Ellsworth Kelly

There are two different reasons that I respond to artwork. One is aesthetic: often a piece will speak to me automatically upon viewing, all of the visual components come together in just the right way and it hits a chord somewhere inside. The other reason I respond to a piece is intellectual: learning about an artist's processes and decision making increases my appreciation and fascination of the piece. This is usually build up slowly over time, and may be entirely independent of any aesthetic reactions I have. These two are, of course, not mutually exclusive, nor encompassing.

To give examples of each scenario: the artist Logan Grider was recently brought to my attention by a fellow artist and friend. I know nothing about Grider's methods, influences, background, etc. but I was immediately drawn to the work. I have the opposite reaction to Ellsworth Kelly, however. At first glance, I did not feel anything special about his geometric, borderline-minimalist works. But after spending some time with many of his observation-based line drawings (see previous post), I have been learning a lot about Kelly abstracts objects from nature, and how he makes artistic decisions.

One reason I am drawn to Kelly is his method of abstraction. This is something that I am very interested in, how any artist goes about translating what they see to what they create, and Kelly's in particular makes a lot of sense to me. Here is a great description from his childhood: "One evening, passing the lighted window of a house, I was fascinated by red, blue, and black shapes in side a room. But when I went up and looked in, I saw a red couch, a blue drape and a black table. The shapes had disappeared. I had to retreat to see them again." I love this passage because it epitomizes all of Kelly's works. Every shape and form that he creates comes from something tangible in front of him, whether it be a couch or a pattern of shadows on a staircase.

Ellsworth Kelly, Study for La Combe II, 1950, ink and pencil on paper. Based on a photograph of shadows casted by an outdoor staircare.

But the objects, as objects, are not necessarily the point of each piece. Kelly says, "Instead of making a picture that was an interpretation of a thing seen, or a picture of an invented content, I found an object and 'presented' it as itself alone." What does it mean to "present" an object? I am fascinated by how anyone can make a series of decisions to distill a person or an object or a space down to a few essential elements. They become unrecognizable, but is this problematic? Is it important that the viewer "sees" the object in the art? Should it be obscured so much as to prevent anyone from seeing it? I am still not sure I entirely understand the difference between Kelly's three pictures (interpretation of a thing seen, picture of an invented content, and presentation of an object), and may now need to do all three for a few objects.

Moreover, Kelly says he draws from an "impersonal observation of the form...Making art has first of all to do with honesty. My first lesson was to see objectively, so erase all "meaning" of the thing seen. Then only could the real meaning of it be understood and felt." What would happen if he used a very personal, emotionally charged form of observation? I wonder what his images would look like then.

Ellsworth Kelly, Red/Blue, 1964

In my own works, I am not trying to reveal the "true meaning." But I do try to move away from objectivity, and allow all of us to see shapes and forms and colors, not as objects or emotions. Everyone will be reminded of objects or emotions that they have encountered, or that are important to them, but that is a personal process and can be, I believe, independent of how we view works of art.

Kelly tries to eliminate any meaning of "things" around us, to reduce them to their essential components. It borders on oppression, though, as objects are reduced from having an infinite number of qualities, to having one or two (eg. red, or square). (Note: Perhaps rather than this method being oppressive or limiting, it should be seen as confident. Kelly can make decisions about what should be included, what is most important, rather than avoiding any decision making by including any and every bit of information.) While Kelly isolate these qualities from objects to inform his pieces, I try to translate those qualities to work in new situations and environments. Kelly takes the red couch and blue drape to make a red oval and a blue rectangle in isolation. The two objects have an elegant relationship, and almost eerily exist in isolation together. I may take those same objects, and likewise reduce them to the red oval and blue rectangle, but then try to transpose them to new environments. Because the objects are reduced to shape and color, instead of putting them back in the original environment, as Kelly does, I mix and match from various scenes to create new worlds, to give the shapes a new meaning and life and personality, free from its original context. It is not recognizable, but based heavily off of observation of the objects and the spaces in which they sit.

Ellsworth Kelly, Purple Relief Over Black, oil on canvas (2 joined panels), 2002

Both Kelly and I like to flatten shapes. Keeping objects in 2D forces me to focus on how the shapes relate to each other to create a space, rather than a 3D object informing us of space through depth, volume, etc. Using my own drawings and paintings and reusing shapes and colors over and over again helps to remove any associations attached to the original object, and to create a "color-shape" (which is a term critics seem to use a lot in reference to Kelly's works) that can be viewed without bias.