Figure and Lustre
Discourse: Daniel Miller (New Orleans) interrogates / in conversation with David Tompkins(NYC)
3900 Words Unedited
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Hi David, here is my first volley in print towards forcing you into giving me your bald expression. Take it as a casual conversation, no editing required. When we’ve reached a good spot, ill compile it all and edit for clarity, and then add a blurb at the top, and we can move on to our next convo~
I wanna talk in depth about your relationship with figurative art, as opposed to the abstract or the “pure” landscape. Maybe a better way to put it would be your relationship with obvious focal points, or perhaps even simply a “representative” image. Of course I'll relish in anything you can tell me about why you abhor the human figure, but I can imagine these thoughts will have deeper roots and longer branches, as they always seem to with us. Also, this topic seems like it might dovetail with your recent interest in the lustrousness and state of being of the color gray, so i'll keep my fingers crossed there.
We’ve gone out searching for plein air painting spots together before, and I find it such an enjoyable game to identify the quality of a location that inspires you to paint. It seemed to me that for you there was an aversion to of course any human beings in your perfect cityscape, and also too many plants, cars or perhaps one could say foreground activity was undesirable. This is not to say that you selected places which were colorless or drab, and also i cannot say that they were devoid of life or activity. Rather, you seemed to want to find places in human life that don’t draw the eye in any one direction over the other, a place that had points of focus, but all in balance with each other, a sort of equilibrium of topic.
Is there something about the idea of a painting manipulating the viewer’s eye that you are averse to?
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Well I’d like to start on the human figure. As it is with far too many things I access the discussion first from a negative viewpoint, or a challenging one, like a point of frustration. I have said many times to people that figures are “loaded,” maybe what that means to me is that I have frequently struggled to fully enjoy the emotional motivations of an image with the emphasis on a figure--especially if that figure reminds me not of an idealized person but a real person, an author, or audience member. Or even if the figure is idealized it shouldn’t even be identifiable as real, like a historical person for example, because that is something that exists too and is potentially known or knowable despite whatever ideals are in the artwork.
To me the picture of a figure evokes a conversational tone, not like a formal conversation, like a real-life personal interaction with an unknown person. And I have always been incredibly uncertain at the very bottom of my thinking of what people are, and what they think. What measure of meaning they place on ideals for example. Personally I love ideals so much but I will never commit to anything like an ideal if I can’t know that it’s real (though I see the potential irony if that is an ideal). Put simply (too simply) I think people aren’t beautiful. People aren’t beautiful because they are so very clearly real. People are the realest thing there is: spontaneous anti-entropy machines with a social-technological backbone and, for all our prodigious achievements, a mind that may be revealed to be underpowered or based on an unsupportable framework. The real always spits in the face of the ideal. It’s possible to reconcile the two, but isn’t that just idealizing? Everyone should have a clear limit.
I’ll admit my Western intellectual bias and proclaim that I believe people are the source of ideals, of beauty, or indeed all thoughts or feelings that have ever been -as far as we know- but where my sense of beauty lives, where it crosses the functional limit for me, is when you understand an idea without the necessity of any persons. If we understand those ideas as having some existential independence of their own, to be existent despite people. That’s probably the most impossible thing ever, completely contradicting what art is as the product of people, for culture--for people.
You know how people ignorant of systematic racism (or even not so) have this reaction where they recoil almost in offense to the topic. I guess it’s the knowledge that good things in your life are definitely implicated in old and sad social issues obvious to everyone in the country, and so if you’re a binary thinker: it’s all bad. To double-down on the possibly over dramatic topic choice: imagine (especially if you’re white) that you routinely discussed systematic racism spontaneously and in detail over years and years because other people (and eventually you) would bring it up in conversation. Over the years you develop a bit of confidence in the topic but there’s an untouchable emotional distress, and it reflects reality. That’s what my relationship with figurative art is like haha. Also that’s pretty much my experience of understanding racism too. A diverse America without racism is a beautiful idea, but it’s not real, and the real America is terrible in a great many ways. I give people credit for that dream but I won’t separate ideals and culture from reality. Art is the inverse of that.
From my lens, from my experience, inside my own structure (yata yata) the figure and figurative art can still be effective but most of the time it pushes me away. The fact that I rail on it so much means I clearly do engage with the figure, it’s just that the conclusion I come to artistically is to set myself apart from it in some particular ways. Honestly I believe many people would relate to that feeling I have of being ajar when the figurative art is there, if I can connect it to some of my real experience. I would like to develop some more clarity there. It could have an impact.
After reading over what I’ve written maybe I have a thesis of sorts: if creativity requires an expression of an idea that can reflect and reveal reality, you must find where in your art and in your experience of life reality exists, and where in your art and your life ideals, beauty, or emotional content exist. You reconcile those distinctions only enough to define your goals. To me reality is dark, often threatening, and while parts of reality are technically more knowable than an expression, knowing our true reality in the sense of a broad human comprehension is not possible. Because of my life experience, that’s what people represent to me, and that’s what figurative art evokes in me. The component of art that is real, dry, and so concrete as to be unmanageable, rather than something expressed--which can wiggle around in your head without you knowing it.
On uniformity and site selection/subject choices: go ahead and ask me again in light of the things I’ve just said. I want to give you the chance to come back at me first. There are actually maybe 3-4 core topics you brought up I think; have your pick.
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Haha okay, I’ll set aside hoping that you answer the actual question I asked, I can see this is gonna require improvisation. I’m curious now about your relationship with the term “ideal”. It seems as though you yearn to create a safe space for ideals to exist in a piece of art (beauty, meaning, etc,) and yet I get a sense of your being at odds both with the ideals of others and the pressure to locate ideals in a chaotic world, in which an ideal is inherently impossible. I suppose I’m reminded of David Torres’ viewpoint that horror comes from a loss of power or control. Do you believe that it is possible to create a perfect painting?
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In a way I think you could describe what I’m doing, and I think you’ve summarized my thoughts very well, as a method directed at gaining expertise. In the arts I think it’s essential to see expertise as an internal journey because your insights must be your own. I believe very strongly in the capability of artists to describe a really impactful idea in a way that no one could have ever taught them to do so. That ability to develop expertise being an artist, as well as wisdom, and insight, and other things motivates me because I believe in the power of ideas.
That doesn’t mean I feel that the notion of “ideals” are needed (or even real), but I do think speaking about ideals fits the emotion and the passion involved in what creativity means to me. It just doesn’t seem like enough to say that another person’s painting is just an idea, no I think it’s got to be more like many ideas + emotion + a demographic + an agenda + the image. So I guess ideals is a strong enough word that for me summarizes the complicated intents of an artwork.
I realize that -by means of this definition- I may be invalidating the use of the word ideals when it does not apply to an artwork, and also apparently privileging the concept of a singular author... As far as collaboration, and individual versus collective or other forms of ideation: collaboration for example can be most suitable depending on the intended result and media. I try to uphold the same style of thinking in groups but instead of butting heads against seemingly ALL other ideas, I come up against only those we’ve cooperatively defined as necessary to scrutinize in order for our message to be said and our goals to be achieved.
To break it down in terms of what was said earlier: knowing something well enough to be able to share it confidently with others by means of a strong message… that’s something that I believe very few people can do to a high standard. I am a moralist in the sense that I see the clear expression of an idea as a high moral value and a lofty achievement to be done well. Because we are social animals, because sharing is not just useful but the very origin of all culture, and because commerce is nowadays everybody’s way of life, people are asked to share ideas constantly. People share ideas looking for connection, looking for money, looking for the nearest gas station. Literally anything in the world can be had via the exchange of ideas. I suppose I could be a little more analytical in describing what I mean by ideas but let’s move on.
It’s important to be honest with other people, but you can easily believe you are honest without actually being very accurate about it. The line between what is accurate as a matter of evidence and what is honest as a matter of perspective is blurred in so many aspects of life, but particularly in the arts because of its uses and subjects.
In addition to being a moralist I am also invested in dialogue, or maybe I mean by that the idea that process can be elucidated in the final work creating the opportunity to understand how the ideas and intent are being formed. I want to rephrase that in a different way--The emphasis of a work of art, just like the emphasis when explaining an idea to someone, should be on the methodology, and not the conclusions. Your work is in giving reasons, explaining structure, and explaining the pathways you took to the idea you’re working with. No one really needs to know the idea itself as long as they believe it does exist. And I am the same way.
In this way I’ve kind of given away something else that I think haha. I said earlier that I believe ideas change the world, but really what that looks like in practice is people believing in the concept of an idea without actually knowing it. And for the person who had the idea originally it is (presumably) a constant exercise to be explaining it and spreading knowledge of the pathways that they followed to find it. Though I think that’s probably more of a philosophical statement than a literal one, perhaps the concept is like this: because ideas can change the world, ideas must be scrutinized, and if an idea (or really any thought) would become valued above -or in isolation of- its origins, its direction, and its history then that idea is not especially helpful to others, or beautiful to me.
I’ll try and write a short summary. My ideals don’t describe a painting. There is no ideal painting or idea, as you would probably agree. Ideal for me describes a process. In my process moral weight is supported by the generation of detailed rationales, maintaining a broad scrutiny of thought, and of course earnestness to a subject, which is also why I rely on dialogue. I believe it is this process if anything (therefore) that makes it possible to live up to even the vaguest concept of beauty and ideals. When I think about that process I would say that really my goal is to affect people by exposing them to this structured, doubtful, moralizing, and analytical process in a vivid way so that we can all apply ourselves more to ideas, and to speed up and proliferate dialogue. So yeah, as far as the financials go I would love to make a really successful iconic artwork but I don’t see that perception of value as a successful artwork on the whole. Next Question!
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I’d like to circle back around to the figure. I’m having trouble distinguishing between what is specific to your practice and what are observations about other artists, viewers, the art industry, etc.
At the beginning of this conversation, you described bodies in art as “too loaded”. Then in terms of the equation you posited (ideas+emotion+demographic+agenda+image,) do you feel that employing figure in artwork precludes the development of the expertise you crave, by offering pre-loaded shortcuts to all those essential elements in the eye of the viewer?
I’m getting a sense that the figure might feel to you like a disruptive element, something that is “too significant” to society, and “not significant enough” in your mind. And thus when it’s thrust between you and others as collaborators of any stripe, it feels as though it might alienate you by speeding up conversation in a direction that neither party determined through observation of the art, but rather through preconceived cultural and “human” notions.
If I’m on the right track, I suppose the one thing here that gives me pause is the idea that, without a figure, the intent and process might be determined more truly when looking at the artwork. In a world where an obelisk statue must represent a penis and a flower painting a vagina, how can we ever expect a viewer to not take shortcuts to strong emotional connections?
I propose an experiment. What say you put up a photo of one figure-less painting of yours and then I’ll find it’s figurative opposite, and we can discuss the path that both take to getting a viewer’s reading. If you’re game, next time you reply, put an image of one of your works at the end of the reply, with the title, and let me react to it unmoderated. Once i have your image, ill send you a piece of art with a big gross nude in it, and we can see your reaction, then we can compare the two.
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Ok! I accept I agree and I submit for your consideration:
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NOT THE RIGHT PAINTING, WITNESS ME
Large Postcard - 29 x 35 inches, oil on canvas, 2017
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Note: I had a thought. If you reduced it to something really simple, you could explain away most of my sentiments as something related to the mindset of an introvert haha. Because people are too much but internal fantasies are good? I’m not trying to de-escalate I just think it’s an extreme that could be noted. By all means let’s increase detail and escalate as much as possible.
Large Postcard - 29 x 35 inches, oil on canvas, 2017
**** NOT THE RIGHT PAINTING, WITNESS ME*****
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Okay, here we go, analyzing a Tompkins.
Or are we? Is this painting a representation of your thoughts and feelings? I think I’m starting to see what you’re getting at. In approaching this painting, I’m thrust into the midpoint of a pathway of meaning. There’s no starting point, and no destination. I find myself reaching for a representation; do I see bookshelves? A city street with nigh on setting sun? A playmobil chef in the upper right? Interior and exterior, internal and external, staid emotion and bubbling emotion are all represented here. It’s a lustrous rainbow of gray.
I get a feeling of frustration more than anything, a sense of running at top speed and not moving an inch, although perhaps even that is just the result of being American; a reaction to an absence of pre-loaded narrative. And then all of it seems constantly sundered by the title, a postcard implying a desire to reach out, share experience and memory, or hearken back to something shared. I do end up seeing landscape or at least physical space in the signs on the page, although it’s harder to give those signs names themselves. I guess I’m ending up at feeling as though the painting itself is visual language discussing the points you’ve been making throughout this conversation (another pre-loaded concept.) It demands and speaks to me about slowing down, reaching or swimming, making breaststrokes towards solid ground, rather than my usual conception of a painting as solid ground itself.
Where can we go from here in reading a Tompkins? Am I on the right track? Is there a right track? Are we making progress on your terms? Feel free to analyze my analysis.
And here is my rebuttal in Nude Form! Tell me of its regressive flesh:
Kaya - approx. 24 x 18 inches, dip pen & ink and watercolor on paper, 2013
***** NOT THE RIGHT IMAGE, PLEASE REMEMBER******
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Wow, nice words feeling out the Large Postcard painting, I really appreciate it. Honestly what you’ve written might be a resource for me as I’m feeling out new directions for my art in the near future.
Regarding reading things in the painting, finding pieces in the image; in particular the way you described it earlier where objects can be understood as figurative, and that psychological phenomena as people feel out and try to interpret the art. Well I will first admit that it’s a point of my own personal criticism that the artwork has not prepared me well for many places the conversation might go from your analysis. However, to speak right now just as myself and the person who made the painting above: I think the word pathway is very interesting, and also direction, or how the abstraction can represent a navigation more than a stationary natural image with reference points, people, and things. How to take that and make it about actual ideas and proceed beyond simply a common notion of process is of great interest to me for this artwork and others. I’m grateful that you chose to describe it that way.
Again, on finding images in the painting: I do also enjoy feeling out the other associations you describe (playmobil chef) and I do think those things can present ideas all on their own, because they can be emotionally resonant, you know: to find a relationship and picture in your mind what the painting’s emotional motivations might be (like some sunset, boy, or explosion). I get that, that’s cool, but it’s something I find I like to deprioritize. I try to fulfill that need and even to have some skill at it but it’s not how I want to solve the problems I have in mind. I will try to write more on that on my own time.
So what is a body about? And what is this Kaya artwork about? I haven’t a fucking clue. To read the colors as mottled light—it doesn’t seem like abstraction. In defence of the abstractness it is an obscured body and a slow image. I guess either way this is a very painting thing to do… I guess this would count as a painting, especially if you mounted it to something sturdy. A weird demand but “objectness” with a material heft is associated with painting. But yeah let’s not get into historical baggage of figures just because it’s a painting.
(soliloquy) Why do you make me describe the associations in my mind instead of real opinions Daniel? We both know I don’t require those things and you can say whatever words you want when you describe your stuff. It’s a cheap trick using these stealth tactics to get me to lay out some formalist sensibility. I often do only because of your questions. You like to chat about what’s expected or what’s invulnerable in our culture of the arts but you work-it-out to some final idea and maybe give you amnesty. I must be a sucker to let you push the rules out of my mouth.
I’m going to go with thinking about the emotional impetus, not reading too far into the content but looking for raw emotional reactions and an attempt to talk only about that. As if what you think is because of what you feel. It’s the opposite of the direction I want to take with my own art. What is the emotional impetus for the painting? Well, it’s a very bulky woman, woman because of the breasts and hips, and she’s arching over what would be a background area of blue swatchiness. The interior space of that arch is not exactly background though, and it forces an abstraction to the figure, which moves from what might have been a cropped close-up figure image to more like a landscape. Also, as the main locations of social expression the hands and face are partially obscured, so it’s less identifiable as a real human as opposed to a form of a human which can also be landscape. But let’s say none of that is important and instead I just need to get to grips with the “Kaya” of the painting, or the “Daniel” of the painting through Kaya. If that’s the case I would say they were either having sex with each other or Daniel saw Kaya like this irl, perhaps in a rude performance, possibly organized by Daniel but also somehow at Daniel’s expense because Kaya fits no labels, not lover, not friend, not stranger, not artist. No, she’s a cosmic information dump that Daniel can hardly understand or believe but is nonetheless keen on feeling out. Satisfied Daniel? Is art just gossip about incidentally beautiful things do you think?
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[[ dmla;nfo;anopgbeapfhwa[o ]]
A portion of the above has been edited for clarity and length
