In the beginning, since I needed to analyze the movement in drawing, I had nothing left but to move.
First, it was a rewarding experience for my understanding of dance. To move was not easy, and this process requires a lot of experience. And I don't have this experience and knowledge.
Secondly, I was terribly uncomfortable in my body at that moment. I'm not sure if I need to figure out what the problem is - psychology or just dance experience. I did not like it.
Thirdly, to start drawing primitively, while dancing is very superficial and uninteresting. And since my feelings were extremely negative, the result was bad.
I am giving here a short video about this experience where you can see that I was seriously trying to imagine the depth of feelings and all that ...
I have been looking for inspiring music for a long time. And then I thought that then music becomes the starting point of art. And it seemed to me not entirely correct since in my opinion everything around comes from a man. Even though I do sports regularly, when I started to move, I realized that for dancing my body is stiff like wood. Next, I realized that I can learn to dance, but it's just hard enough for one person to combine two things. Probably because our brain cannot do two things at once. Our consciousness is always focused on only one task. And in order to combine such different things as dance, painting, music and all the rest of the art, this requires theatre and performance with a lot of people.
It was strange for me to paint on the floor - it's not natural. When I approached the wall, I caught myself thinking that I had stopped to draw the line. And at that moment I justified pictorial art as a vertical art - simply because we are so arranged and our eyes are not on our backs but our faces.
In addition, at the moment of stopping, I realized that painting is static art. It is not subject to time; it is and will be. A person should find an approach to this art and read it like a book. A book always opens on one spread but containing the information of the entire book.
The dance for me was at first as work with the body, and then with the brain. In the painting, according to my feelings, the work takes place with the soul, and then with the body.
It feels like the shortest way to the soul is through hands. And not through the skin, but using an object in my hands. Brushes, clay, wood, iPhone...?
Yes, there was a rhythm in movement, but it was not visually embodied. One could rhetorically talk about the artist's movements, but I don't feel anything in my body. There is no connection with the material.
My feet are also silent of sensations.
Previously, I briefly studied artists such as:
Gutai group with their understanding that they need to do something with were not there before. The brush is not needed, and the act of painting can be a performance.
Janine Antoni
Janine Antoni “Loving Care” 1993 The artist soaked her hair in hair dye and mopped the floor with it. [Photography] At: http://www.marthagarzon.com/contemporary_art/2011/01/janine-antoni-loving-care-lick-and-lather/ (Accessed 01.01.2021)
Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann Kinetic Painting [Photography] At: https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/136837/carolee-schneemannkinetic-painting/ (Accessed 01.01.2021)
Niki de Saint Phalle
Shigeko Kubota
Shigeko Kubota, Vagina Painting, 4 July 1965, live performance during Perpetual Fluxus Festival, cinematheque, New York, gelatin silver print, 50.2 x 40.4 cm, © ADAGP, Paris [Photography] At: https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/shigeko-kubota/ (Accessed 01.01.2021)
Jim Dine
Jim Dine in The Smiling Workman, Judson Gallery, New York, February 29, 1960 | Photo by Robert R. McElroy, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2014.M.7). © J. Paul Getty Trust [Photography] At: http://www.dreamideamachine.com/en/?p=55460 (Accessed 02.01.2021)
Georges Mathieu
Georges Mathieu painting La Rentrée triomphale de Go Daïgo à Kyoto (currently in the collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art), in the garden of Tarō Okamoto, Geijutsu Shinchō, vol. 8, 1957. [Photography] At: https://georges-mathieu.fr/en/publications/mathieu-and-tapie-1948-1958-a-decade-of-adventure/ (Accessed 02.01.2021)
After such a brief introduction to the theory of gesture in pictorial art, I want to argue the whole concept. Say “no” to gestures or take them to another level.
I tried to dance visual arts. I tried to paint with my feet and hands. And now, I can conclude that through such actions I do not feel a connection with this medium. I need to work with my hands.
I realized that I didn't need to wallow in paint and then crawl on the canvas. Colours should be mixed properly. They need to have each time new hue, and not spilt from a can of industrial paint. This is an approach to making art ... not superficially but in detail, scrupulously, at a sophisticated level.
Performance in this form has lost its relevance for me. Painting as a form of a gesture was confirmed by the artists mentioned above. Artists of our time need to go beyond this and seek new means of expression. This is a bit like the Gutai group said - "Do what has never been done before!" (Guggenheim Museum, 2013 online).
Bibliography and references
1. ТАТЕ. Performance Art. Painting and Performance. KIRSTIE BEAVEN [Photography] At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performance-art/painting-and-performance (Accessed 25.02.2020)
2. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Teacher Resource Unit 2013 Gutai: Splendid Playground At: https://www.guggenheim.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/guggenheim-teaching-materials-gutai.pdf (Accessed 01.02.2021)
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