Object
(Accumulated Action)
The word “object,” in Nihil, refers both to what I begin with (e.g. the found object on the landscape, the canvas or other fabric that has been on the studio floor collecting runoff) and to what results, the so-called “finished piece.” It’s the object in itself, and the experience of it, that is at the heart of my concern, rather than, say, what the image or painting might momentarily “mean” or represent. It’s the object that carries the traces of consciousness that make it what it is. Meaning is a game of ideas that can’t actually exist in the object, but depends on external forces to project cultural desires and mandates onto it. In that context, it’s the game rather than the object that validates an action.
One who benefits from the object, prefers the object. One who benefits from the game, prefers the game.
The object I discover is the result of accumulated action upon it, whether because of the natural effects of time or because someone else has done something to it along the way. Because I think of the object itself as an accumulation of actions over time, I do not think of myself as painting an object. Time is my collaborator; all I can do is contribute an action to the continued formation of the object. I must think with the object, slowly, over many months, asking each day, who is the object?
Nihil understands the object as a fluctuating continuum; it doesn’t end once I cease acting on it. Future actions will bring about the object it has yet to become. Because no one thing about it will remain fixed, it has a long life. The noun is a slow verb.
The found objects of Nihil are things which have been forgotten, overlooked, cast aside. To the casual observer, I’m putting garbage in my truck. I look for the perfect object. I can’t describe how I know it’s perfect, just that the very act of separating it from the rest seems to sacralize it. There is a piece of the Archaic Brother present. It seems to have washed up along the shores of Lethe. Once I’ve done all I can do with it, I must return it to its place of origin and find a new way to understand how it’s changed.
It’s the object that teaches me how to make a better painting. In today’s promulgation of disposable images, the work must be as physical as necessary to counteract the trance of consumerism inherent in mass cultural aesthetics. The object must confront me fully, directly. It must surprise in the same way one is surprised to find moss on a boulder in the desert.