SHANE GUFFOGG: COLOR Part 6

October 23, 2024

Shane Guffogg: Color Part 6
Women Artists Finding a Voice Through Color and Abstraction
(Conversation between Victoria Chapman and Los Angeles based artist, Shane Guffogg continues)

Women painters of the abstract expressionist movement embraced the zeitgeist of their male peers, while managing to add to this new visual language, creating sensual artworks. Their ideas on life and nature and how it could be expressed with color, space, and line were guided by their intuition. They produced some of the most sublime and beautiful abstract paintings ever.

The fight for equality was ongoing, as was the dialogue surrounding issues caused by World War II, but for the first time, women artists began to transmit their personal messages. These sometimes featured an absence of color and lines, with portions of blank canvas being equally as important as the saturated areas. Helen Frankenthaler (1928 – 2011) said, “Color without space is meaningless.” The women of this period had much to unravel about painting’s history so that they, too, could construct their own meaningful interpretation of art’s future.

SHANE GUFFOGG: PART 4, THE LIFE OF THE ARTIST AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS - "TRANSCENDING"

December 27, 2022

Happy Holidays,

I am sending gratitude from the Los Angeles studio, wishing everyone a peaceful and bright holiday season. Here we are sending our last conversation during 2022. This one is about transcending - an on-going topic I have been milling over with Shane.

In Part 3 we talked about time and space, we also discussed the complexity of Shane’s 2016, “At the Still Point of the Turning World” oil on canvas. I mentioned Spinoza’s ‘inherent nature of all things’ and Shane shared his thoughts on the creator and observer. In Part 4, the focus is on change and transcendence. As we reach the closing of 2022, I think this discussion is necessary to prepare for what is to come in 2023. Parts of this conversation are taken from our podcast “Blue” also the title of the current exhibition on display at The Blue Room on Western Avenue, consisting of three large works and what I refer to as Shane’s transcendental paintings. - VC

The Life of the Artist and the Creative Process - Part 4

VC: I recently found an excerpt in The World Interiors magazine (January 2021), by JG Ballard. There was a section on the “Word” of interiors celebrating four decades of the magazine’s success with special content using text to describe an interior. Ballard’s contribution, an excerpt from “The Future of the Future” (1977) predicts life in 2000. Ballard’s text brings to light who we are today, and the disconnect endured by living in the information age. I am charmed by his foresight – he was not alone with his vision, as many others predicted similar outcomes. But I would like to begin this conversation with Shane by sharing this current mood of the now /then and the need to transcend into the safe arrival of 2023.

“In the dream house of the year 2000, Mrs. Tomorrow will find herself living happily inside her own head. Walls, floors and ceilings will be huge, unbroken screens on which will be projected a continuous sound-and-visual display of her pulse and respiration, her brain waves and blood pressure. The delicate quicksilver loom of her nervous system as she sits at her dressing-table, the sudden flush of adrenaline as the telephone rings, the warm arterial tides of emotion as she arranges lunch with her lover, all these will surround her with a continuous lightshow. Every aspect of her home will literally reflect her character and personality, a visible image of her inner self to be overlaid and enhanced by those of her husband and children, relatives and friends. A marital tiff will resemble the percussive climax of The Rite of Spring, while a dinner party (with each of the guests wired into the circuitry) will be embellished by a series of frescoes as richly filled with character and incident as a gallery of Veroneses. By contrast, an off day will box her into a labyrinth of Francis Bacons, a premonition of spring surround her with the landscapes of Constable, an amorous daydream transform the walls of her bathroom into a seraglio worthy of Ingres”

VC: It’s interesting, as we read deeper into Ballard’s text, Mrs. Tomorrow’s life is revealed by artist paintings. As I lay awake during these cold months, tossing and turning, listening to the echoing sounds of police cars and helicopters chasing into the Hollywood night, I continue to contemplate my existence, questioning the decisions I have made and where my life will end up. And during this time, I will be prompted by great artworks that have shaped my life. I will make a plea to the world, that creative beings will continue to observe what’s around them and define what it means to be human. And if in the far future, if art has no physical presence, there will be some chamber within our mind that will remind us of great artists and how our experience has been described through the centuries, because, I believe, art was made for just that.

In the studio "The Counting of Days", oil on canvas

SHANE GUFFOGG: THE LIFE OF THE ARTIST AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS

May 01, 2022

Introduction

The artist’s journey is never a straight path, there are countless twists and turns. Shane and I begin a new dialogue about the life of the artist and the creative process. There is always so much to ask Shane about his studio process and how he continues to be inspired to make work. We thought to share this new discussion and a series of paintings that initially began in 1989 as charcoal drawings called the “Numbers” series. Last year, Shane revisited this body of work and then started making oil paintings. This series in oil is now referred to as “The Counting of Days”, it’s an intriguing body of work based on humanity and life itself.

“The Life of the Artist and the Creative Process”
A Conversation between the studio manager (Victoria Chapman) and Shane Guffogg.

I would like to begin by sharing some text Hegel wrote in the Phenomenology of Spirit, (1807). This book was written to inspire philosophical stimulation. I found the chapter on consciousness: “Sense-Certainty: or the ‘This’ and ‘Meaning’ quite fascinating. It discusses that to be creative, one needs to have a sense of consciousness; to focus on the here and now before commenting or even interpreting on surroundings. You have created many paintings that lead into this idea, one such, 2015, “What if Everything That was Is, And Everything That Is Never Was.” From my research, it seems Cezanne spent a great deal of his life by himself, being in nature painting Mount Victorie. But first, the great artist needed to understand his existence experiencing the here and now.

What do you have to say about consciousness and the here and now?

Shane Guffogg: You are coming out of your corner with a big, left hook type of question! The title of the painting that you quote is an interesting story. As I was working on that painting, trying to create subtle transitions of hues that were almost invisible but giving enough information to show the viewer what is there, the title popped into my mind, seemingly from nowhere. I wasn’t thinking about what the title should be or what the painting was saying, but it was the subtle tones that influenced my mind to summon that idea; an idea that all that has ever been, is present in each moment, and the moment, or as I like to call it, the now, is just that. It has no past or future. It is a seemingly impossible thing to comprehend as this idea of everything being nothing and nothing being everything counters each other. But, when I can just be in the moment, then it makes perfect sense.

As for Cezanne and his need to be alone, I think it is true for some artists, but I can’t say for all. Creating is very personal and in my case requires quiet, uninterrupted space, just like when we have our quiet thoughts. They need to be private. There is an innate silence in my work that I think comes from creating in solitude.

SHANE GUFFOGG: COLOR Part 5

October 16, 2020

Abstract Expressionism and Freedom
(Conversation between Victoria Chapman and Los Angeles based artist, Shane Guffogg continues)

VC: We finished Part 4 entering the uncharted waters of Abstract Expressionism, a movement that incorporated beauty and violence. I was awestruck with the opening monologue of Emile De Antonio’s art documentary film; Painter’s Painting – The New York Art Scene 1940 -1970

The monologue begins …

“They say the problem of American painting is there was a problem of subject matter. Painting in America kept getting tangled up in the contradictions of itself. We made portraits of ourselves when we had no idea who we were. We tried to find God in landscapes, and we were destroying them as fast as we could paint them. We painted Indians as fast as we could kill them. And during the greatest accomplishments in technological history, we painted ourselves as a bunch of fiddling rustics. By the time we became social realists we knew that American themes were not going to lead to a great national art. Only because the themes themselves were hopelessly absolute. Against the consistent attack of Mondrian and Picasso, we had only art of half-truths lacking conviction. The best artists began to yield rather than kick against the pricks. And it is exactly at this moment, we finally abandon the hopeless constraints to create a national art, that we succeeded for the first time to do just that. By resolving a problem forced on a painting by the history of French art. We created for the first time a genuine art of magnitude. And if one had to ask what made American art great, it was American painters who took hold of the issue of abstract art – a freedom that could get with no other subject matter and finally we made high art out of it.”

Shane Guffogg, Strathmore Summer, oil on canvas board, 16 x 20”, 1982 — Shane Guffogg, *Strathmore Summer*, oil on canvas board, 16 x 20”, 1982

SHANE GUFFOGG: COLOR Part 2

September 29, 2019 in essays

(Conversation between , Victoria Chapman and Los Angeles based artist, Shane Guffogg continues)

It's hard to believe before the 1800's artists were for the most part using color as an intrinsic property of an object. During the French Impressionist era, this changed, as artists began to use color and light to investigate emotion. Claude Monet's paintings of haystacks are a good example of this. Being present in the flutter of the modern world, it's unimaginable to think that what see today has not always been, but rather, it evolved with the passage of discovery.

(Detail), Shane Guffogg, Sapere Aude #7, oil on canvas, 2018 — (Detail), Shane Guffogg, *Sapere Aude #7,* oil on canvas, 2018

SHANE GUFFOGG: COLOR - Conversations about color and how it has influenced the artist's work

August 23, 2019

(Follow me as I research the origins of color and discover how it has inspired the work of Los Angeles based artist Shane Guffogg) - Victoria Chapman

About six months ago I listened to a podcast about color and it really got me thinking about the history of art and Guffogg’s paintings. Working amongst them in the studio, I started to contemplate how the artist uses color to create his visual poetry. The subject of color in art is vast. I began to research it from the beginning and the parts I became particularly interested in, I wrote notes about, and proposed questions to the artist.

At the Still Point of the Turning World - All Time Present is Eternally Present, 2016 oil on canvas, 58 x 48" inches — *At the Still Point of the Turning World - All Time Present is Eternally Present*, 2016
oil on canvas, 58 x 48" inches

SHANE GUFFOGG: AT THE STILL POINT OF THE TURNING WORLD

February 08, 2019 in Essays

This is a taste of the profound poem by T.S Eliot, “Four Quartets,” which consist of four meditations, with the common thread of man’s relationship with time, the universe, and the divine. Eliot’s desire is for the reader to focus on the present moment, and the order of the universe. The four quartets are meant to reflect the four classical elements, or maybe the four seasons. Section I (Burnt Norton) – air, Section II (East Coker) – earth, Section III (Dry Salvages) – water, and Section IV (Little Gidding) – fire.

Inside the Hollywood art studio of Shane Guffogg

Shane Guffogg - Letter From Ukraine

December 23, 2018 in Essays

I open this with a copy of a letter recently sent to Shane. As his studio manager, I have a unique position to witness what happens within the walls of his creative spaces. In writing these newsletters, it is always my goal to share the work with as many people as possible. And as a “fly on the wall”, I believe, “Letter from Ukraine” is symbolic of the times we live in. It is a testimony to us all, that it does not matter where we live or what language we speak. Great art has the ability to bring us together and share comparative thought.