Reflections on my Paintings
To offer a theoretical analysis about one’s own work is not easy. Especially when the whole work has been elaborated in an expression system based on visual creation and visual communication, which is non-rational, subconscious and symbolic.
This does not mean that with my paintings, by means of organizing matter in two dimensions (and a bit in the third dimension), I try to communicate a specific message; I leave that to the free subjective interpretation of the observer, although I think that “interpreting” is not something we need to do with plastic expression. What I mean is that as a painter, I feel comfortable in the space of non verbal communication, with the mute, silent creation, that speaks for itself with the language of unpronounced syllables, of images frozen in time.
There are people who seem to find a mystical Oriental symbology in my paintings, but I don‘t think that’s necessarily the case. It is true that I feel attracted to a certain spirituality that is apparent in the East, but I think that some very simple symbols used in that region are nothing else but the graphic reflections of the deepest archetypes of our human psyche and spirit.
Besides, we find similar, if not identical symbols, in many other cultures through time all over the world, especially in Pre-Colombian America. Anyway, that type of symbology only appears sporadically in my paintings; actually, it is abstraction that takes precedence: graffiti, the gestural stroke; it is “action painting”, you could say, that determines my workings.
Thus the graphisms I use are not the property of any system in particular but reintegrating elements that arise from our collective unconscious mind (which can be less unconscious than it may seem).
That is why, when I am creating a painting, I go through experiences that range from the sensual pleasure of using the materials and the absorption of the concentrated sight, to the harmonization of my own opposing internal energies in the magical process of the inside-outside reflection; to the simple healing of a stomach ache by the dynamic action of the arm.
In sum, I can say I view painting and art in general, as a therapeutic attempt of healing at several levels, where a deep transformation takes place, both of the creator as, hopefully, of those who contemplate it.
Due to the technique I use, in addition to the strong textures that characterize it, there are multiple watery layers; and in this process chance plays a big part, acting through the force of gravity, the way the paint sediments, the free integration of the pigments in its liquidity, its various drying times and other factors that make the act of painting an intimate dialog and a sort of teamwork with the project that is taking shape, where each result makes a contribution and many times points the way.
It is clear to me that in its definite form the painting has a life of its own and this might well be what catches the viewer’s eye and makes them feel attracted to it.
The act of creation is important as long as it intends to have a tangible result at all its levels of reality. That is the case in the realm of time experience, which as so many other experiences is so clearly subjective, and whose perception is so deeply linked to the thinking process with its selfish army of preconceived ideas and tendentious paths. We have the chance of abandoning the analytical vices rooted in past and future, judgments of conditioned thinking, a very limited chaining of ideas, and simply letting us go into the present, with the vehicle of doing, with the total concentration of the senses in their aesthetical absorption, with work, with the acumulated experience and the use of technique. Also, inseparable to the abolition of time, the experience of space is annihilated, because the eternal present exists as a whole in all its directions and dimensions. It is only then that the artistic creation (or any other activity) becomes true meditation, transformation, true therapy or true healing that brings about lasting good. There is no doubt that in the surrender and love to what you do there is a key to the long path of growth and to the slow and hard understanding of who we really are.
Diego Donner, Montevideo, 2001