Barbara Mink

One of my students did a presentation about this new picture-sharing tool, then two art colleagues touted it. After some skepticismm I jumped on board, and am happy to say it's pretty darned fun. Easy to use for everyone, and a nice way to get a sense of what's out there. I have several boards, keep on adding.

Back on Facebook of course; personal page and an art page at www.facebook.com/artmink. Just got back from NYC, saw the Whitney Biennial and all four blocks of Chelsea galleries. Everything felt a bit moribund, but maybe it was because it was middle of the week. Didn't see any work that looks like mine; I don't know if that's good or bad. Reality is I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing as well as I can.

I don't know whether getting off Facebook is the right thing to do or not, but I'm feeling the need to pare down a bit. My professional page can still be found at www.facebook.com/Artmink. Actually writing about what I'm doing lately seems like the better route. I'm continuing with acrylics on unprimed canvas, but have started incorporating more freehand marks, along with the lines and color bleeding that dominated in 2011. We'll see where this leads.

So I find myself squarely in the line of succession of the Color Field, Post Painterly Abstraction painters of the 1950s and 60s. For the past year I've been painting with acrylics on unstained canvas and linen. Using these raw supports give the pieces a soft, organic feel; the acrylic and water-based inks that I use sink into the canvas and become part of the whole. It's a technique that was used by Color Field artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Sam Francis in the 1950s and 60s, which I find myself updating and making my own with a combination of staining, pouring, blotting, line, and use of negative space. Many of the Color Field artists cite their main influences as Matisse, Miro, Klee and Kandinsky; and while Frankenthaler, Francis, Olitsky and Louis share many of the same characteristics, they don’t really resemble each other. I like to think of my work as falling in this line of influence and inspiration. To go into a little more detail, Color Field Painting is a...

"It is the nature of a successful work of art, in contrast to an exposition in science, that it presents the spectator with an open field for associations, even beyond those consciously defined by the artist. The artist sets the parameters for the types of resonances, but does not enumerate or prescribe them." That's from Kemp's introductory essay to a new collection of Andy Goldsworthy's work, which has been serving as a fresh inspiration to me. It also points out the unease I felt with Event Horizons, which reframed abstract work through concepts from physics and math. I'm much more comfortable putting out the paintings, no matter what the origin, and letting people come to their own responses.

So nice to see large Event Horizons canvases up on white walls with good lighting at State of the Art. Wonderful opening, thoughtful review of show by Arthur Whitman http://thethinkingi.blogspot.com/2009/11/mink.html. I don't agree with his take on the large 'You Can't Win" canvases; for me the carving out of negative space was an integral part of the process, not a mistake. But he was right about the "lightness" of Hubble's Bubbles. Overall, it's rare to have thoughtful and comprehensive "readers", and a review becomes like a conversation. It's funny how once an approach has run its course, new directions open up. Current work much flatter, more free, while maintaining some of the pouring approaches of before. I don't think I could ever be like those painters who find one style that's commercially successful and stick with it for the rest of their lives; experimentation and growth is what makes this fun.

Had a wonderful time with Frank Moon at the Science Cabaret this month talking about science in art. I looked at my attempt to frame my work with some concepts from physics and math; Frank talked about his early attempts to translate aspects of chaos theory into wooden sculpture. Seems to me that scientists and artists share one thing; a search for "beauty", whatever that means. I don't mean prettiness; I mean an intuitive sense of when something is balanced, harmonious, fulfills the expectation. My first solo show in Ithaca, featuring these paintings, opens November 6 at State of the Art Gallery from 5-8, with electronica by Laika.