An Arts Centre or A Contemporary Art Museum?

Art & Superman Politics

The business of art

The state of the art

Sex, spirituality and loss in Mediterranean art

Majjistral

Manscapes

The relationship between art and politics has shaped the course of development of nations for centuries. There is one trait however which re-emerges in all politico-religious arenas throughout time. This is the Western obsession with the superhuman which we can trace as far back as Greek antiquity and which has always been an instrument of psycho-manipulative propaganda. Ironically this has survived to this day in mutated forms. Are we capable of recognizing and resisting these subtle manipulative messages in today's "information" society?

In classical Greek thought the Gods were capable of adopting human semblance and of walking amongst man in order to test his righteousness. Therefore one had always to be careful of the way one treated a stranger as this could actually be Zeus in disguise. The lightning bolt powers of Zeus were later transferred to the new Christian God showing how the new church did not completely forfeit the power of fear of punishment as a convincing weapon to keep the flock from straying. The manipulative power of the story is evident and this fear of a transformer half human super god, has given religions political control on people for centuries. The art of both these eras reflects this fear clearly. From the powerful and muscular depictions of Greek Olympian gods to Michelangelo's St Peter's and the gothic Cathedrals, art made man stand in awe of religion. Hitler recognised this western obsession with the superhuman and exploited it to his advantage. The Aryan race, if kept pure, was invincible, a super-race. He would give a chance to all Aryans to become gods themselves. The only art suitable for a super-race was a sort of neo-classic cocktail laced with the national socialist obsession with the beauty of youth. Muscle bulging blond and god like warriors appeared everywhere to illustrate the Fuhrer's theories.

The Nazis began to loathe "modern" art as this ran counter to the propaganda being fed to the masses. Art promoting individual thinking had to be suppressed. This led to the banning of a number of artists who today are considered modern masters. In 1937 Kandinsky's work was shown in the Nazi exhibition of "Degenerate art"; 57 of his pieces in German museums were confiscated. The Super-race managed to sweep away everything which did not fit into the system causing an exodus of talent to the USA which was later to make New York the centre of the Art world. The "superhuman" also contaminated Communist official art and propaganda. Here too the cult of muscle was exalted with the addition of some tools as standard props. Modern art was at first supported but later persecuted as the newness of the socialist system ran out and gave way to propagandistic manipulation of the masses. The "worker" became the super-human to be exalted and illustrated everywhere. All workers had to feel that their party had done them a great service in representing their cause. East European countries were littered with monuments of upward punching boilersuits armed with hammers. We even have our own example of the genre in the form of the Msida GWU monument. This particular form of manipulation worked for fifty years until the fall of the USSR. It is not surprising that the street monuments were the first things to be toppled. The west has continued to use the same idea to manipulate mass consensus. This time the age of mass media has made it even easier to apply and even harder to detect. Superman cartoons and Hollywood are the latest personification of western man's need to look up to the sky in awe. Instead of becoming free and conscious of his self determination he is distracted by an entertainment industry which has the power to reach all the corners of the globe from just one country and which has all but destroyed local talent and ideas in the process. European cinema is in serious trouble under the constant bombardment of tinsel town. Just as the ancient romans provided free bread and entertainment in the arena to keep the multitudes from thoughts of rebellion our "modern" equivalent is the TV and the cinema. We all pay our money to buy the Hollywood dream. We swoon at the "stars" power and money, forgetting our reality and how little reading about other people's lives has changed anything. Hollywood has been the west's most subtle political tool forcing millions into the submission of forgetfulness. Only in the sixties, during the student rebellions against the arrogance of authority and senseless war, did it lose its perpetual hold on youth. In this sense every Japanese cartoon and western film like "The Mask" is continuing the cult of superman which is distracting people from reality so much it is becoming their reality making them submissive and politically harmless.

As if this were not enough we now have computers and internet to join in the bombardment of "information" which ultimately turns out to be advertising. The modern "superman" has been given high speed computers and virtual reality in order to appease him and give him the illusion that he is in control and superior to others. Information technology is the new political weapon being used as the more traditional television loses audience. But I wonder have internet users much hope of making anybody visit their web site when there are four million new ones opened everyday? Too much information is like none at all. Ultimately the new technological "superman" controls nothing and simply consumes more and more computers and expensive associated services.

It is ironic that political self awareness is reducing so fast in "developed" countries with fewer and fewer people going to vote. This shows that the distractions are becoming more interesting than reality.

Where does this leave art? On the fringe along with many traditional activities which do not require a chip and a VDU. However most artists are today capable of being free of commissions by having another job. This has created the possibility for the first time for them to make art based on their own experience of life. This has depoliticised art making it an esoteric act in the face of a media saturated world. It is the artist who can ignore the media and find his true self whilst setting this example to others. It is perhaps the first time in history that art has become freed of political or religious powers and can work at the service of man becoming a true celebration of his awareness

References

"Kandinsky", Hajo Duchting, Tashen 1993

The Malta Independent 1998

In any discussion on culture and art in respect of the local scene it seems inevitable that the question of the lack of a museum of contemporary art always crops up. Artists are the greatest promoters of the idea although it should not necessarily be so as they would not be the sole beneficiaries of such an institution. In fact it is rather curious that no other social bodies or political parties have ever included this in their cultural programmes. One argument often brought up is that the expense involved is too great for a small nation such as ours and that there are other more important things on the national agenda. This does not justify the previous administration’s plans to renovate St. James Cavalier and make this a National Arts Centre which means that thousands of liri were to be spent to create a temporary exhibition space. Why did we need such a project? I have been told that the Centre would have been under the control of "Patrimonju" (that powerful and blank faced government entity) which wanted a fixed space for its rotating exhibitions on historic Malta, such as New Pre-Historic Discoveries and The Silver of Malta. This means that the Museum Department (the prime promoters of the Contemporary Art) were not to be given any say in its running. Why could this money not be used for a national contemporary collection?. I do not see the justification of such a large expense on temporary shows which could be housed in other available locations as they have been in the past. Did they think that the cultural community would be appeased by another expensive conversion project which was going to be housed in a dark windowless fortress? This is a far cry from conversions made abroad where maximising light is the prime prerogative. A beautiful example of this is the D’Orsay state art museum in Paris, which is housed in the Victorian style glass and iron ex-railway station. It would be very positive to see something permanent celebrating our recent past. A contemporary collection should take precedence and should be housed in an appropriate contemporary building or in an appropriate conversion . There should not be such an emphasis on Valletta as the site. Transportation today is not a problem and such a museum could be set in any suitable location not, necessarily linked to the old city. There are many old disused army barracks which could be demolished and replaced by a new building. A country side setting would be ideal for the creation of a sculpture garden in a tranquil setting. Bigi Hospital is an ideal large structure which could make an interesting conversion.

One may argue that this is making a bias in favour of visual art and that an arts centre would have catered for all the arts. This point would be best answered by saying that it would be better to make amends to one serious problem rather than to try to cater for all of them in one building, this would have been a virtually impossible undertaking. I cannot see how St James Cavalier was going to cater for the visual arts, dance, music, stage and the inevitable internet link to "other similar centres around the world". We are no longer fooled by technological hype and now want to see specific improvements in specialised fields. This attitude is what gives a country a European orientation rather than the typically Mediterranean single remedy to cure all ills.

Contemporary Art needs to become respected as a national heritage, to be shared by our nation and those who visit us. The previous administration attempted to promote Malta’s past as a high class tourist attraction hence "Patrimonju"’s exhibitions, transporting the "Beheading of St. John" by Caravaggio to Florence during an EU meeting and so on. It is positive to promote cultural tourism however it is not open minded enough to cater exclusively for the history buff. There are thousands of tourists who travel in search of a living culture, be it with long and deep historic roots or not. This is why there is a shift in interest in quality tourism worldwide towards the far east. A prime example of this trend are the primitive artist people of Bali whose living traditions attract so much interest. Almost nothing is being done to promote artists locally, let alone create a collection of their work on permanent display for viewing by tourists. Visitors to Malta are confronted by generic souvenirs which are imported and labelled "Malta". When they go to our Museums in search of the recent past they find, after much travelling through our many Neolithic and archeological collections that a few pieces are on display at the Museum of Fine Arts but that unfortunately the most recent date to the 1930’s. How are we attracting those thousands of culture vultures to our culturally dorment island? In every museum abroad one joins the throngs of tourists who visit these places. They need not be the most famous museums but even lesser known collections receive amazing amounts of visitors by those curious to know more about a country’s recent past and willing to enjoy the experience of viewing art. With our local tourist count in excess of a million a year surely a well organised institution would be well patronisd by visitors. Above all it would raise our sense of pride with those who visit us, as we show them that we offer a rich and chequered history reflected in a living and dynamic culture, willing to express itself today.

Having made the plea and attempted to justify it financially, the obvious question which arises is "What would we put up in this Museum once it was made?"

Not many people have wondered about the whereabouts of the so called "National Collection of Contemporary Art". This consists of a collection of art assembled by asking artists who exhibit at the government museums for one piece of work as a form of "fee" for use of the space. The collection’s initial home was in the top floor of Palazo Spinola round about 1986-1987. I visited this floor with pride as for the first time, I could see an effort, however modest, in the institutionalising of contemporary art. My happiness was short lived for by about 1988-1989, the MIBA (Malta International Business Authority) was housed in Spinola Palace and the collection was moved, as far as I or any other layman knew, to crates. The reason, I have recently learned, could be attributed to the extremely poor attendance by the public or I suspect the pressure of finding offices for the MIBA. Some two years later, I visited the "Museum of Folklore", in the Inquisitor’s Palace, Vittoriosa and to my surprise I found the "Contemporary Collection", rubbing shoulders with spinning loom and kenur and very poorly displayed at that, not to say left in a state of dusty abandon. Whatever the state of the contemporary collection it is the basis of a new museum along with what must amount to hundreds of other pieces now in storage. But these are probably not the most representative works of art to have been made over the past fifty years. One would have to verify when the museum started claiming a piece for every exhibition which I suspect must not date back to much longer than fifteen to twenty years ago. One would also have to consider the time artists did not exhibit at all and even exhibitions not held at the museum. In order to obtain a true "Contemporary Collection" some serious acquisitions and donations must be made soon. Too much time has passed between the last phase of serious collecting and display done by the Museum Department (dating back to the efforts of Fr. Marius Zerafa in establishing the Museum of Fine Arts) and the present. What was done then is now hopelessly inadequate. The modern era, which is now over, is scantily documented. The museum needs more funds, staff, a building, and purchasing power in order to collect and save for our collective posterity that part of our recent past culture which is being lost to the oblivion of the individual collector. The more time passes, the more this gap will widen and the harder it will be to find art of the given period. I am referring to the years just after the war to the late sixties and on to the present day. Many of our senior artists are protagonists of those periods and might be encouraged to donate works if there is a responsible effort to make a museum. Many artists in the past have left considerable collections to their respective states (Rodin, Picasso ,Turner, Brancusi) it would not be unlikely that our local artists might do the same. But time is against faltering as these mature artists are getting older and their personal collections become the subject of family wills and subsequent dispersion.

Local taste is dangerously entrenched in a strange mixture of Baroque, Rustic folklore and Victorian colonialist neo-classism. We cannot blame local intransigence and resistance to contemporary art, if this attitude is not countered by collecting a permanent display. A Museum is also an educational tool. We owe it to our children, present and future. Their visual education and sense of national pride would benefit enormously by such an investment. Every time one visits Museums of Modern Art abroad, one sees the inevitable group of school children being shown round by their teachers. Visual education should become an important part of our education.

The function of a new museum would be to act as a centre for the fostering of a sense of national culture which is still evolving and alive. We must stop looking out to others for a lead in our cultural identity. Young artists would also benefit and learn from exposure to artwork of their recent past. The need for a large collection housed in an appropriate building cannot be bypassed with stop gap solutions or small scale efforts otherwise the required social and cultural effects will not come to fruition.

Another role of the Contemporary Art Museum would be crucial to the cultural development of the role of the artist in Malta. By having an institution whose scope is the preservation of his work, the artist will become institutionalised. His work will no longer be a passing whim of the imagination but an important part of our present and future history. By being taken seriously, our artists would thrive and give their best, aspiring to have pieces of their work accepted in the national collection. This would be the highest recognition a nation can give to its best artists. Without this national recognition artists are presently not thinking about the collectivity, often looking for recognition of their work in other countries. This is a further loss we cannot afford.

A Museum should house artwork of all types besides painting, graphics, pottery, ceramics and sculpture, such as outstanding examples of stamp design, industrial design, advertising art, crafts and alternative art forms such as installations, video and film performance and happenings. A visit to such a place should be both educational and entertaining.

The faith of the Arts Centre project remains to be seen in the light of the current house cleaning by government but it would be a shame if the money allocated were not used for a cultural project. Hopefully the current wave of Government moves against excessive spending will not include the funds for this project which should be diverted towards the contemporary collection museum. What if the money is not enough?. I think funding should be undertaken by the Government in collaboration with one or a group of local firms interested in attaching their name to the prestige of the institution they would help create. Various forms of this occurs abroad where the private sector participates in contemporary culture. In Germany up to 10% of a company’s profit must be invested in contemporary art, by law. The Saatchi brothers have invested heavily in contemporary art in the U.K. by creating the "Saatchi Collection of Modern Art". The new Museum of Modern Art which the Tate will open at the old Bankside power station in London, come the millennium, will be funded by unclaimed prize money from the state lottery. That is an idea for the lotto department! A similar lottery made 200 years ago had given the United Kingdom the British Museum!

With a little good will and collaboration money is always found for large projects in Malta. We have seen this being done by huge private and church charities, and even the political parties not to mention the countless smaller special interest or sport groups which all seem to own premises and finance their own existence. When we decide to do something locally it usually gets done. Hopefully this article may inspire an effort to be made to fill the greatest cultural gap in our country’s museum line up, the whole artistic production of the past fifty years.

The Malta Independent March 1997

by Dominic Cutajar

When I first saw John Busuttil Leaver's collection of paintings and drawings, assembled under the thematic title of Majjistral, inevitable sprang to mind the famous drolleries. These were marginal drawings, hand-painted on the borders of illuminated Medieval manuscripts, some of which depicted figures with puffed cheeks generally inserted to denote the main prevailing winds graphic devise that managed to survive in map-making. It's as though a truly venerable tradition going back at least to Homer's Odyssey where the hero-navigator was entertained somewhere in the Aeolian islands by the god of winds.

My own underlining of this tradition, intertwined with long lost myths from the dim past, is more relevant to the collection Majjjstral of John Busuttil Leaver than at first meets the eye: as he strongly affirms some definite beliefs on the function of art and on the modern artist's role in contemporary culture. He believes in seeking authenticity through a return to nature, "the mother of the human sub-conscious" and the ultimate seat of intuitive creativity. It is also the seat of symbolic representation which the creative mind needs and is ever attempting "to express". Hence he follows Arnheim in maintaining that symbol and expression are interchangeable - which raises the question as to how the modern artist is to achieve expression in an authentic way.

At this point, John agrees with Otto Rank who insists on the essentiality of the personality development so as to induce the artist to return to the creative impulse in the service of his own personality, accepting the fact that one's experience is "art in germ". Art - in this way - thus becomes an organic product, since man belongs wholly to nature and he can only be himself when he functions in harmony with nature.

John adheres faithfully to this rationale in Majjistral series. He experiences the forces of nature - the imposing piling of dark threatening clouds, the oppressive tension preceding the storm, the catharsis of the violent outburst, and the invigorating renewal of life from the wet soil - in a choral organic manner, in a conscious participatory mood, enhanced by his own personal experience, his tension and emotions. The symbol is all the more real because it is experienced in the artist's own inner life, apart from and parallel to his experiencing it as a cosmic phenomenon.

Its relevance is all the more palpable in being a recurring atavistic experience, a human symbol experienced from time immemorial, recorded in ancient myths and in old graphic representations that we have all but forgotten the potency of their meaning.

Dominic Cutajar

Majjistral is a small collection of paintings and drawings based on my reaction to weather conditions visible from home which is on the high grounds of Naxxar. .

It also represents the collection of five years of meditation and study about what the art of painting means to me; symbolism, painterly techniques and personality development.

Time has made me more aware of the crises in western esthetics and how this is indirectly creating the negative attitude towards contemporary artists on our island. Devaluation of art making, due to marginalisation of fine art, in an ironically, increasingly visual, technological society.

Majjistral began with four tempera sketches made in the Winter of 1994-5. Marthese was pregnant and I was starting a new job. The weather was wild and wet. My attention was grasped by the weather. Looking up on my way to work every morning and evening I began to register the changes in cloud formation, the onrush of coming grey blue storms. I suddenly felt I could identify with this raging of nature. I felt that the pregnancy and the strength of the elements were part of one thing. We were a small part of nature. I always felt that the upset caused by a storm had creative possibilities...where my concentration seemed to increase during the worst gale, but now I felt that this sensation was linked to primeval symbolism which was waiting to take form. Man in his basic simplicity always makes the same symbols. The worship of the earth cult (woman/fertility) gave way in history to the sky cult (man/god/Greco-Roman). In Majjistral I attempt to merge the two searching for balance between earth and sky, turmoil and stability, male and female.

There is a fascinating beauty in the turbulations of "bad" weather. A storm is an event. It is a definite statement by nature, that is there, in all its power and our efforts to change nature will ultimately amount to nothing. In the beginning there was nature and in the end there will be nature. Man is not nature. We are merely a part of it. When you spend a winter waiting and struggling for your child to be born you really feel this.

Nature is cruel, selective, destructive and creative. The majjistral has no regard for what it destroys. The small boats it sinks and crops which it burns out. The rain it brings irrigates as well as bursts the boundary walls of fields, dragging the soil down to the sea. The same wind turns the windmills and eventually blows away the clouds. Nature is a dual personality like the Greek gods, it is both benevolent and cruel. The battle between earth and sky will rage forever, destroying life while simultaneously laying the seeds for new creation.

Seeing the birth of my daughter has impressed me with the wonders of the female body. It is small wonder how primitive man worshipped the fertility goddess and how women were treated with scorn and wonder throughout history. Women were feared and not understood so they were marginalised by man who put himself in the centre of culture (Zeus as opposed to the Fertility Goddess) Here is a being who relates to life outside from directly within. The passing of the fetus into the outside world to immediately become a child is like giving up a part of your body to create another life. The egg is within the woman. She gives it up after nine months of careful caretaking in a cry of agony and happiness. One becomes two. Woman creates while man watches. Man only feels outside of himself. Even sexually a woman expresses her love internally.

Man is afraid of intrusions on his body....for a woman they are everyday life. The spiritual interior is easily compared to the physical interior.

Woman tends to be deep while man is more materialistic. She is the classical ideal of beauty and the carrier of wisdom. We still live in a male dominated society where the balancing, positive symbolic influence of woman is still not felt.

Peter Fuller says that nature is mother to the human subconscious. Our experience of mother's body and face as infants shape our esthetic taste forever. The Monalisa's smile is an universally popular motherly face and the Venus of Milo and countless other interpretations of the nude female figure attract both men and women's attention and admiration. Mother is in the "landscape" we saw as infants crawling on our beloved parent. Her curves are reflected in anything we define "beautiful", in boats we call "she", in cars, in plants, landscape ecc. The "art nouveau" period at the turn of the century exhaulted this feminine aspect to a point which was never repeated Even industry was effected as furniture became curvacious, epitomised by the "Tonate" chair France 1890 based totally on curved bent wood. The concentration on texture and surface brought about later by abstraction, moved away from "mother" as the forms of art. The severing of this link lead to the gradual drift towards the reduction of the pictorial surface to ever increasing minimalism until one reached the completely black canvas of Rothko. Without "mother" there is the void.

His suicide after the black painting period is a further confirmation of the "void". We must accept our nature and not fight it. Our love of life and happiness is built in our subconscious and takes shape when reminded of the Mother - the carrier and giver of life...the opposite of the void....i.e. death.

Woman, is explained by advertising culture, as a sexual decoration placed next to any product. Any realistic artistic rendering of woman is immediately confused by this negative message from advertising. The damage is constantly re-made daily by the media bombardment. This is therefore a closed series for expressive art. It is small wonder how abstraction persists even after its high point in the 1950's (Abstract Expressionism) But trying to escape mother only leads back to the void.

Arnheim says that symbol and expression are interchangeable. We are living in a society dominated by symbols. Everything from a political party, religion, or local council right down to a fruit or piece of paper has a logo design to symbolise it. We are suffering from symbolic indigestion due to an increasingly americanised capitalistic economy. The reaction to this symbolic overflow is naturally a development of an immunity system. No symbol carries an expressive meaning anymore as they all join the flux of the various media bombarding our lives. The effect on art is very negative. Some advocate a return to classical images as a way of re-establishing art's credibility and individuality. This seems justified but futile as commercial design seems to have plaguerised art ~d infinitum, turning important collective symbols into vulgar advertising (eg the Mona Lisa, Mondrian, Leonardo, the Impressionists ecc.) Art and advertising seem destined to become one activity in a society where gimmicks and popularity created by marketing strategies are the measure of one's success. The true role of the symbol, that of being pure expression, is being forgotten. If all expression is lost to this pseudo symbol fabricating, we shall leave behind us very little of value to mark our passing.

Nature and our place in its design is an endless source of discovering and inspiration for my work. It is everybody's right to experience nature for it is healthy both physically and psychologically Man is no different than plants and other animals in his need for fresh air, vast views and rough land under his feet. I always wandered at the sheer joy a dog experiences when taken for a walk but I now understand it. Spend too much time indoors or in a car and you forget your humanity. Nature was the source of religion. Our own Neolithic remains testify to that. Now we have forgotten nature and surround ourselves with machines and electronic boxes which command all our fascination, but these objects are man made and therefore are limited. What we ultimately ask from them is

spiritual fulfillment and they cannot give this to us. Our religions are overcomplicated and detached from everyday experience. There remains, ultimately, the simplicity of nature....where it all began. Arnheim said that to rescue contemporary art one must work stylistically (as opposed to realism), generally (timelessness as opposed to documenting an event) and depicting the natural (as opposed to man made objects).

Contemporary art which does the opposite of the above produces only monsters which remind us of our materialism and loss of spirit.

I sometimes wonder how classist art has become especially when approached by the ever increasing number of art graduates who study abroad and feel they are superior because of this. The "higher" abstract contemporary art is being made for the elite upper classes who do not understand it anyway but support it in order to be socially acceptable.

And yet the great paintings and sculpture of the Renaissance were made so simply that they could be understood by the poorest lay man who used the churches for which they were made. Art has become overintellectualised. In our effort to add value to something which has become cut off from popular living culture it has over sophisticated itself to a point where only critics and artists can find the words to describe it. Art has, under the attack of a multimedia world, shot itself in the foot. There is a great need to have renewed classic symbols of humanity from artists. The intellectual abstractions, absurd conceptualists, and banal hyper realistic repetitions are responsible for the great losses art has conceded to the multimedia culture. It is time for symbolisation to return to art.

Jung wanted artists to be missionary preachers of the way to balance and spirit. I see the reconnection to nature as the only means for art as the logical answer to Jung's thought.

Peter Fuller in 'Images of God' understates the loss of a 'Shared Symbolic Order' in the form of a powerful religion, which had given rise to the best works of art in western history (renaissance). This has now been replaced by western capitalism whose 'art' form is advertising media and media influenced 'art'. Little art, worth its salt, has been made in the 'modern' era. Without a 'Shared Symbolic Order', there is no drive to create such things as the Gothic Cathedral or St Peter's. Fuller also proposes that nature is our last 'Shared Symbolic Order' and the only way out of the modernist cul-de sac.

Benjamin, by realising that art was moving towards 'art of the masses' especially film and that this was liquidating the cultural inheritance of the west, was predicting the failure of 'modernism'. Reproducing art for the masses is truly of educational value but for art to become part of the reproductive process is not a democratisation of art as Benjamin implies, but the destruction of the art object into thousands of reproductions of little value. It is again the modernist cul-de-sac. Artists should think less of reaching thousands and reach for their true selves. Benjamin made me realise how the social problem of art can in itself destroy creativity by imposing 'reproducibility' on the work.

There should be only one norm for art and that is nature, symbolic timelessness and stylisation . Artists should not be too technical or they will lose their mandate to work. The first person they should educate is themselves. Otto Rank puts this topic of 'personality development' as the foremost goal of the artist. Giving up artistic expression in favour of formation of personality would remould the artist and make him face reality, returning to a creative impulse in the service of his own personality. One would 'accept the physical ego as a part of the universe'. Instead of retreating from life (or nature, family, people) as many 'creators' have done (Van Gogh, Goya ecc. ecc.) the artist should live 'real life' and return periodically from this experience to create art with

a richer personality. I see Rank's writing as an urging to artists to accept the 'natural' outside and inside and express it. Esthetic beauty is tied up with nature not machines or buildings or cars or prints of paintings or images on film. Dewey puts much importance on 'experience' as the root of art, an experience of the 'eternal good' i.e. nature. 'Because experience is the fulfillment of an organism in its struggles and achievements in a world of things, it is art in germ.'

As we are not definite and unchanging in time, then so too must art be a process of change in series in time. The wave of produce can turn, twist and change but will be linked by moral and esthetic judgement rather than style, colour or other flimsy criteria. What the artist is trying to convey is his expression of his experience of life. These two words EXPERIENCE and EXPRESSION are the pivots of the wheel of success of a work of art. If there is no experience of some event or emotion, of a real life situation, then this will show in a work which is formal and overdone. There will be nothing to EXPRESS; ie to squeeze out, to bring up from the unconscious , to communicate. Unfortunately as an artist I feel there is a double problem in this subject . Modern life tends to be dull and repetitive but it offers financial security in the form of employment. There is little space to "experience" some sensation. It is small wonder that artwork available from local artists is pretty dull and repetitive . Yet experience is in the simplest things. It is there to be had in the small events of everyday life even perhaps, at work. The artist must live as "everyman" and no longer as an outsider, a bohemian, an eccentric. Art has become that of individual experience. In a situation where there is a saturation of the visual world, (visual bombardment of media), individual artists can provide a visual esthetic which is equal to silence...to recuperate our lost mental peace

You cannot replace memory and imagination with video footage. Video does all the imagining for you. The basis of art is the capacity to imagine one's own version of what is being retold. Painting and books suggest....video does it all....until the collective memory becomes identical, based on the same image. The esthetic feeling of beauty is a collage of ideas and memories sublimating into one new experience. To suggest a fait accompli in video is to deny the esthetic a right to operate.

No matter how much technology we surround ourselves with our importance is marginal to the cosmos. It is realising this that makes our life a treasure in its simplicity. The fact that we are alive is already a miracle Being able to express these feelings through art is a small miracle which must not be missed. To share ideas and art is a duty for artists. "Success" is measured by the capacity to get these concepts through to someone

The connection between life and work is one of providing funds for one by the other. Workaholics muddle up this divide and think that life and work are the same thing. Otto Rank has made me realise that this can happen to artists. The other extreme can occur where one "sends art to perdition" and cancels a possible talent because there was "no time" for it. Rank claims that the middle way is best where an artist is not the instinctive bohemian lost to production and neither the repentant would have been artist but a new personality who blends life with art using both to enrich his personality. Rank sees personality development as the one modern aim for art. Gone are the religious, national and elite groupings who provided a motivation to art. Today is the age of the individual....so art is primarily at the service of the individual.

Majjistral is therefore an attempt to choose a definite path in painting and ruminate my experiences and beliefs. There is no further space for hiding behind abstraction at one extreme and realism at the other. Art must be a sharing of symbols of life and the battle between all the forces in nature

which suppress or create it

Art which works is that which celebrates life, overcoming our fear of death. We accept our participation in the cycle of nature and our eventual death. There we are freed to celebrate "living"

As man is an image of nature, he is therefore clearly going to prefer seeing images of man. These symbolise not merely his passing or attempt his eternalisation but should point to the beauty of life and its position within the greater scheme of nature. Man is a small passing event in relation to the age of the world. Understanding this, nonetheless, should invigorate us to enjoy and celebrate our brief moment.