Ruminations on Art Exhibit Viewer's Primer

 

Ruminations on Art

[An inquiry into the philosophy of Fine Art
and where it all comes from- 2026]

This exhibition illustrates the development of a visual philosophy unique to the existing practice and belief system commonly taught, exercised , and advocated as artistic gospel by the contemporary artistic status quo.

While this is a co-incidental and largely oblivious contextual reality, anyone can enjoy the show regardless. For those who enjoy the intent, detail, contextual basis, and co-incidentals of what the art is, the following supplement is intended to provide clarity and a teaser of more complex understanding through curiosity for more.

A primer on what the words mean or refer to:

Art Categories and sub categories:

Contemporary Art – refers to mainstream art and ideas that are given commercial and institutional credibility usually conferred to living artists

Modern Art – refers to a historical span of art production that started in the late 1800’s
and, in some art historian and critics opinion, continues in one form or another, to this very day

MetaModern Art – Contemporary Art that is created with the intent of answering a historical question or proposition that has been previously answered. MetaModern art is not an act of appropriation but an act of re-imagining a unique solution to the problem that can re-purpose familiar styles, techniques, or artifacts in fair use fashion (you don’t have to reinvent the studio practice or obvious intellectual artifacts).

Modern Day Art – refers to Contemporary Art that is neither political nor subliminally advocating political or identity politics as a defining characteristic of the work

PostModern (PoMo) [Visual] Art – refers to a historical span of art production that arguably started by the mid-1950’s and continues to today. It is most recognizable (but not exclusively defined) by the appropriation of numerous historically recognizable art and design styles that maintain their distinctive ancestry and are uniquely fused into pastiche compositions.

Propositional Zenthetics – candidate art that requires the viewer to alter their expectations of the question, “What is art?”. The first and foremost expectation of mainstream art is that what you see is the criteria by which you decide to evaluate it’s worth. Instead, Zenthetics insists that its art practice gives preference to the question, “What do all my senses and intellect have to contribute to may understanding of this work not withstanding my appreciation of how it ‘looks’?”

Fair warning.

“The map is not the territory”

- Alfred Korzybski

“The label is not the thing”

- Gregory Bateson

How to read my art labels:

TypeOfArt.Medium.CategoryOfFineArt Title of the artwork

TypeOfArt – any one of the set of labels referring to the conceptual bucket of recognized art objects. This generically includes ‘Painting’, ‘Sculpture’, ‘Assemblage’, ‘Collage’, and
so on

Medium – usually refers to the material used to create the work or the material upon which the work is created. For example, ‘Oil’, ‘Acrylic’, ‘MixedMedia’, and so on.

Category – Many of the categories involving my art are recent forks of MetaModern research projects. The artwork is often a prototype example of what is possible when an artist richly experiments with modifying the range of possibilities available in answering historically important artistic questions.
For example, “what is printmaking?”, “what is artistic photography”, and “is the homonyn of ‘language’ as used in art and actually useful form of communication?” are experiments explored in this exhibition.

Title – I do not tell the viewer what to see. On occasion, I document the origin of what was seen.
I can consider the title to be another characteristic of the artistic whole. These usually take the form of an assemblage in which the lablel (a poem or microFiction story) is bundled with the physical object to create the aggregate piece.

On other occasions, the title is a psychological nudge or hint to look harder.

The Main Hall (left to Right):

The Coffee Space:

Painting.Acrylic.DisassociativeImpressionism Snapshot of the Void on Any Given Evening

An experiment in Impressionism that uses additive, acrylic skin artifacts to the painting surface. Anyone who has read Jack Kerouac knows all about the void.

The Middle Hall Space:

Painting.Acrylic.ImprovisationalAbEx Gate of Eternal Return

An experiment in forking the Abstract Expressionist trajectory from action painting to improvisational impulse. Blame Miles Davis.

Painting.Acrylic.PostPostPainterlyImprovisation #16

A further exploration of the problem set originally explored by the “PostPainterly” cohort of New York and Washington painters working with stained canvases and vacant titles.

Painting.Acrylic.AbExWithoutACause CoddieWomple 1

Sorry/Not Sorry. Extending AbEx practice with an emphasis on a linear intervention of color
field ground.

The Far Hall Space:

P.A.Biomorphic,GesturalAbstraction.Surrealism Neither Here Nor There

A compound reimagination of what Surrealism might look like through the eyes of a German Expressionist fanboy.

Painting.Acrylic.PropositionalZenthetics Pavlov’s Aesthetics

Zenthetics is a minimalization of Aesthetic [beauty-based] art appreciation. But those dogs
keep barking.

Painting.Acrylic.xSurrealism Test Bed

An application of the Greek optical illusion of entasis to a back-to-basics color field-ish tease.

Painting.Acrylic. PropositionalZenthetics Usurping Humanity

Another deconstruction and reconstruction of the ruins of Contemporary Art practice.

Painting.Acrylic. PropositionalZenthetics Psychic Arms Race

Subconscious, unintentionally coded paint on canvas. Somebody must recognise it.

The Gym Hall Space:

Painting.Acrylic.xSurrealism The Mask Reveals What Is Inside

More entasis. Nobody is fooled.

Painting.Acrylic.Cosmograph Head Magic

A speculative cosmograph of our seemingly eternal human predicament.

Painting.Acrylic.xSurrealism Late Night Visitors

A raw, examination of a surrealist dream state through the eyes of one haunted.

Painting.Acrylic.PrimordialAbEx Memories Leave Memories Behind

Do butterflies have the memory of the caterpillar? An a priori action without motion.

Painting.Acrylic.ReadyMyth Face of Dionysus

ReadyMyths are physical artifacts that reference common myths (in this case the season of spring).
Readymyths are intellectual kissing cousins to ReadyMades.

Painting.Acrylic.AntiAbstraction Thirteen Paintings That Can’t Stop Tears

Abstraction obstructed by abstraction and grief.

The Entry Showcase:

Top Shelf:

Painting.Acrylic.Zenthetics The Four Seasons

Painting.Acrylic.Landscapes Nebraska and others

Memory exercises.

Middle Shelf:

Assemblage NeckTie

Print.Acrylic.SnapPrint 1 - 4

“What is a print?” In this case, the impression of an inked mousetrap.

Physical Photography.HandCut Visions of Buddha #1

“What is a print?” In this case, the impression of an inked mousetrap.

Manuport.CorrespondenceArt Minor Chaos in the Customs System

A manuport sent to be exhibited in the first International Festival of Manuports at the Kohta Gallery in Helsinki, Finland. Sent during Covid, Finnish customs and a new EU law “caused chaos” and this, one of many, entries were returned to sender.

The manuport entry is a component of the Ashford stone sculpture field on Zaicek Rd.

Lower Shelf:

Drawings.TheaterGoers.HandToGod various

TheaterWorks in Hartford staged a play, Hand to God, that was based on puppetry. As was my wont I drew audience members before and during intermissions of all shows. In this case, I exaggerated the images to imitate puppet likeneses.

Sculpture.Improvisational Cosmic Crapshoot #1

Painting.Acrylic.VisualLeetspeak 1-4

The Exit Showcase:

Top Rail:

Sculpture.Knotted 1 - 4

Left Wall, top to bottom:

Assemblage.MixedMedia.Antiscape Train of Thought

Painting.Acrylic.Cosmograph Betelguese Farewell

Painting.Acrylic.SpectacularMinimalism POMO Like We Did Last Summer

Right Wall, top to bottom:

SerialCompoundMonotypes Running Man series

Painting.Acrylic.Zenthetic Running Man

Lower Shelf:

Painting.Acrylic.4DAbEx Abstract Ambivalence

PhysicalPhotography.Pixel.DiscontiguousDoubleTake Lake/Ice #2

All of my Physical Photography entries were created long before Banksy’s use of a shredding device.

PhysicalDrawing.Pastel.4DAbEx Representational Ambivalence #1

PhysicalPhotography.Pixel.DiscontiguousDoubleTake Lake/Ice #1

PhysicalPhotography.Pixel.Minimal.DoublePresentation Dunham Lake

PhysicalPainting.Acrylic.ReadyMyth Dancing Fool

A few words about the exhibit:

A few innovative and somewhat experimental exhibition design decisions were involved in setting
up this show.

None of the works are titled nearby the work. Anyone interested in the titles and explanations can refer to this Primer on the exhibit contents. This is intentional.

This eliminates the possibility that a title may pre-seed an idea about what is being presented. The viewer can freely make their own assessments. It also eliminates the need for distracting signage.


The second exhibition innovation involves the tight coupling of my process notes and sketches and reading material to the artwork. This too is intentional and it has MetaModern roots in lterature.

In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, uses rich, autonomously narrative footnotes as complementary vignettes to the main narrative. Likewise, my contextual material is intended to test the possibility that viewers can spend more than 5 seconds grazing at art and will instead leave smarter for the deeper investment of time.