Shane Guffogg: Color Essay 7 Women and the Abstract Expressionist movement making history (Conversation between Victoria Chapman and Los Angeles based artist, Shane Guffogg continues)
In Color Essay 6 we talked about women artists from the Abstract Expressionist movement starting with Helen Frankenthaler’s absence of color to the bold brushstrokes of Lee Krasner, and onward to Joan Mitchell who taught us how to see differently. Then there were the spiritual missions of Agnes Martin and Hilma af Klint. In Color Essay 7 we continue to explore the movement and talk about how these courageous women develop their own independent voice during this revolutionary period in art history.
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: Color Part 4 The beginning of the twentieth century
(Conversation between Victoria Chapman and Los Angeles based artist, Shane Guffogg continues
As we continue with the discussion on color, in part 4, we look at color opening new possibilities at the beginning of the 20h century. During the early 1900s, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were known to be rivals. Matisse was leading the charge of Fauvism, the term that translates to “wild beasts” and represents the movement’s vibrant usage of strong color. During this time, Picasso had abandoned the Blue period, launching himself into a new palette, coined the Rose period, only to be followed by yet another shift in his work, due in part, to Matisse. Henri Matisse received a lot of attention for the paintings he was creating – some of the criticism scathing, some not. Picasso had his own reaction, as he began to create works that simply lacked color. But there is much more to this story and I asked Shane Guffogg his thoughts on these two giants of the 20th-century art world. The artist shares his ideas on the subject while revealing what influences his choice of colors. Guffogg’s answers are insightful, revealing yet another layer about his own work.
(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.
(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.
