Sumutia

The madness continues

2012-01-27T13:10:00.005+02:00

Inky improv

2012-01-25T16:22:00.004+02:00

Ten thousand faces

2012-01-23T20:08:00.000+02:00

”The Tao creates one
One creates two
Two create three
The three give rise to ten thousand things.”

Tao Te Ching

In this most minimal of all creation myths given in chapter 42 of the Taoist base text, ten thousand is the number used to denote infinity, a massing so great you cannot count them or envision them as separate entities. We live in nations of millions, but our minds are still tuned to dealing with people in dozens or hundreds at most. Go past that and our senses are blunted. One million killed in massacre. Ten million starving. These are meaningless to our hearts. We need that picture of one woman holding her skeletal baby, the running girl with napalm burns, to get engaged with the tragedy. That is how we are built. In a world of millions of this and billions of that we deal with everything one at a time. And get stressed when presented with ten thousand of anything.
Well, my exhibition is your chance to deal with ten thousand individuals – or rather ten thousand squiggles hinting at them – one at a time. You get to leaf through one hundred binders holding one hundred pages each and commune with their joys and pains.

Scanner test

2012-01-23T19:41:00.008+02:00

Bought a scanner. Might need some brightness adjustment...
Slight burnout here brought on by the prospect of even more work getting ready for my exhibition. Still, one needs to trundle on a picture and chore at a time, ignoring the finish line...

Almost slept well last night

2012-01-17T14:59:00.005+02:00

A few more nights like that and I might start remembering things again. Things like my name or how many times I've already fed the cats today...

Splishing and splashing

2012-01-16T15:09:00.006+02:00

It is all about balance

2012-01-15T19:54:00.005+02:00

...and its disruption - as is all of life.

Running on ink fumes

2012-01-14T13:16:00.006+02:00

I wonder how much marker ink fumes it is healthy to inhale...
Funnily, my nose is mostly non-functional, so most of the times, the only ink I can smell while drawing is the Chinese charcoal based one. Mind, the cats usually stay away when I'm using that one, too. They almost have a thing about drying my Winsor & Newton Indian ink drawings with their butts, though.

Then again...

2012-01-13T17:11:00.005+02:00

I might be just a wise guy who is trying to parlay a series of variations on the Trollface meme into high art. But taking something trivial and blowing it out of proportion is an old modern art trope, too. Roy Liechtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons. Art has never actually recovered its sanity since Dadaism blew its brains out.

Onwards!

2012-01-12T15:41:00.004+02:00

On faces and calligraphy

2012-01-11T16:15:00.003+02:00

The human face is a sophisticated communications device that uses several dozen muscles to convey a preposterous number of emotions in all gradations of intensity and sincerity. Thus it is not farfetched to equate it with a writing system. We even use the word 'expression' both to denote an element of language and a particular configuration of our features.

The ancient art of calligraphy, as practiced in many cultures around the world, means the hijacking of a language tool for purely aesthetic purposes. A true master may turn even a shopping list into something to delight the connoisseur. He may even permit himself such freedom in the shaping of the letters that only these devotees are able to read it. Still, that will not be held against him, for they are looking for a separate message that speaks of form, balance, suppleness of line, rhythm etc. All these tell a tale of the creator's character and intentions.

There you have the intersection that describes my work in a nutshell. Our inbuilt facial recognition skills are so highly developed that I can take just about any liberties of form – as long as I add those two smudges anywhere near where eyes should be and perhaps a line to denote the mouth beneath them. These will cruelly yank the processing of the picture from the section of the brain devoted to abstract enjoyment of beauty to the one that insists on finding out what that concoction of lines is thinking.

A face is invariably a story, which is why modernist critics tend to scoff at artists like Picasso and Francis Bacon who allowed them to enter the picture. Stories are so 19th century. A face is an individual, which is why it clashes with 20th century theories of masses, movements and ideals – unless carefully shorn of expressivity. Art of the past hundred years is littered with shop window dummies dressed up with ideologies.

Mind, we are also taught very early on to hide what our faces are telling, to tone it down to unobtrusive twitches of eyebrows and lips. Only people in extreme physical or mental pain display their feelings openly for all the world to read. As do my pictures. Subtlety of emotion would so limit the dance of my brush and pen. So do pardon me for shouting.

Another day's faces

2012-01-11T15:27:00.007+02:00

Dum de dum...

2012-01-10T15:16:00.007+02:00

Rule number one

2012-01-08T16:07:00.008+02:00

Art is annoying. If a picture does not annoy you even after you've heard the artist's explanation, it is not art.
Now, do these stare at you rudely enough by themselves or will I have to resort to explanations?

More ink down the river

2012-01-07T20:24:00.009+02:00

Gray day

2012-01-06T19:13:00.007+02:00

The concept behind these pictures is somewhat embarrassing: I went for a walk with my pulse meter and whenever my pulse rose above 120, I stopped and took a closeup of whatever happened to be near.
The dreary, barely frozen weather here in Turku reminds me of the winters of my childhood in the 1970s - which I spent 2,000 km further south. The climate is definitely getting warmer.

Splurts and swishes

2012-01-06T18:25:00.006+02:00

Chop wood, carry water

2012-01-05T14:03:00.007+02:00

You know the old story of the novice who asked his Zen master what to do before getting enlightened. "Chop wood, carry water," was the answer. Then he asked what one did once one gained enlightenment: "Chop wood, carry water."
Well...of course that's only half the answer, or the world would be awash in enlightened janitors. Thus, my journey of ten thousand faces will probably also fail on the spiritual side, as I keep forgetting the Zen mind and instead flog myself onwards by cursing and moaning like most wood choppers and water carriers. While listening to Inner Sanctum Mysteries and Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad...

Going slightly mad

2012-01-04T18:48:00.005+02:00

More and more and more

2012-01-03T20:16:00.006+02:00

Differently abled art

2012-01-02T14:38:00.007+02:00

You know those postcards they sell that were painted by people without hands? This is similar: Art made by a person who can't concentrate longer than two minutes at a time.

Happy new year 2012

2012-01-01T15:47:00.001+02:00

The last of 2011

2012-01-01T15:00:00.007+02:00

Enjoying it again

2011-12-31T14:39:00.007+02:00

Hope it doesn't show in the quality. Long ago, I read a review of a Van Morrison gig. The reviewer said that if he was so cheerful that he actually acknowledged the audience and said hello at the start, you could expect a crappy gig. But when he looked properly pissed off and turned his back, the music would be heavenly.

Oh, when will it end?

2011-12-30T15:22:00.008+02:00

Mentally exhausted, but pushing on. Why? Life would feel even more boring and pointless without this work.

Ink doodles

2011-12-29T15:01:00.006+02:00

About eight thousand

2011-12-28T15:02:00.006+02:00

I could stop now. I have some six thousand drawings from previous years in my cupboard, so I could build my exhibition of ten thousand faces right now. But why stop while I'm still having fun...

Christmas day inkery

2011-12-26T15:09:00.006+02:00

Eve

2011-12-26T14:20:00.006+02:00

Making pictures is still the best way to spend Christmas eve when you're a single man.

December 22 and 23

2011-12-25T16:48:00.012+02:00

Yesterday's batch later.

Sonera is still throttling my upload channel

2011-12-24T14:40:00.002+02:00

So no pictures for the holidays. Sorry.
I hate dealing with salespeople and reading contracts, so I have been putting off the switch to a more useful provider for far too long.

More faces

2011-12-22T18:03:00.008+02:00

Took longer than I expected

2011-12-21T16:51:00.006+02:00

My health is finally collapsing again. I was wondering what I was doing right...
So we'll see how much work I'll get done this week.

Art is such a circus

2011-12-19T22:38:00.008+02:00

Of course there are days when I think that exhibiting a series of ten thousand faces is bloody stupid. Then I consider luminaries of conceptual art like Roman Opalka - who spent decades writing numbers on large canvasses - and I wonder whether this project is stupid enough. Does it have the insane purity that would make it philosophically interesting for critics? Come to think of it, am I stupid enough to enter this surreal rat race?

Two days' faces

2011-12-18T18:16:00.010+02:00

I'm not getting tired

2011-12-16T19:30:00.009+02:00

I have been drawing faces for over two decades now. It is looking increasingly unlikely that I might grow bored of the subject. Whether you do or not is out of my hands and therefore not worth losing sleep over.

And more

2011-12-15T23:57:00.010+02:00

Some color for a change

2011-12-15T10:08:00.003+02:00

Yes

2011-12-14T21:44:00.005+02:00

Still at it.

Dance, my little smudges of ink!

2011-12-13T14:39:00.007+02:00