Washington, DC, artist, Allison B. Miner, continues my recent project by writing about "introspection." As usual, I extend an invitation to all local artists who would like to participate in this effort. Just email me!
Funny Face 5
Oil on Gessoboard
6" x 8"
2004
Allison B. Miner: Introspection
“Did you see that?’
“Huh?”
“Honey, are you listening to me?”
No, well kind of, see I took it in but I was distracted; I was too busy looking inside. You have called me out and my eyes are struggling to adjust to the bright light. Outside the florescent lights burn my eyes and cars buzz by and sensations abound but quickly I am numb again to those things. I am back inside. It is quieter and darker in here and my eyes readjust.
Inside I am not silent; my screams are heard and my true self is seen. Between my ears is a world so vast it can never be navigated enough to draft a map.
Good artists are not best at painting, drawing…but rather at seeing. I have no choice-I have to look inside as hard as I do at my physical subjects. I have crow’s feet, I have since I was sixteen, because I’m always straining to see the truth. I study the subtle variation in color as one plane shifts into another on the human face. My mind’s eye has them too. You would too if we met, you need to strain too in order to see me.
When I paint, I produce a conglomerate of my two visions. Like its second nature, I produce a depiction of both the faces I see in my intimate external world and the real me I discovered during my travels inside.
You see, Honey, I wasn’t listening because I was busy. I am racing against time to find all the recesses of my interior. I am looking under every stone, inside each nook and behind every wall where memories, both repressed and those burned into the forefront of my being, reside forever. This search is arduous and obsessive-I’m trying to find me, the child I once was and lost, the truth everyone neglected until it was left behind.
The product-my paintings, which are the manifestation of the marriage of my search inside and observations outside, are tiny like those recesses, like that child. They extend an invisible finger and beckon you to come closer-closer than you are supposed to get to art. You know better and it makes you uncomfortable but you move in anyway. At first you are confronted by rough terrain-the topography of the medium, but without your consent the piece lulls you into a different place. You can see into the eyes of the subject and through the looking glass to me. But like it did for Alice, the looking glass also reflects your own visage and you pull away from the piece having been pushed by those icy fingers into your own interior.
“I like that one too, Sweetie, but let’s look over there,” she tells you.
“Huh, what?” you respond.
“Are you listening to me?” she asks.
No, you’re not, well kind of.
Funny Face 7
Oil on Gessoboard
6" x 8"
2004
Previous Posts:
Charles Neenan: Tradition
Kelly Towles: Color
Ryan Mulligan: Originality
Matt Hollis: Confinement
Dean Fueroghne: Originality
James W. Bailey: Obligation
J. Coleman: Depiction
Andy Moon Wilson: Decision
Molly Springfield: Language
Bryan Whitson: Scene
Elyse Harrison: Motivation
Jiha Moon Wilson: Influence
Alexandra Silverthorne: Derivative
Jose Ruiz: Contemporary
Kathleen Shafer: Focus
Jennifer McMackon: Connection
Gregg Chadwick: Responsibility
Warren Craghead: Material
Angela Kleis: Purpose
Peter Reginato: Order
Anna L. Conti: Community
Wayne Schoenfeld: Content
Elizabeth Morisette: Naive
Tim Tate: Craft
Jesse Cohen: Hidden
Greg Ferrand: Experience
Joseph Barbaccia: Commitment
Jamie Wimberly: Burden
Christine Tillman: Discovery
Candy Keegan: Personality
Comments