Carol Sutton 
A
Spanner in The Works - Ethos and Spirituality in Abstract Painting
by Donna Lypchuk
| DATE:November
15 to November 30,1990 |
- Exhibition essay for show at OAKHAM
HOUSE AT RYERSON UNIVERSITY,
- by Terrance Sulymko Fine Art
|
 PLACE:Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Spirit
Absorption, 89 1/2 " x 108
1/2", acrylic on canvas, 1987
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- Whenever I look at a painting by Carol Sutton, I always
find myself re-asking that old question "What is abstract painting?"
That question is right up there with questions like "What is God?"
That's how I know I'm looking at a good painting. Abstract painting is
all about the invention of reinvention of form and the summoning of light
out of darkness. The ethos and spirituality behind what makes an abstract
painting "work" has never been clearly defined; it either works
or it doesn't. Like life, so much of abstract painting is process and so
much of it has to do with making choices -- the "right" choices
in a contemporary visual milieu who history resembles a kind of intellectual
hyperspace where aesthetics sometimes seem to be beside the point. Yet
the approximation of some kind of unity or spiritual truth is the "
end" of the activity and how could that end not be beautiful?
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- Abstract painting is universal signage about experiences
who intensity supersedes the limitations of more traditional linguistic
forms. At their best, abstract paintings are intense communications about
the human spirit; at their worst, they are mimetic exercises in technique
-- rational answers to irrational questions.
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- The contemporary abstract painter today has many choices
to make -- the main choice he has to make is whether or not to respond
to the history of abstract expression using the language of his or her
predecessors. In the words of Walter Darby Bannard, who wrote about Carol
Sutton's "Water Spirals" in 1983. - "The first job of the
abstract painter is to work out a scheme to make elements on a visually
flat surface relate convincingly across the natural resistance of that
surface: de Kooning expanded Cubism, Kline built black and white skeletons,
Pollock wove airy nets, Rothko scrubbed on fuzzy, symmetric rectangles.
Then come Frankenthaler's pastel stains, Louis' centrifugal stream, Noland's
bright targets, Olitski's crammed edges. Each contrived a structure to
replace that of depicted reality. Each left his invention in the inventory
of form. There's a lot available to us (abstract painters) ." The
key words in the above statement by Bannard, are "relate convincingly".
At what point does an abstract painting convince us of it's integrity as
an object?
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- We are convince of the integrity of a painting because
it is somehow synchronistic with our own ideas about the world; it is a
"magic" object. The idea that the practice of abstract painting
is a somehow spiritual pursuit also lends itself to the idea that there
is a morality to the practice of painting. Yet, what is moral about things
like "magic" and "coincidence", when they can be interpreted
as being accidents of intuition? The reality is "there are no accidents".
Painting is an impure science -- much more akin to metaphysics and many
abstract expressionists are practicing, while dripping, or spooling or
spraying paint, theories of randomness we equate with quantum physics.
The practice of abstract expression is also ritualistic and refers to states
of consciousness that refer to shamanism as well as more traditional religious
rituals.
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- Abstract painters are instruments of randomness; like
human human divining wands they dowse out images from an infinite inventory
of ideas and influences. They literally make something out of nothing,
and more often than not, they have to decide whether part of something
is less than nothing. Sutton's set-cut paintings, include in this exhibition,
refer specifically to this familiar argument. Originally part of a bigger
work, set-cuts consist of two or more adjoined pieces of canvas, that stand
on their own as individual pieces.
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- Although, many of Sutton's painting refer to air and
light (particularly reflected light), they often have that "oceanic
feeling" described by Freud in his famous paper "Civilization
and It's Discontents" in which he tries to explain the religious sentiment
described by his colleague Romain Rolland as being " a sensation of
eternity . . . a feeling of indissoluble bond, of being one with the external
world as a whole." as a form of infantile regression. Freud expressed
distress at the idea that he never felt this "oceanic feeling"
(religious feeling) but his protegee, Carol Jung did, building his model
of the human collective unconsciousness on the model of the mysteries of
the Sargasso Sea ( a mythical gigantic spiral of seaweed that floats around
the world trapping flotsam and jetsam from history in it's tentacles and
fibers). Jung did not readily interpret religious experiences as delirium
or delusion; like Aldous Huxley, he treated distorted perceptions as a
bridge to another reality.
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- Jung, also wrote extensively about the function of the
circle and the square as models for the human mind; citing that these two
basic shapes, are part of our primal memory and that both ultimately represent
the process of individualization, both culturally and within the mental
health of the individual. He also compared the creation of a garden to
the process of individualization, (the cultivation of the human spirit
that ultimately leads to an improvement of the quality of human life).
Jung identified the creation of circles (in particular mandalas) and squares
(in particular, gardens) as the genesis for identity; what to do with circles
and squares (the space within the four corners of the canvas) is a major
preoccupation of most abstract expressionists. Perhaps this equation of
life's journey (the process of individualization) with the formation of
the garden accounts for why Sutton compares herself with the French philosopher
Diderot, who wanted people to look at paintings as if he were leading people
literally down a garden to a "magic" spot. This magic spot is
where both macroscopic and microscopic ways of seeing an object merge;
a place where chaos and an ordered sense of the cosmos exist side by side
as is expressed in that old saying "seeing the world in a grain of
sand". And Diderot was a realist! Carol Sutton also is concerned with
creating a bridge between seeing as we normally do, and experiencing seeing
as a moment of hyper-vividness. Perhaps a desire to bridge this perceptual
gap between two ways of seeing is why two of the three set-cuts in this
exhibition are named after bridges, although contrary to traditional painting
practices the titling of this work did not necessarily precede the painting
of it.
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- This exhibition of Carol Sutton's paintings is a first
retrospective of sorts; a series of three works presented here, GINGER
MOTH ROYAL, CLAY ROSES, AND UNDISPUTED ROYAL, are described by Sutton as
being the later evolution of a series of paintings she calls the "Fan"
paintings. Her earlier "Fan" paintings of the 70's , upon which
her reputation was made, were characterized with bold geometry and pastel,
powdery and flat application of colour. These three paintings, crated in
the early eighties, are still loosely based on the image of the fan,
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- which she was obsessed with for seven years, but they
are much more sensuous, looser, boldly coloured -- essentially they are
transitional works that represent the early genesis of the Water Spiral
Paintings. These transitional "Fan" paintings, in many ways represent
a split in consciousness, represented by the stormy diagonal slit of colour
that divides the colourfield in half; all three are variations on the theme
of "emergence".
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- A chronology of this exhibition would continue next with
a discussion of the four Water Spiral paintings: ONION TUN ORANGE, NOBLE
BUBBLE, KAWAMURA LATIAXIS and the AUSTRALIAN SCALLOP. I see a graphic translation
of Jung's metaphor of the Sargasso Sea in the four Water Spiral Paintings
in which the "center of the Sargasso Sea" or the "eye of
the hurricane" is the focal point of the painting -- an empty or mysterious
center through which energy flows. One interpretation of this work is that
it refers to the artistic process itself as they could be seen as representing
skeletal models of the human psyche. It is interesting to note that the
fluid arms of these spirals, whose movement is somewhat dispersed, by the
smudging and pushing around of paint on the canvas are somewhat of an improvement
on nature, which are said (at least in the case of a hurricane) to flow
counter-clockwise; these spirals are a corruption of the spiral as it is
traditionally envisaged as a model of a storm, or even more interestingly,
as a model of Helelian logic that has been degenerated to include both
left and right brain ways of thinking.
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- The names of these paintings refer to types of sea-shells.
Although these painting are not literal representations of seashells, they
certainly are reminiscent of the seashell, as they are of the hurricane,
the water spiral, the galaxy, the inner ear, Hegelian logic and DNA amongst
other things. It has been suggested that they resemble canvases rolled
up on their side. The paint on this canvas is lavish and thick; the variations
on this theme are almost literally enriched by colour values. Sutton's
also experiments with colours that are very close in value, normally considered
to be discordant with each other because they exist too closely and monochromatically
when placed together -- the effect is very dramatic, like an ominous chord
pressed out in the minor keys of the piano.
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- There are three set-cut paintings included in this exhibition:
- PONTE VECCHIO, ALHAMBRA BRIDGE and BALCON LE LOUVRE.
These works are parts of a whole that stand by themselves individually.
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- BALCON LE LOUVRE is the upper section of a two-part horizontal
set-cut, which Sutton represents on it's own hung upside down. It is part
of an important recent phase in Sutton's development as a painter. For
the last three years she has been working on a series known as the Spirit
Balcony Paintings and the Silhouette Grill-Balcony Paintings. These paintings
are an intensive study of French and Spanish wrought-iron grill work. Sutton's
fetishization of this subject matter brings a variety of perceptual element
into play. Reflected light flashing from between the heavy bars of the
grillwork or bouncing off the grillwork is handled as if the paint is liquid
fire and the metal is soft. The artist experiments with the dramatic tension
that is created by deep black spaces that are rendered as the positive
image ( the actual grill work), and the number of rungs or curlicues in
each painting achieves a kind of significance for the artist when she becomes
preoccupied with the metaphysical meaning behind the number of rungs she
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- depicted in each balcony painting. In other words, she
wants to account for her choices, which appeared initially to be purely
a binary matter, until Sutton realized they referred to the work of some
of her favorite painters such as Thomas Eakins, Goya, Caillebotte and Manet.
These painters, although none of them were abstract, also dealt with the
silhouette of dark against light, and played with the tricks of perception
that shadow plays with light. Sutton has written about these works in an
essay entitled The Spirit Balcony Paintings and the Choice of Numbers.
The curlicues in BALCON LE LOUVRE represent a natural evolution of the
spiral form which obsessed Sutton for seven years. Although the image of
the wrought iron grill-work is more literal and derivative than anything
she has painted before, the effect of these large vibrant paintings can
be said to be somewhat related to the water spiral series.
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- ALHAMBRA BRIDGE is a part of a larger work known as the
ALHAMBRA BRIDGE SET-CUT. The larger painting was inspired by the bouquet
presented by the maid to the nude in Manet's Olympia (1983). In essence,
what we are looking at is a linear reinterpretation of the tissue paper
that surrounds that bouquet. PONTE VECCHIO is one half of a vertical set-cut
and the palette of this painting is based on the flat, pink pearly colours
used by the Italian colourist Veronese, who was in the 1500's basically
imitating frescoes through the use of oil paint. Both PONTE VECCHIO and
BALCON LE LOUVRE experiment with what Sutton calls :"interference
colours" on a flat matte surface. All three of these paintings, by
virtue of the fact that they are separated from the original sustaining
structure ( in essence, the "mother painting"), are about the
linking, spanning and suspension of visual information with a canvas whose
four corners are conceptually as vast as the four corners of the earth.
As is common with much of Sutton's recent work, there is also an attempt
to bridge the gap between centuries of history and contemporary practice.
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The major painting in this show, SPIRIT ABSORPTION, was inspired by the
voice of Ernst Lough, a soprano choir boy accompanied by pipe organ , which
Sutton first heard in a rare 1927 wax recording aired on CBC. This powerful
work, part of a Specific Historically Based series of paintings, is also
about the linking, spanning and suspension of visual information. Light
has been pulled out of the dark, (in the manner of the Spanish still-life
painters that have also influenced Sutton) and split the canvas into chords
of colour. The colours resonate with tones of black, gold and orange --
they are the rich earthy element out of which Sutton has pulled an eerie
light -- a glimpse of heaven -- a bridge between the spiritual and the
physical. This is an intensely spiritual painting that i simultaneously
a product of intuition as well as a superb technical acuity. The painting
represents the lush and lavish suspension of an aural, as well as tactile
experience, but at the same time it has an ethereal quality. This painting
could also be a visual depiction of an altered state of consciousness in
which colour is heard and sounds are seen. Compositionally, it represents
both a circle and a square, as represented by the "dancing" elongated
spheres that form the centre of the sphere; it also refers to the bubbling
and seething of the primordial mass and ultimately, as does most of Sutton's
work, to the moment of supreme creation itself.
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- by Donna Lypchuck, © 1990, Toronto, Canada
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| DATE: 1989 |
- Gallery Exhibition -Carol Sutton
|
see portrait below |
1989 - "Silhouette-Grill-Balcony" - "New Paintings &
Extended Edge Paper Works",
1987
French Schoolyard Gate
(brochure text written by Carol Sutton), Gallery One, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, April
1 to April 19
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| DATE: 1990 |
- Gallery Exhibition -Carol Sutton
|
see large image below |
1990 "A Spanner in The Works , Ethos and Spirituality in Abstract
Painting",
Terrance Sulymko Fine Art and Oakham House at Ryerson College, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada, November 15 to November 30
- [Included major large work: Spirit Absorption]
Spirit Absorption, 89 1/2 "
x 108 1/2", acrylic on canvas, 1987
PLUS: SEE
page :
Voice
Breda at: http://www.carolsutton.net/breda/breda_voice_.html
andBREDA
IMAGES at: http://www.carolsutton.net/breda/breda_images_cls.html
Carol Sutton in front of 'Balcon Le
Louvre',
portrait by husband, Andre Fauteux.
1990
"BALCON
LE LOUVRE is the upper section of a two-part horizontal set-cut, which Sutton
represents on it's own hung upside down. It is part of an important recent
phase in Sutton's development as a painter." quote from above by Donna
Lypchuck
title:Zurbaran St. Dorothy
& Pont-y-Crsyllte (as painted) © Carol Sutton [see how it
l@@ks when shown as individual artworks.
date: 1985
materials: acrylic on canvas
measurements:
description: Set-Cut
Series.
notes: A 2 part vertical SET-CUT, the cut
is made before the painting is done. Actually there is no cut, just 2 different
widths of canvas are used. "These SET-CUT works of my own invention;
are painting where the cut or the 'crop' is done before the picture is painted.
By simply laying down one piece of cnavas overlapping the edge of the next
I am able to paint free to gesture within a large scale and simultaneously
can remember or forget "the break" point (the edge); with the
final canvas then separated unsusal breaks occur in the composition some
of which I call "dangling participles". quote off 1989 statement
by artist Carol Sutton-'NEW SILHOUETTE-GRILL-BALCONY PAINTINGS'.
DONNA LYPCHUK: "Although, many of Sutton's paintings refer
to air and light (particularily reflected light), they often have that
"oceanic feeling" described by Freud in his famous paper"
Civilization and It's Discontents"-
- Donna Lypchuk essay on Carol Sutton's art-1990- A Spanner in The Works - Ethos and Spirituality in Abstract
Painting
-
- (1990- Oakham House show - Donna
Lypchuk: 'Carol Sutton: Eye Of The Vortex, The Silhouette-Grill-Balcony
Paintings', cover and feature article, essay with full page color and
black and white photographs,
- Artpost 33, Summer, 1989, pages 9-13, Volume 6, Number 4)
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- Broad Daylight Eye {SET-CUT} - © Carol Sutton
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- date: 1988
- materials: acrylic on canvas
- measurements: 54.25 x 90
in.; 137.8 x 228.6 cm
- description: Silhouette-Grill-Balcony
Series.
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- Who is Donna Lypchuk? - LINKS
#1.Donna Lypchuk is a critic and was a writer for 'Eye Magazine'
go to
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