Mind and Body: Paintings at Butters Gallery November 29-December 20

The Body
"Since Adam and Eve ate the apple, man has not refrained from any folly of which he was capable."
Bertrand Russell, The History of the World in Epitome (quoted in its entirety)

For the second time in my artistic career, I find myself working with the story of Genesis. Almost two decades ago, at a time of great change in my life, I made a series of works on paper that dealt with some of the images of Renaissance painting and the symbols of Western civilization. Last year upon my return to Oregon from a great adventure that took me cross country for love and brought me back when the whirlwind subsided, I found myself trying to make sense of the previous few years. What better place to look than the basis of it all, the beginning, the human story?

For this series of paintings, in a departure from my prior work which included neither plan nor ruler, I have recreated some of the elements of Genesis: the garden, the trees,man and woman, serpent, some creatures of the sea and others of the air, and,of course, the apple.
The paintings are formed by gridding out each panel and painting each rectangle separately, suggesting that we are seeing the process of creation, things as they were in the planning stages. I want the viewer to experience the image as if it were in in its beginnings, as if the flesh were not yet flesh, as if the people, the serpent, the garden were all still in some formative stage, as if, in fact they were still being imagined and not yet physical.

I hoped that in the process of making these paintings I would come to some greater understanding of myself, the human folly of which I partake, and the meaning of something. Alas, my experiment did not work. I understand no more about folly than I did when I began.

The Mind
"...what does being human mean? Being human means no meaning, no reason, no choice. But if you get no meaning, no reason, no choice you get BIG meaning, BIG reason, BIG choice..."
Zen Master Seung Sahn, 1988

"...You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not..."
T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

In the series of Mind paintings I play with the simplest of things: a few colors, a gridded panel, circles. As in the Body paintings, I have used the ruler and added the use of stencils to make my shapes. Still, with so little of my own handwriting infusing the work, the writing of my mind makes itself known.

These paintings are about relationship. The way things act upon each other. The way things come together and move apart. The way proximity and distance make a statement of their own. The relationships of parts to a whole.The way, with so few elements at play, so many variations are possible. The way things change. The way one element acts upon the rest.

Is there intrinsic meaning in any of these elements? In their placement, color, relative size? Or is the entire construction a construction of the mind? I find comfort in the Zen Master's statement and the musing of T.S. Eliot. These Mind paintings reflect my musings on the subject of meaning through the existence and interaction of just a few simple elements.

for information and/or discussion, please email me at :andrea@schwartzfeit.com
please also go to www.buttersgallery.com and/or www.schwartzfeit.com to see more of my work

Punctuated Equilibrium

Punctuated Equilibrium, a theory of evolutionary change as environmental causes affect a species, has some social applications as well:

" ... models of change from different domains and found similar patterns between the way that change is thought to occur in biological species according to the theory of punctuated equilibrium and the ways adults, groups, organizations and scientific fields develop. In general, the original formulation of theory has been used to explain patterns of change in groups and organizations where periods of "stasis" are punctuated by brief and intense periods of "radical" change. Two widely known applications of the theory of punctuated equilibrium in the social sciences are in organizational theory and in the study of small work groups . As some researchers have noted, these applications of the original theory have shifted its focus of attention from "a theory about change in populations to a theory about change within entities" from Wikipedia

In a personal sense, as I come dangerously close to becoming irrelevent, space junk, like a member of one of those religions that ban sexual activity and therefore evolve themselves right out of existence, I make my feeble attempt to barely keep up with the new and hereby enter the blogosphere. Woohoo! I'll be using the blog as one way of updating my website and elaborating upon some of the ideas and issues that inform my work as it progresses.

In my current work, I am making correlations between issues of anthropology and my personal life. Using the macrocosm to describe the microcosm. In the series of encaustic paintings I am working on, I use color, texture, rectangles and circles to describe issues of relationship and change. My Zen teacher used to say that if you want happiness, world peace, enlightenment,et al, all you have to do is keep the correct relationship with all you encounter. Though simple, the task is not easy. So many variations are possible; some occur by choice, others by a moment of carelessness. There are lots of mistakes, and some of them lead to new directions and areas of interest. As the series progresses, I am often compelled to follow a direction I hadn't contemplated, one that, while unintended, sends me down a path more alluring than the ones I had chosen. From the first small paintings of about twenty squares and two circles in metallic powders and lipstick to the increasingly complex pieces I am working on now with hundreds of rectangles and circles, using every combination of material available, the issues remain the same. The same way one wants something exciting to happen in life every so often, sometimes that desire appears in painting as well...

For information and/or discussion, please email me at:

andrea@schwartzfeit.com