Artists Statement
Statement
"According to Duris, Lysippus the Sicyonian, (b.390 BCE) was not the pupil of any one, but was originally a worker in brass, and was first prompted to venture upon statuary by an answer that was given by Eupompus the painter; who, upon being asked which of his predecessors he proposed to take for his model, pointed to a crowd of men and replied that it was Nature herself, and no artist, that he proposed to imitate." Pliny the Elder. D.79 CE “Historia Naturalis, Book XXXV, Chapter VII.
An interesting quote, it indicates just how far back in history the relationship between realism and formalism really goes. It does go back much farther; its just that it is not confirmed by written record and before Polyclitus realism's' appearances are pretty subtle. While it was definitely an inspiration to the young Greek goldsmith to become a sculptor in actuality the relationship between Art and Reality is much more complicated than that. All of us are the combined products of our time, our training and our search for personal satisfaction. I am certainly that. Painting in our time has become trapped and partially immobilized by post-modernist theories and the century long practice of reductivism. The concept of modernist progress has become an academic mandate. In his book " GOMBRICH ON THE RENAISSANCE, Vol. 1: Norm and Form," specifically in the essay " Norm and Form," first delivered in 1963 Gombrich postulates that in addition to the similarities within any group of Artists they can be classified as to what they do not allow themselves to bring forward, "Maybe we would make more progress in the study of styles if we looked out for such principles of exclusion, the sins any particular style wants to avoid..."
My name is Jim VanKirk.
I began my love affair with Art in kindergarten with finger-painting and it never has failed me. I love paint and painting still.
I can’t complain about my Art education. I consider myself to have been quite lucky. At both of the schools I attended I was surrounded by talented, bright and ambitious peers very many of whom remain active Artists today. I studied directly with several great artists and educators of that period. At UCLA I worked with Richard Diebenkorn, William Brice, and Jan Stussi, at Yale things improved even more. While there I worked with Al Held, Lester Johnson and Bernard Chaet in painting and Robert Herbert in Art History, not to mention the many notable visiting artists. During my final year at Yale I was a teaching assistant to Bernie and another notable Yale Artist/ professor William Bailey. Initially I thought that my views and Bill Baileys would be very different since our work was very different but I soon learned that was not so. Very different work can indeed come from very similar viewpoints.
My first Masters Degree in Painting came from UCLA in 1972. My second an MFA came from Yale University in 1974. I have painted ever since. Richard Diebenkorn was the initial Chairman for my Masters Thesis Committee at UCLA and was the single most influential artist on myself and my ideas from that time on. I responded to his humanity and compassion as well as his skill and talent as an artist. His teaching has never failed me. I continue to be astounded by his grasp of the true nature of painting, his insistence that in the end a painting must be beautiful and his unflagging embrace of life with all its imperfections.
From 1972 until 1999 I attempted to consolidate what I knew of myself, the state of painting and Richard Diebenkorn while simultaneously incorporating the various contemporary aspects that painting assumed. As Matisse said, "I do not repudiate any of my paintings but there isn't one of them that I would not redo differently, if I had it to redo. My destination is always the same but I work out a different route to get there." -- Henri Matisse, in “Notes of a Painter” There are many paintings that still seem good ones to me. Yet each new undertaking, while initially appearing promising, almost immediately began to show its limitations in both expression and technical development. Over time it came to be that nearly from the beginning of each painting I felt as though I could predict its individual development and its ramifications for future work. It was like I went to sleep one day a sophisticated and highly educated contemporary artist and woke up the next a primitive in a world of arrogant, self-indulgent careerists.
In 1999 I ceased to show my work publicly. My frustration with contemporary painting reached the untenable point of believing that I could foresee the limitations and shortcomings of the ultimate development of each new move made by myself and other artists I knew or knew of who were also involved with painting. It was then that I decided that since most of the major developments in Art had come from the direct observation of nature that I would return to that concept and see if I could find a path for my own art not previously taken. This view of the development of Art Historical categories was later confirmed for me when I discovered a lecture delivered by E.H. Gombrich in 1963 entitled "Stylistic Categories of Art History and their Origins in Renaissance Ideals." In this lecture Gombrich points out that the developments in Art History rather than being defined by their essential similarities in method can be also defined by what they avoid. They can be defined by the characteristics which the Artists of a given period feel are anachronistic or in some manner not modern enough. In this manner Gombrich concludes that the concept of Modern Artistic Freedom becomes ever more and more constrained and less free over time. While the lecture was delivered well before my artistic maturity I had reached essentially the same conclusions. I consider myself still to be a contemporary Artist but one who has chosen to embrace the negative rather than allow myself to be defined by what I see as overly intellectualized and fragmented constraints on how my work should look. I would like to suggest that no one would say the invention of the Electric Guitar or the MOOG Synthesizer eliminated the potential for progress or the appreciation of more traditional musical instruments.
In 2000 I left NY after 25 years and returned home to Southern California. The first sign of my new attitude was in my return to figure drawings. I struggled to clarify what it was that I was really seeing. I was not a favorite of the models. I thought and felt them beautiful. I loved each in an ethereal Andre Gide-ish manner but without romanticism. I was attempting to embrace their reality. You will see a couple of them here. I wanted my drawings to be as real as the women themselves.
As for my paintings I began traveling to the mountains of San Diego County for Plein-air landscape sessions. With Plein-air you have time to let your vision develop, to try things and see if it's really what you’re seeing. Your vision is assisted by the scale shift. Try to view this work as an attempt to overcome artifice, artificial or intellectual constructs, as a reflection of the experience being there and of making a painting like Diebenkorn or some of the ancient Chinese landscape artists. Chinese “... water-ink paintings, also called 'Thick-stroke,' paintings, are supposed to convey spiritual resonance with strokes as simple as possible, instead of attaching much importance to the realistic subjects.”1 You will see flaws, missteps and much awkwardness... It's OK. I am myself and I am a product of contemporary aesthetics despite everything.
JVK Dallas 2005
1.Ministry of Culture, P.R. China (2003)
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Post-modernism is over, get used to it.
