Manifesto of Surexpressionism
In the Nineteen Eighties Painting was declared DEAD by Critics and
Conceptualist. Everything had been done, nothing “new”
could be made. However, as a young, romantic student of Art, I followed
the lonely, and arduous path into the Painter’s studio, seduced
by the luscious smell, the vibrant color, and the Alchemy of not understanding
what is happening. Concentrating on the figure, in a gestural style,
my work began to express what I was imagining and feeling, not just
what I was seeing. Paul Klee said, “Art does not reproduce the
visible, rather it makes visible”. If we look at that in relation
to painting as a language, James Elkins, in What Painting Is , states
“ Painting is an unspoken. Largely uncognized dialogue where
paint speaks silently in masses and colors and the Artist responds
in Moods.” This is the strength and gravity that painting has,
to continue to lure the Artist away from easier ways to create an
image.
With Great interest in World and Art history and our rapidly developing
modern culture I took the painters brush as a scepter of poetic
license. Appropriating images and techniques to create a style,
surreal and expressive, narrating the Human condition. Intimate
feelings and moods mixed in an Alchemists’ laboratory, hidden
in substances that are momentarily captivating and frustrating.
With each painting there is the elixir, the moment the work is given
life beyond my studio, by accident and experimentation, painting
and the painter create the image. If painting is a language that
died, then, like the secret techniques of the old Masters’
that died with them, Language can be re-invented, re-learned and
revitalized.
This is the Manifesto of Surrexpressionism!
Mark Brenner
NYC 2002 |
