Leonardo

My Abstract Paintings: Subject, Way and ImpulseAuthor(s): Martha ZuikSource: Leonardo, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Apr., 1970), pp. 203-206Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1572090 .

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Leonardo, Vol. 3, pp. 203-206. Pergamon Press 1970. Printed in Great Britain

MY ABSTRACT PAINTINGS: SUBJECT, WAY AND IMPULSE

Martha Zuik*

THE SUBJECT

I sometimes wonder why works of painters differ so much, although there are many who probably paint in the same way. We realize that each human being is different and that each one is likely to be interested in or care for the same thing in a different way.

I am interested in the motion of forms; in the rhythm of the dance of certain things, including those we know of but cannot see except in some cases by means of telescopes or microscopes; in how they move and collide with each other or merge into each other; in how they mix with and rub each other. I am also intrigued by the way a person raises his arm and at the same time blinks his eyes, moves his mouth, walks, breathes in and out. Besides these, I am aware of the unseen movements that take place within a body. I am conscious of the thousands of daily gestures we make but seldom notice; of the crowd that comes together and then scatters; of the mass of people walking hither and yon in the big cities.

The commonest objects when placed in an unusual situation often strike me as beautiful. For example, yesterday I saw a wet glove lying on a street. It was a workman's glove. It was bigger than an ordinary glove. What drew my attention to it was both the colour it had acquired due to the effects of rain and the place where it lay. I felt like picking it up but I realized that if I took it from that environment-it was lying on a bright, shiny pavement under a dark sky-it would lose the special charm I found in it.

Something similar happens to me whenever I take parts of reality and imagine them separated from their context. It is this feeling that makes me change my everyday outlook on things. I remember that there was an air bubble in the kitchen glass in my parents' house. Through it I could see by moving my head that the houses opposite changed their shape, bent down, seemed to dance and burst into laughter. Looking through the bubble I discovered a charming and hallucinating world. When I see a human body I may focus my eyes on only a part of it, as though that part existed alone-for example, an arm leaning on the angle formed by a bent leg is transformed, as if by magic, into a strange and unknown shape.

In my first paintings, I used to choose a shape *Artist living at Juncal 2401, piso 14, dep. 62A, Capital,

Argentina. (Received 27 May 1969.)

and then make many variations of it. Each variation was similar but at the same time different, just like individual human beings. The number of variations of a shape that one can select from is, of course, infinite.

The following comment made by Paul Klee is I feel very apt: 'Is it not true that whenever we look through a microscope-no matter how quickly we may do it-we see images which we would consider fantastic and beyond our imagination if we saw them anywhere just by chance and we would not be able to understand them?' [1].

My later paintings are the result of visual observa- tions of parts of my own body. For example, the transparency of the skin in some parts of my hand permits me to see the bluish lines of the veins and the blurred shapes of the bones. I believe I have developed a tactile way of looking at things. If an observer looks attentively at my seemingly crowded canvases, he will discover new images and perspec- tives that intermingle with each other, when some appear others disappear.

THE WAY

What is the best technique with which to paint? There probably is none, each artist selects or develops one or more ways that suit his purposes. I will describe some of the characteristics of those I have used.

Some years ago I made preparatory drawings for my paintings on a sheet of paper divided into several areas. With pen or pencil I drew in them variations of an idea. I produced many of these sheets, some well worked out, some had colours added to them (cf. Fig. 1). When I transposed one of the drawings into a painting I did not necessarily limit myself too closely to the drawing. Nevertheless, after a time I felt that the preliminary drawings inhibited rather than aided execution of a painting and I have dispensed with them.

When I start a painting now, I do not have a preconceived way of expressing the idea I have. If several come to my mind, I will try each of them on different canvases, I may start with a drawing on the canvas; stain or sprinkle paint on the surface; press a wet canvas against it. Then I work on it with care until I feel I have finished it and put it aside with the reservation that I may work on it again.

Sometimes while walking along a street a strip of

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Martha Zuik

Fig. 1. Series ofpreparatory drawingsfor apainting, pen andpencil on paper, 34 x 36 cm, 1966.

torn poster or a piece of paper lying on the pavement may strike me as just the bit that is needed in one of my 'finished' paintings. I take it to my studio and copy it or a variant of it on the painting (cf. Fig. 2).

An example of another procedure I use is shown in Fig. 3. I make a drawing on thick paper and cut out parts to form a grating like a stencil. I stencil the design either on a bare canvas or on one that already has a painting on it. Thereafter, I may paint between the lines of the grating to give an impression that the picture has been painted on superimposed planes.

THE IMPULSE

I feel that a painting is the result of unaccountable impulses. Once it is started, a strange union develops between the painter and his work, the painting soon

demands a specific attitude towards it. It becomes, as time goes by, an irresistible magnet, an obsession.

A description of my 'boiling' state of excitement, which increases as I work, is as difficult for me to make as of the impulses that led me to start the painting. At best, I can say that the state is like an itchy feeling that runs through my body and that makes me like a wild animal about to spring from ambush on its prey. When I paint a shape and I feel that the painting needed just that shape, I could jump with joy.

What a strange relationship develops between the painter and his painting, an inanimate object that takes on life and sends out waves that please or torment one. I believe this indescribable and fantastic game we call 'art' can be blocked by too much thought. One must give way to one's impulses, to one's unconscious.

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Notes: My Abstract Paintings

. .:"-; * .....,... ::;x "............. ....:.. ... ...a

'Paysage', oil painting, 90 x 100 cm, 1969. (Photo: A. Barragan and R. Menendez, Buenos Aires.)

Fig. 3. 'Revelation', oil painting. 90 x 100 cm, 1969. (Photo: A. Barragan and R. Menendez, Buenos Aires.)

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206 Martha Zuik

Julian Torma wrote: 'We are wrong not to take precautions against certain evils of thought. I am sure that a happy event takes place only when one

least thinks about it and because one thinks little about it. Action and creation are exactly the opposite of conscious thought. . .' [2].

REFERENCES

1. H. Read, Image and Idea (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economico, 1951) p. 161. 2. J. Torma, Euphorismes (Paris: E. Guiblin, 1926) p. 15.

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