I made a trip in 2011 to see the Land art sites, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Double Negative, Lightning Field and Marfa, Texas. These sites all had work that did not exist in a frame. As a painter, I had been making a series since 1998 called Paintings about Art. This series looked at art in a context, i.e. galleries, studios, storage, etc. The Land art work did not sit in a context the same way. I was at a loss as to how to represent this as it was an immersive experience that is enveloped by the world. It is impossible to say where the art starts and finishes. For me it continues. It also raises the question of, where is the art located? The sky and plants and animals are as implicated as the man made objects and the art (any art) stays in your head when you leave and continues working. How to paint or incorporate this into my work? This question has underscored all the work that I have done since. As I was working on the apartment paintings I became aware of relationships that I had not been able to make until then. I wanted to make an exhibition that was informed by this question.
L to R
Apartment 1, Apartment 2, Apartment 3, Tree, Model.
L to R
Sunlight, Apartment, Apartment 1, Apartment 2, Apartment 3, Model.
L to R
Press, Sunlight, Model, Apartment, Apartment 1.
L to R
Tree, Model.
L to R
Apartment 1, Apartment 2, Apartment 3
2016
Oil on canvas,
111.76 x 152.4 cm.
2016
Oil on canvas,
111.76 x 152.4 cm.
2016
Oil on canvas,
111.76 x 152.4 cm.
2016
Ink on paper
121.92 x 152.4 cm.
L to R
Earthworks, Press.
2014
Ink on paper,
243.84 x 121.92
2013
Ink on paper
111.76 x 152.4
L to R
Earthworks, Double Negative, small panels, Box
Gouache on cardboard
2015
30.48 x 30.48 x 32 cm.
2012
oil on board
20.32 x 101.6 cm.
L to R
Box, Model, Tree.
L to R
24 Bus, Double Negative
L to R
Cabin (Lightning Field), Judd 1.
L to R
Press 1, Judd 2.
2012
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2016
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2012
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2012
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2016
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2014
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2015
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2015
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2012
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
2015
oil on board
20.32 x 25.4
Michael Merrill: “Studio”
28 avril au 26 mai 2018
A garage, 45’ × 25’×10’, there is a 1964 Ford Thunderbird being restored in the corner. The walls are brick and the floor is cement tilted toward the drain. The ceiling has been insulated and drywalled, but water has infiltrated the roof and some of the drywall has collapsed. There is a table with chocolate bar wrappers on it and an empty coke can. There is a red engine hoist, tools and some dirty rags. This is the first time I see my studio.
I spend six months insulating, drywalling, painting, installing skylights and a proper door. I start working. I have been working here for the last 15 years.
Robert Smithson invoked Cézanne directly when describing the necessity of moving out of the studio and into the world to make his site-specific land art. “We now have to reintroduce a kind of physicality,” he insisted in an interview, “the actual place rather than the tendency to decoration which is a studio thing.”
In 2012 I visit Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Double Negative, The Lightning Field and Marfa, Texas. I attempt to paint each of these sites in situ. It is impossible. Over the next four years I struggle with questions related to the experience of these works. The removal of a frame is profound. I am no longer looking through a lens, I am surrounded. I become more interested in working from life with the negotiation of reality: flux, wind, bugs, rain, sun, cold, etc. The experience necessitates an efficient and economical form of shorthand that replaces polish with rawness to convey this experience. The work becomes more material oriented. Each mark is a step into thin air. What is unstated becomes as important as what is.
I approach my environment with the same spirit. I paint the studio as a subject, initially as an exercise for plein-air painting. But I have inadvertently taken Robert Smithson’s statement from above, and reversed it. My studio is in the world.
The studio is a constant subject for artists: Matisse, Braque, Bruce Nauman, Paul McCarthy, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston, Courbet, Brancusi and more. It is an incubator, matrix or a “centre of creation.” The exhibition draws a line from the studio to the gallery.
Michael Merrill: “Studio”
with thanks to the Pollock-Krasner Foundation
28 avril au 26 mai 2018
Un garage 45 pi. x 25 pi. x 10 pi., dans le coin une Ford Thunderbird 1964 en réparation, des murs de briques, un plancher de ciment en pente vers le drain; on a isolé le plafond et platré mais de l’eau infiltrée sous le toit a fait tomber le platre. Sur une table, des papiers d’emballage de chocolat, une cannette de Coke vide, un levier rouge, des outils et des chiffons sales. Je vois mon atelier, la première fois.
Six mois j’ai isolé, platré, posé des puits de lumière et une vraie porte.
Mon travail pouvait commencer, j’y suis depuis quinze ans. Robert Smithson évoquait Cézanne sur la nécessité de quitter l’atelier à la rencontre du monde pour créer son propre travail, unique, à même le sol. « Il nous faut renouer avec une certaine physicalité » disait-il , « la vraie place pour fuir le décoratif inhérent à l’atelier ».
En 2012 j’ai visité Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Double Negative, The Lightning Field et Marfa au Texas; sur place j’ai tenté de peindre chacun de ces lieux. C’est impossible.
Je me suis astreint ensuite quatre ans à questionner ces oeuvres. L’expérience de perdre son cadre est profonde: je vois maintenant sans lunettes.
Partie intégrante d’un environnement, je m’intéresse surtout au travail selon la vie avec ses percées de réalité: marées, vent, pluie, soleil, froid, etc. L’expérience exige pour sa transmission, une forme immédiate d’efficacité et d’économie qui remplace le beau par le cru. Le travail s’en trouve d’autant matérialisé, chaque trait une étape vers l’air libre, le sous-entendu aussi important que la surface.
Je ne vois plus mon environnement autrement: le studio me sert de sujet, comme au départ une pratique de peinture en plein air. A mon insu la proposition de Robert Smithson s’est inversée. Mon atelier fait partie du monde.
Pour les artistes l’atelier est un sujet permanent: Matisse, Braque, Bruce Nauman, Paul McCarthy, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston, Courbet, Brancusi et d’autr es. C’est l’incubateur, la matrice, le « lieu de création ». L’exposition prolonge la ligne entre l’atelier et la galerie.
Michael Merrill
Merci - Fondation Pollock-Krasner
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Photo Guy L’Heureux
Having tried off and on for years to do watercolour, I would become discouraged and put it away for a while only to come back to it and fail again. Initial attempts were always overworked. Working with ink was a solution to this impasse. Eliminating colour allowed me to move forward, working wet in wet. I became aware that the paper was not a passive surface that accepts the will of the artist as it is with opaque mediums, gouache, acrylic, etc. It is primary and alive.
The initial watercolours, wet in wet, function very much like dreams. I became so entranced that I would dream all night of working and wake up aching to get back to the studio. The image and the watercolour come together and drift apart.There is no preliminary drawing. The paper is soaked and the loaded brush touches the paper and the ink blooms. The paper moves creating pockets that hold puddles of water, as they dry create an overlay of halos and marks that are independent of the image. Everything is in flux. A part that has been painted in has now disappeared leaving only a ghost. This is anarchy! The images emerge from the process. As the work dries other possibilities become available.
Later I experienced a torn retina and my vision became very much like these wet in wet works. Flashes and floaters making one acutely aware of the eye as the mediator of vision between the self and the world. Perception is fragile.
At each Landart site I make a drawing a watercolour and a small oil painting. Trying to represent this experience with realism is futile. It is necessary to work fast and economically as the conditions are hostile, heat, wind, etc. Working like this, mastery disappears and one is left to invent a new language on the spot. The work is finished when the time runs out as opposed to the studio where time is endless. It takes a while to accept these. They are raw and ugly, but contain energy. I am hooked.
Entering the cave the flashlight or torch creates roiling shadows that that are continually suggesting images, a fountain of creation. Henri Michaux and Picasso as well as others come to mind with images that spring from the moment.
Now less has become more. The “cottage” paintings are about activating the white unpainted parts of the image. Rather than lying under the paint, they interlock with the shapes and enter the conversation. The watercolour is applied to dry paper. The paper is only touched with intention. Each mark answers the previous one. There is no forgiveness. It is a tightrope walk, the marks accumulate, bugs are out, rain starts, the light is gone, the work is finished.