Between illusion and clarity lies perception. How do we separate what we see from what we think we see? These are the realms of visual exploration that Paul Pinkman has continuously explored: he posits questions that seek to understand the complexities of sight as well as those of insight. In his paintings and photographs, the visual plane that Pinkman creates is architectural, geometric, and always in the service of perception. Change is the constant; repeated looking energizes permutations. This deeply involves attention to time and memory -- the two basic constructs of visual perception -- the same objects and subjects seen over a long period of time are mercurial, changed by time and memory's lacings. Pinkman calls attention to the vagaries of perception by calling attention to its precepts of order and sequence. He brings the two-dimensional surface into tension with the three-dimensional eye. In projects such as "Dogwalks" and "Moment by Moment", and "The Persistence of Vision", the viewer is called upon to reinterpret the landscape without the moorings of horizon, space, and depth. Instead, these landscapes become a kind of photographic Rorschach test for how we perceive what is in front of us. These images -- beautiful in their composition and surface -- are disarmingly constructed to make us think twice and we take pleasure in the puzzle of looking. Earlier paintings relate to this work directly: such works as "Lavendar Heart" and "Autumn's Rhythm" are precedents through which the later photographic explorations culminate. His constant interruptions of the compositional surface with seemingly disparate objects are intentional incorporations of visual ideas that energize the viewer’s choices. How deeply do we really see, and what is that process? In his narrative and figurative work, these ideas are also present: we are led to series of images and ideas which each multiply the visual, emotional, and perceptual choices that will enable us to read the paintings’ meanings. Images and colors are layered on top of each other or sequenced into geometric grids. What he pulls up from the past directly connects with the present he is painting. These works provides an almost cinematic experience of looking. Pinkman's color choices only enhance what perception offers: his choices continue to serve the act of looking -- and it is with color that he introduces emotional equivalents. One is mesmerized, taken in, and then happily lost in the simple pleasure of trying to work out the space of composition. The strength of Pinkman's visual ideas is the belief that such physical interactions of perception are an integral part of the process of viewing art. The canvas and the viewer connect completely and interact. What is stimulating to the eye because it is beautiful, is also what keeps the eye questioning across these sumptuous planes of image, color, and composition. This offers every viewer an active and invigorated communication with his art. The human presence is never far away, if not immediately evident. This work is not a substitution for human interaction, but rather the result of its great essences: thought and perception. What good is a world observed and yet never pondered upon? Paul Pinkman instills in us the idea that what we see is the ultimate proof of being here and being present. Vision is an act of grace. Though perception is itinerant, this grace has always found a home in his art.
What was your first interaction with art; were there specific ways that art became important for you? Was your talent inherent – a “gift” seen at a very early age? I have to say that it's difficult to remember, exactly. My earliest memories of art, per se, were being asked by the nuns in grade school to make some crafty type projects for "show and tell" or something like that. I was, apparently, good at that sort of thing though I didn't work at it. One particular incident when I was in 5th grade - I was asked to create a Christmas tree cut out for the class to copy. I put my all into it and designed something that had its own stand so it didn't need to be taped to a window, which for some reason annoyed me. Well, the nun, Sister Mary Charles (or something like that) was infuriated with my precocious attitude and made me feel like crap for having worked so hard on it. Other than that, honestly I was drawn to music first. I was given a 55 Fender Esquire when I was 11 years old. Around the same time my mother had received a spinet piano. Between the two things I was well on my way to being a musician. I had a couple bands and put together the best one late in high school and college. The visual art thing provided some respite in high school and college from feeling like an outcast but that was it. Ultimately, I ended up abandoning music, the result of too many disappointments with other musicians, their drug use and the fact of having our concerts closed down by the police. I wish I hadn't quit but I did, and it opened the door for a deeper look into the visual field.
Who were your first mentors as you developed; or was your artistic road a solitary one? Why or why not is mentorship important to a beginning artist? There is always my mother, of course. I say that but I know many people whose parents weren't supportive. My mother was very supportive even as she didn't understand how I would make a living at it. So, too, were my friends who were amazed at what I could do but saw it mostly as an outgrowth of being very creative. By the time I got into college I ended up with two big supporters - my sister, Karen and my first Spanish teacher, Helene. In fact it was Helene who first helped me believe I had something more than middling talent. I was one of those tortured artists who are a combination of complete and utter fear and lack of confidence married to an outward over-confidence that was forever self-sabotaging. Ah, if I knew then... Finally, and not to be forgotten, I had a couple other teachers who really believed in me. In high school, the art teacher, Janise, was constantly giving me opportunities to showcase my work. And in college, my first art teacher, Tony Nicoli, gave me an understanding of what was possible in an art world of which I was completely unaware. In fact, after not having seen him for many years we were recently put together in an exhibition of our works. In that reconnection moment he said to me that without doubt I was the best student he's ever had. Whether he was being nice or honest or both, it was an amazing thing to hear.
As you progressed, what academic choices did you pursue? Were these fruitful for you? At what point did you leave academics behind and “learn from life”?
Early on I was, as are so many students, drawn to realism. My art teacher, Tony, got me to understand what photorealism was and I became enamored of it. I worked in that vein for a while but was never confident enough to believe I could achieve the level of detail required. In fact, as I had been academically, I was arrogant and lazy. I wanted to draw well but didn't want it enough to sacrifice for it in the way I needed to. Art was as much an escape from what I perceived as a threatening world as it was an end in itself. Having been born gay, I was terrified most of the time that I was going to be a target of violence of one kind or another. Being around the arts gave me some sense of security, if for no other reason than that artists are too self-absorbed to think of any one else. So, I went to two colleges - Union College and Seton Hall - where I studied Art Studio and Art History. Subsequently I started work on a Masters in Art History at Rutgers but dropped out before I finished. While in Seton Hall I studied both Studio Art and Art History and really responded well to Art History. I left college and went to work in a factory and soon realized that wasn't going to work. So, I went back to grad school in Art History at Rutgers. I lasted a year. The stress of being there with no money, high academic expectations and a department that believed 'connoisseurship' was the be all and end all of art academia forced me out. At that time, a friend of my sister's worked for an advertising agency in New York City. She encouraged me to take a starting job as an art room assistant. It was a real challenge for very little money, especially learning to deal with the attitudes of designers but it was worth it. I got more out of that than I would have from the cutthroat behavior of academics. Things from there just moved inexorably forward into design of one kind or another and ultimately led to the web.
Your earlier works are realistic and compelling narratives with a great deal of draftsmanship and technique -- such as "Wrestling With God" and "The Big Secret", yet they are also conceptual in the execution of your ideas. Can you speak to these interests and how you came to use them in your work. Keep in mind that all this is me creating some kind of visual autobiography that was circular - I painted about myself through explorations of technique that influenced me both psychologically and emotionally. The result being that both the work and I evolved. So much of the concept in my work came about somewhat unconsciously. Because I was addressing deeply personal issues - some of which I was aware and some, not - I needed a way to express these things on canvas. I would pour through books on theory of all kinds, literature, art, science, etc. and look for the ways they did or did not come together. I would find themes there that I found had real relevance for me. Over time, I became more and more involved with personal psychology. In fact, my original goal for returning to grad school years before was to delve into the psychology of creativity and how that determined an artist's oeuvre. At the time, this idea was seen as anathema to being an art historian. So I left. But it didn't stop me. I simply became my own subject. There's no doubt that issues of abuse were of importance to me. I could see over and over again how people abuse themselves and one another and how many artists fall deeply into that crevice. Starting in college I was influenced by the concepts of phenomenology via Merleau Ponty and Martin Heidegger. This got me examining, both in my life and in my work, the concepts of being, of 'thingness'. There was a point in time when Jacques Derrida's concepts started having influence, I was already struggling through the works of Susan Sontag, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. For some reason Derrida's deconstructionist ideas really got to me. I started parsing words, thoughts and the construction in my art. Pull it apart, see the meaning if there is any, then put it back together. Is there still meaning? Ultimately I rejected most of what I was pushing at around the same time I discovered Buddhism. I started to realize that all human behavior and interaction, all existence, must be based on some 'understoods' even if they're not definable. I know now that our ability to comprehend has much more to do with what we don't 'know' but rather intuit. We understand through a multi-layered process that involves our minds to only a small degree. In so many ways, the 20th century in America and parts of Europe was just humanity coming out of some long somnolence. The educated classes were rediscovering what had been known and either forgotten or rejected.
The use of language and the written word are combined in many of your early works; what significance has your love for reading and literature had on your work? I'm thinking in particular of such images as the Jean Genet monotypes, the "Cantos", and “Portrait of My Mother.” I can't say specifically when this started. I believe it came as a result of seeing Richard Prince and Robert Rauschenberg in Soho years ago and having been influenced to work with assemblage. The applying of things to the canvas would often end up with the application of words in the form of newsprint, etc. From there I started considering what the sources were of some of my ideas and thoughts. And of course, that would bring me to literature. Originally I started incorporating words from the newspaper. I read the Times every day and was fascinated by what they would come up with. Some of the phrases that journalists would arrive at were brilliant and as full of visual imagery as any painting. By the time I got to the Genet pieces, I was overwhelmed by what he was saying and writing about. In addition, I loved his ideas of all things being turned upside down. Normal for him was abnormal for most others and that gave me an opening into a different way of seeing. When I would start a piece using Genet's words, I would simply grab a phrase without thinking about it, I would write in backwards on the printing plate so it would come out correctly and then I would print a random drawing on top of it. This way the normalcy of the images is implied by the viewer. There was no "intention" on my part to make them one thing or another. I was in essence learning to let go of intention and let the work come through on its own terms. By the time I get to "Portrait of My Mother" and a few others, the last of the prints based on text, I am working with automatic drawing and writing. The text is written during a state of extreme emotion, usually having had too much to drink. I wanted to deny my own ability to 'design' the works so I would get stoned and completely upset, then write automatically whatever was coming to me but with my left hand (I'm right-handed). This forced the text to be genuine and unintentional. Then, once again, I would incorporate objects and drawings that I had at hand. The result was that all the works sold out in the first ever show of them. They were genuine statements of inner emotional states and I think people saw that right away. I wouldn't want to live in that space, though. It's too damaged.
How did your work first come to be recognized and shown: competitions, gallery exposure, etc.? How did you proceed to enter the commercial as well as artistic communities? My earliest recognition was minimal at best in any commercial sense. I was often recognized by the alternative crowd, getting shows on the lower east side at Torn Awning at the height of that scene. This was when Soho and the major Lower East Side galleries were the place to be but the real scene was happening on Rivington Street. Following this, I was included in a lot of outsider shows such as the Independents Salons, La Mama La Galleria, etc. In the late 90s I was included in the New Jersey Arts Annual at the New Jersey State Museum. Since the mid-90s my work has been seen mostly throughout Central NJ.
You have distinctly personal themes in your works that are often narratives of emotional content : the stories of you life -- you often speak of your friends and family as your "tribe". Sexuality and a sense of place are also themes for you, as well as a spiritual depth. Can you discuss these important themes in your work?I mentioned earlier here that I realized quite after the fact the my work through much of my life has been an autobiography. As a result the themes, whether emotionally based or otherwise, touch a great deal on issues of identity. Who am I? How do I relate to this world? And what is this world that I live in - both locally and globally? The people in my life, especially certain ones, were so critical to my view of things, both good and bad. Painting them allows me to honor them and at the same time get some sense of space from them. My attachment to people is very deep, too deep at times. The most important personal beliefs that have come into play in my work are around my relatively recent relationship with Buddhism and with a lifelong belief in the basic goodness of human nature. This belief has been tested to its core, especially recently. On an individual basis most people are damaged goods in one way or another. Our emotions and thoughts are byproducts of the human condition and therein lies the problem. In a Cartesian world - I think therefore I am - everyone thinks and thus imagines that their thoughts are 'true' or 'real'. With each step further and deeper into this belief come the problems we deal with today. In a world of 'me' where everyone believes his or her own thoughts have truth and relevance, nothing is meaningful and everything is about ego. What a waste.
You have always explored a wide range of mediums of expression: in your work oil, photography, lithography, monotype, etc. Do you work in all of these mediums simultaneously, or does one or the other lead to the next? I have never been one to stick with a medium. I definitely started with oils and stuck with it for years, along with charcoal and pencil, but gave it up when I realized that the medium was limiting my expressiveness. In addition, the expectations of the art marketplace are no different than that of the retail world - more, different, new, now. Oil painting was and to a great degree is an anachronism from a period when time was something people had much more of. Because I value the authenticity of original work - work actually created by the artist rather than a studio of workers, the ability to find ways to express ideas more rapidly is essential. Thus I got involved in a variety of printmaking techniques - monotypes, lithographs, etc. and assemblage, collage and photography. In the end the concept was more important than the material. Additionally the materials chosen added their own content to the piece, offering difference and interest.
How did you begin to leave realistic painting and begin to focus on more minimalist, abstract ideation?
Early on, like so many art students, I wanted to learn to paint like the old masters first, then the photorealists, then, because of a show at the Met, like Monet. (In fact he was and to a great extent still is the only Impressionist I admire. His ability to synthesize light on canvas is amazing.) Once I got through Monet, which was in my late 20's, I moved slowly toward abstraction because I had been introduced through the museums to the works of the great abstract expressionists. In part I have grad school to thank for that. They got me to go and really look at those works and I was blown away. The first real abstract work that I got attached to was Vir Heroicus Sublimis by Barnett Newman. This was well after school and so I started my autodidact period. I hadn't absorbed as much technique as I needed in school and so found that over time I was becoming an explorer of techniques and styles. I moved through a great many approaches, examining each one in a series of works, usually roughly three large pieces and a series of drawings. Works such as Lavendar Heart came out of this understanding, though were actually produced later on in time. I was discovering the use of the computer and realized how abstract the space of the computer monitor was. The drawings for these paintings were all computer generated sketches. The paintings were investigations into the difference between computer space and human space. The results showed me how something drawn or painted has its own human characteristics regardless of how much it is trying not to. Because of my earlier beliefs, I couldn't just 'let go' of realism. I had to prove to myself that it was valid. How I did that was through experimentation and slowly releasing myself from those bonds. Even as I really started to understand abstraction, I could see that both inside myself and in the audience that I was showing to, there was a deep suspicion of abstraction. It seems that after the 50s and early 60s, popular culture and the art world turned on itself. The Pop artists and those after them tore into any possibility of believing in what Pollock, Reinhardt, Rothko, were doing. So the public felt duped and pulled back from it, feeling like they were the butt of some terrible in joke. I understood this and so I wanted to process a synthesis of both. I moved forward toward works like Wrestling with God and The Big Secret while examining all the aspects of painting in the previous 30 years - surface, narrative, intent, content, technique. I think to a degree my ideas were bigger than my ability to paint them but I'm very proud of what I did there. Each work brings to place an understanding of both realist and abstract surface and depth and marries it to a narrative that is suggestive of something personal to me but which also resonates for others.
Your portraits make an indelible emotional impression, yet they are almost “sketched” in your works. Is the face a special subject for you?
It's interesting you should say that. In fact I've steered away from portraits or faces for that matter for years because I was never happy with how I portrayed people. My skills fell apart when I tried to draw or paint faces and I was endlessly unhappy with the results. I did manage through using photorealist techniques to get some portraits that I was happy with. Then quite recently I discovered digital photography and found a way to capture people as I see them. All the people I have captured are in some way simply a self-portrait. For all that I believe I know about others, I realize their internal life is not something I can really comprehend. And for years I was terrified by others, another reason why I didn't paint them. I was captivated by bodies, terrified by faces and hands. Now, though, I see my family and friends as extensions of me - they become the many avenues through which I can try and see the world as it is and not as I mold it to be in my mind.
Your photographic project "Sticks and Stones" was not easy for you. It speaks to all the worst aspects of hatred that we as queer men and women have had to evolve away from. In it, you went really deeply into yourself, almost trance-like, letting the camera see what was essentially masks torn away. The resulting portraits are difficult to look at, but at the same time they are hypnotic. Can you discuss this project, and how you involved your subjects -- friends and lovers -- in it? Throughout this discussion I have mentioned that my work has been a self-portrait. It's a complex autobiography that shows all facets of who I am and have been. Well, this realization is relatively new for me. It was only earlier this year that I came upon that discovery as I was trying to understand better what I was doing with my art. At the same time, I was invited to participate in a show the title of which was "Sticks and Stones". As hard as I tried to do the facile thing - create landscape works with sticks, etc. - I couldn't let go of the thought that this saying, so often spoken to children, isn't true. Some of the worst things that happen to kids happen when people say things to them to belittle or hurt them. I remembered so many things people said to me as a boy growing up that stuck with me for years, turning me against myself. I decided that I needed to exorcise that demon. In the process of shooting myself I realized that there were many others who had lived through similar things. My response was to reach out to all those in my immediate circle and ask them to participate. Most agreed right away. The experience for most of us was that of catharsis. Most of us felt a certain liberation by owning those words, allowing them to be written on our faces and then photographed. Others, however, were either incapable of reliving the pain and preferred not to do it or participated and then didn't want to have anything to do with it afterwards. In any event, each person had a powerful reaction before, during and after the shoot. It was an amazing experience and the evidence of that is in the works.
I was given the opportunity to do a one-person show in a small gallery. In thinking about what I was going to do, I had been harboring a feeling of unsettledness about typical wall works. It continues to strike me how few people really 'look' at art. They just push past it, say something irrelevant, and then forget it. I determined that I wanted something participatory, something that would force viewers to be a part of the work. This isn't anything new but how was I going to do this in a way that made sense to me. During the process of working on this concept, I started photographing out in the park in the rain. I loved the imagery of ripples of water on a surface, something that I've referred to again an again in older work. It had such deep Jungian resonance that I felt like there was something there for me. Then I remembered the original source of inspiration for me - Impressionism. Immediately I remembered the famous Manet painting. It was so strangely put together and the character in the background in the water is from some other place altogether. For me, she is the individual with the message of the piece. The people in the front are just character actors.
The most recent work explores perception within time and space continuums. You break down the science of perception into visual statements that evoke other emotional reactions. Also, the medium you are using, photography, complements the earlier painting work, which explored the same ideas of perception. The "Rorschach" landscapes – the Dogwalks -- are especially beautiful – can you speak to these ideas? This, for me, is everything in art and in life. What is the nature of unborn awareness? What does it mean to be alive? To 'see' things? To 'hear' things? Recently I was introduced to the realization that there is a critical difference between the physical act of any sensation - feeling, seeing, etc. - and what is perceived by that act. What you see is NOT what you get; what you see is an interpretation of what you get. The key to all things is to see all things as being one thing, one energy, and one presence. Much as my body is made up of untold millions of cells each of which makes up the person I am, we each make up part of the body of being - each of us being unique and none of us being separate. I realize how challenging this is for anyone, me included, but I can see the truth of it like never before. So, narrative, time, movement, change are as things are. They are not a condition of anything, they are the thing. The conceptual artists had something right on target. The problem was they tried to make it a commodity. That destroyed the truth of the work unless you were able to see past it as an object for sale and into it as an examination of the essence of being. In the end, though, we're people and as such we have a natural inclination toward the making of things, objects and so we need to keep producing art even as the realness of those objects is challenged.
The titles of your works are intriguing. Some are only dates or numbers. How do you come to name your works? Many of the titles of my work in the past were inspired by news articles or literature. I was always reading art theory searching for the answer. It took me years to see that there are no answers there. All that is just people looking for searching like I was. After that point the titles tend to be mostly personal - time of day, event, something specific to the picture. I wanted to ground the pieces in the experience I was having with making the work and not some intellectual process.
How does a new idea come to you?
Typically in a crisis or crunch. I process things as I see them all the time but rarely put them down on paper until someone says, "you have a show coming up." Then I freak out inside and start scrambling for the hook to hang onto. It's yet another reason why I don't paint in oils, though recently did the most complex oil painting I've ever done in a crisis of time. So, maybe I'm just b.s.'ing myself. And you. Ideas are everywhere all the time. The hardest part is knowing which are just ego jerking and which have real meat to them.
Many of your works are horizontally-composed, or use segmenting on the horizon line. In fact, there is a straight line of progression in your work, involving this geometry. Is this intentional?
I can't really say where that came from. Influenced by someone perhaps? Another artist? It is intentional to a degree. I have always been landscape oriented. My earliest works were still lives and florals, which had the horizon line as a reference point. I think over time I started to feel like this was a way of attaching the work to something 'solid'. It seems to me that water and horizon (land) are so much a part of us as beings that most people get it without knowing why. Like standing on a mountain top looking out at the horizon or on a beach. We know what that means deep down inside. So by incorporating these horizontal elements the work always refers to the land, the earth and what is elemental.
As I develop work I'm examining both the idea of the thing, the perception of the thing and the thing in itself. Art as object is necessary in the same way as person as ego is necessary. The issue is what to do and why. Making for its own sake is unnecessary though does at times provide some interest. Making because there is something there that needs to be expressed has the seeds of truth in it.
What do you think of the commodity that art has become?
Once I thought that idea alone was enough. I loved thinking of myself as an ideationist. I see more clearly than ever how useless that is, how silly. So, if I could get a thousand foot view I would see, perhaps, that making things is a key aspect of being fully human. Art as a thing, whatever that might be, can be wondrous and well worth the doing. The commodification of art is a full Greek tragedy. If you want to see how art has lost its soul, look no further than all the commodity that calls itself art. It is representative of what we have lost in our drive toward a consumer culture.
For you, art is less a career than a calling, yet you invested a lot of time and energy into it. What were your choices?
The choice to become an artist is very challenging today. Growing up in the 60s and 70s and hanging out in NYC, it seemed like the bohemian world of the 30s, 40s and early 50s of the City was still alive. In fact, it had already started its long decline. This was compounded for me by a serious lack of self confidence. Each time I imagined that I would go somewhere based on a show here or there, I would lack the ability to push myself into the art world of galleries, etc. So I worked a job full time, which took up most of the time I needed for art. I kept up working and exhibiting but never worked out the career part. Now for me this is a career of creativity. If someone buys a work, fantastic. However, I see that I gain so much from pushing myself creatively and the audience - primarily a suburban audience - that sees my work and gets to see things differently than they otherwise would have. The money and art school driven world of art today is a nightmare. I thought corporate life was bad. The professional art world is far worse. I would only recommend it for the most brutal and strong willed, ego driven types.
Simply that it is a reflection and product of the overall state of the world - ego and money driven. Why are so many visual artists so self-absorbed? And now that our entire culture is based on the idea of solidifying 'me-ness', the neurosis of this is out of control. I have a friend who visited Viet Nam and Laos recently. When he returned he said how much he loved it there - especially Laos - because the people were so gentle and kind and relaxed. He thought he would retire there. My first thought was, "OMG, what a disaster!". This is someone who understands little of those elements of being. His presence there will contribute completely to that culture's decay and decline just because of the poison that 'me-ness' brings with it. Visual art has always been about the ego of the artist but for many years that was subsumed under the cultural importance of the world as relevant in some way. Art represented something other than the artist’s own ego, even if that ego was in evidence. Now, there is nothing else. In a culture so temporal and ego-drive, the work is about the ego of the artist and about the ego of the observer. And this is all rolled up into work that represents the shallowness of the overall culture. It's a deafeningly loud one note symphony.
What is most edifying to you about the art world?
Where are you going next?
I wish I knew but at the same time don't want to. I always imagined that I would achieve some kind of financial success in the art world. I realize now that this is not why I'm an artist. It is important for me as a person and as an artist to keep producing this crazy quilt of an autobiography called my 'work' and let others see that and get whatever they want out of it. I'm finally ready to let go of any preconceived notion of what art and artist are and see what comes up then.
IMAGES, top to bottom: [CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Autumn Baroque. Photoprint; 2007; Autumn's Rhythm. Oil on canvas, 1991; Wrestling with God. Oil on canvas, 1996; The Big Secret. Oil on canvas, 1995; Portrait of My Mother. Pencil, collage, charcoal, ink, 2003; Canto I. Oil and pencil on paper, 1996; Rake. Charcoal and pencil, 1997; Lavender Heart. Oil, gesso on canvas, 2000; Desire. Oil on paper, collage with text, 1993; Queer (self-portrait). Digital Image, 2010; Edgardo. Digital Image, 2010; Detail from installation, "A Picnic in the Rain". Fabric, basket, fruit, carpet, digital print, 2009; 1.18.08 5:37 p.m. Photoprint, 2008; 2.8. 08. Photoprint, 2008; Divine Comedy (Inferno). Oil on canvas, 1992; Monday 01.19.09 10:31 a.m. Photoprint, 2009.
To see more of PAUL PINKMAN's work and to contact the artist, visit his website: Pinkmania. All work copyright Paul Pinkman, 2010. Reproduced with the kind courtesy of the artist.
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