which I can feel passionate. I try to find the intellectual kernel in each artwork by separating it from the simply descriptive or the merely autobiographical. By expressing my intuition in the abstract, I avoid the usual constraints of the determinate concepts associated with representation. I thereby achieve a greater freedom of expression.
I seek to confer on each painting its own plastic identity, not merely a painting of some other thing, but with a validity and form in its own right. I want to emancipate my painting from representation, seeking neither the Realistic nor Idealistic but rather Truth, grounded in the integrity of the intuitive, aesthetic response.
I find the ongoing improvisation implicit in abstraction immensely liberating. The inherent instability of improvisation is a conduit for my creativity. The challenge is to sustain that initial sense of freedom generated by the excitement of an impending expedition in search of judgements of taste. I try to overcome this difficulty by establishing spontaneous and emerging relationships between colour, line, tone and texture, with a view to exciting and igniting the canvas. This is the means whereby I create Form. The creation of Form is not dependant on the appearance of objects. Rather Form itself is the expression of freedom of the imagination in harmony with understanding.
I want my paintings to be complex and visually stunning, yet resolved into a unifying simplicity. I don't just take a “Line for a walk”, rather I invite Line, Tone, Texture and Colour on to my canvas and let them have a party or a wake – show them a good time, offer condolences, or anything in between. I encourage them to create a dynamic labyrinth of non-perspective space which is developed over time, as part of the dialogue I have with each canvas. It is a labyrinth into which spectators are invited to loose themselves and in so doing, perhaps become free to find an aesthetic experience.
My painting invites the Spectator to contemplate the evidence of an internal debate in the form of its pictorial elements and significant formal relationships established by my dialogue within the canvas. This dialogue is initiated by a technique similar to the Surrealists' “dessin automatique” but differs radically by not having the need or desire to represent. It enables me to become an integral part of the painting. We, the essential pictorial elements, engage in an exciting, intense debate, taking risks, not knowing where we are going, or when, or indeed if, it will end. Yet, by abstracting from the unnecessary as a means of finding the unique, I initiate the search for aesthetic experience.
My task, therefore, is to create paintings by depicting the significance of the relationships of their parts and thereby establishing a meaningful formal unity. It is a fragile thing. It requires exuberance and daring to be tempered with austerity. My aim is to ensure that my visual response to a particular theme or idea is accessible and pleasurable to its spectators.
Joe Boyle - 6th March 2010