Amor Fati (detail), 2011, Oil and synthetic polymer resin on canvas.
Are we in control of our lives? There are two ways to look at this.* Whenever I burn myself with coffee while running to catch a train I ultimately miss, I understand that I am part of a malevolent universe both larger and more complex than myself, and that no matter how hard I try, I and everyone else will never be anything but unwitting recipients of its blind and oppressive patterns. But that same night, when I plug my iPod into the stereo and suddenly everyone at the party seems to be having the same conversation, I can’t help but adopt the other approach: that we really can shape the events of our own lives. Freedom exists. Genuine connections are possible. In and of itself, either approach is too extreme to be right, but something between them needs to be. I make paintings to figure out what that is.
Like thunderstorms and subway schedules, there’s not much I can do to control the way a half-gallon of wet paint falls onto a canvas. I can push and pull at it, but gravity is doing most of the work. What I do control, rather, are the conditions in which this process occurs: the paint’s color, its texture, the proportion and size of the canvas it falls on. By creating a context, the content creates itself. There are thousands of paintings that could happen, but only one that ever does. Everything is possible in the future, but only one thing exists in the present. Do we control that? Maybe.
'I'm living in the present and the future don't exist'. Also, if I may be so bold as to offer my opinion, don't ascribe malevolence to the universe! The things that affect us that are outside of our control shouldn't be described by human emotions/intentions/mental states -- as far as I can tell, the workings of "the universe" are beyond our abilities of comprehension.
ReplyDeleteYou're completely right, the universe is not the sort of thing you can call malevolent, or for that matter benevolent. Really even calling it indifferent isn't right, because it isn't that either. It just is. Intentional qualifies don't seem to apply.
ReplyDeleteBut I wasn't trying to be too metaphysical. Or, more accurately, the metaphysics I was trying to talk about weren't the calm and calculated metaphysics that I would probably ascribe to myself if I wanted to sound intelligent. Those aren't the ones I always use. Instead I was writing about the metaphysics I believe in when I'm exhausted and hungry and can only think about 1) Why the hell am I not still asleep and 2) Why the hell is the subway still not here yet. In times like these you can be fairly certain that the universe is not only malevolent, but is using all of its deterministic capabilities to make sure are aware of that malevolence. I guess I'm not a morning person.
"Labour is blossoming or dancing where
ReplyDeleteThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?"