TEXTS
^ MEMOS FROM JULIAN T. ^
WHAT'S THE GOAL?
The last exhibition I organized in Geneva made me aware of the fact that for many years, I have been working without a clear idea of what my goal is. Up to now, there has just been painting, sketching, looking at art, speaking about art, travelling for art and the odd exhibition of my own work here and there. On several occasions, before, during and after the aforementioned exhibition, I was asked by friends, family and extended acquaintances what exactly I was working towards. The question left me confused. The work I have done has always sprung from a natural urge to create and to enjoy the life and the freedoms which I discovered on the path of becoming an artist. These pleasures and freedoms include self-governed allocation of work hours, a personally tailored work environment, the freedom to alter the course of my workflow as needed and at will, a heavy overlap between the object of my focus inside the studio and outside the studio (namely on all manner of form, colour and visual experiences) and the freedom to allow disparate impressions and experiences to work upon me and the paintings I create. These are the reasons I have chosen to pursue art, however they are not goals.
In my memo entitled Why I do What I do, I mention the fact that to me, art exists to manifest a correspondence between a material object and a way of thinking, feeling, acting and being. To me, creating objects has always been a way of discovering who I am and how I am, in thought, energy and emotion, at a particular moment in time. On the one hand, my involvement with art has been a way of discovering the physical forms I value alongside the unfathomable creative potential that man has historically – repeatedly - exhibited himself capable of; on the other hand it has been a tool for discovering what I am personally capable of, and mentally prone to, creating. Making art has been an exploration of self-manifestation in relationship to the manifestations of others. If ever there was a goal attached to making paintings, I would suspect that it has something to do with coming one step closer to personally embodying the values and spiritual ideals along with the personal capacities which have enabled individuals of the past and present to build upon and propagate their spiritual heritage and cultural foundations.
The sensations I experience in front of certain natural, architectural, sculptural or painterly forms cause a reverberation of the thought, “this is good, this is great!” This thought stems not from the fact that what I am looking at is practical, profitable, or functional. It stems from the fact that the appearance of the object gives me the impression that the life required in order to make it was a seemingly rich, abundant and exuberant one – it gives the impression that the life behind it was worth living. It is by virtue of this sensation and these thoughts that a desire to live in the direction of that object arises. In my case, a desire to direct my energies towards a certain type of imagery and compositional structure, which I have repetedly experienced as 'mystifying' and energising, has been the driving force and the motivating factor for making paintings.
I take it for granted that the goal of every human life is to attain to a rich, full, vibrant and complete life. The roads we take to get there vary, but the life that throbs behind human creations and activities must, in some manner, be directed towards this end. My goal is to have such a life and art has, until now, been one of the principle activities which has tickled me to levels of curiosity, contemplation and pleasure, which I could not have arrived at without my involvement in the creation of visual ideas and physical objects.
© Julian Tschollar 2020
Why I do what I do?
Thoughts on art
