Alain Séchas

at Galerie Chantal Crousel

Pastels 8, 2012

You have two forces pulling you in different directions : Logic (black lines) and Feelings(red lines). If you go by the Logic only, your life would be deserted and sterile (the right parts of the painting). If you succumb to your feelings, you would get overwhelmed by them. And eventually you would be drawn in chaos(the left parts of the painting). But if you keep to the middle (the center parts of the painting), avoiding extremities, your life will flourish. Balance is everything.

José de Rivera

at Valerie Carberry Gallery

Untitled (Black and Red Lines on Gray), 1981

Do not act on impulse. The feelings can suggest a shortest route to take(red lines). But it could be a disaster. Think logically before you move (black lines). Logic together with feelings build a much stronger and balanced structure. Certainly feelings can take you places, but you would not have a bigger number of exists and detours as when you use your logic.

Marcel Schaffner

at Galerie Carzaniga (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, ca. 1957

Jealousy starts from a small event. When you feel that someone is better than you. someone is closer to your object of devotion than you. After it started, you will look at anything as suspicious. Anything will add oil to the fire of Jealousy. Any attempts of Logic and Common Sense to get through would fail(gray figures).  The only logic you use is to justify and to rationalize your actions.Those actions will build a wall that will bury away from your devotion.

Mary Heilmann

at Hauser & Wirth ( Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Mojave Mirage,2012

You have two parts : the logic(the left part of the diptych) and the feelings(the right side of the diptych). The logic is simple, organized and easily manipulated into a square. The feelings on the other hand, are unruly, unpredictable and impossible to manage. The more you dive into the dangerous sea of feelings, the more it expands.It even can lead to the uncharted territory(the white space outside the canvases).

Joaquin Torres García

at Galeria Sur(TEFAF Maastricht 2012)

Estructura Universal con tres arcos, 1945

 The person is divided into two parts: basic instincts - animal(the left small arc) and spirit - soul(the right small arc). The human basic instincts part is the same as in any other animals - they want to eat, to breed and to be safe. The spirit part is what makes us different from the animal world. This is logic and abstract thinking.It let us observe and conclude.A mix of these two building blocks gives us the universe of personalities, characters, feelings and behaviors. This is the third big arc. That arc lets people do almost anything they can think of.

Charles Biederman

Charles Biederman at Menconi and Schoelkopf Fine Art, LLC (The Armory Show 2012)

Untitled, 1935

This is the birth of a great idea.It is started to crystallize seemingly from thin air (the blue figure in the left center).  But actually you are filling the empty carcass of the idea with your previous experience, common sense and logic (lower greenish gray part of the painting). And the second source of inspiration is your passion, your feelings. The idea is changing forms, it is flexible as you progress with your thinking. You have your doubts whether it is something worthy(the waves from the center to the lower right corner). Now you are pretty advanced in developing the idea, so you are starting to think about a real implementation(the rectangles with black border).

Richard Diebenkorn

Richard Diebenkorn at Leslie Feely Fine Art (Art Basel Miami Beach 2011)

Art Basel Miami Beach

Untitled

Rules are here for the reason. They help us to resolve things that are not obvious. The rules are represented here by a street light(red ring, yellow ring and green line in the middle left). The rules that work are based on common sense and pragmatism. They solve conflicts even before the conflicts start. Those rules are a balance of what you can and can't do(dark brown area at the top, lighter brown area in the middle right and constructs in the middle of  them). When the rules are broken and nobody follows them, you find that your nice fast highway(the black object in the middle left) is over. And you are balancing on a high wire trying not to fall(lower right).