My Abstract Paintings: Subject, Way and Impulse

Leonurub,Vol. 3, pp. 203-206. PergamonPress 1970. printed i nGreatBritain MY ABSTRACT PAINTINGS: SUBJECT, WAY AND IMPULSE Martha Zuik* THE SUBJECT I sometimeswonder why works of painters differ so much, although there are many who probably paint in the sameway. We realizethat each human being isdifferentand that each oneislikelyto be interested in or care for the samething in a differentway. I am interested in the motion of forms; in the rhythm of the dance of certain things, including those we know of but cannot see except in some cases by means of telescopes or microscopes; in how theymove andcollidewith each other or merge into each other; in how they mix with and rub each other. I am also intrigued by the way a person raises his arm and at the same time blinks his eyes, moves his mouth, walks, breathes in and out. Besidesthese, I am aware of the unseen movements that take placewithin a body. I am consciousof the thousands of daily gestures we make but seldom notice; of the crowd that comes together and then scatters; of the mass of people walking hither and yon in the big cities. Thecommonestobjectswhenplacedin an unusual situation often strike me as beautiful. For example, yesterday I saw a wet glove lying on a street. It was a workman’sglove. It was bigger than an ordinary glove. What drew my attention to it was both the colour it had acquired due to the effectsof rain and the place where it lay. I felt like picking it up but I realized that if I took it from that environment-it was lying on a bright, shiny pavement under a dark sky-it would lose the specialcharm I found in it. Somethingsimilarhappens to me whenever I take parts of reality and imagine them separated from their context. It is this feelingthat makes me change my everyday outlook on things. I remember that there was an air bubble in the kitchen glass in my parents’ house. Through it I could see by moving my head that the houses opposite changed their shape, bent down, seemed to dance and burst into laughter. Looking through the bubble I discovered a charming and hallucinating world. When I see a human body I may focusmy eyeson only a part of it, as though that part existed alone-for example, an arm leaning on the angle formed by a bent leg is transformed, as if by magic, into a strange and unknown shape. In my first paintings, I used to choose a shape +Artistliving at Juncal 2401, pis0 14, dep. 62A, Capital, Argentina. (Received 27 May 1969.) and then make many variationsof it. Each variation was similar but at the same time different,just like individualhuman beings. The number of variations of a shape that one can select from is, of course, infinite. The following comment made by Paul Klee is I feel very apt: ‘Is it not true that whenever we look through a microscope-no matter how quickly we may do it-we see imageswhich we would consider fantastic and beyond our imagination if we saw them anywherejust by chanceand we would not be able to understand them?’ [l]. My later paintingsarethe result of visualobservations of parts of my own body. For example, the transparency of the skin in some parts of my hand permitsmeto seethe bluishlinesof the veinsand the blurred shapes of the bones. I believe I have developed a tactile way of looking at things. If an observer looks attentivelyat my seeminglycrowded canvases, he will discover new imagesand perspectives that intermingle with each other, when some appear others disappear. THE WAY What is the best technique with which to paint? There probably is none, each artist selects or develops one or more ways that suit his purposes. I will describe some of the characteristicsof those I have used. Someyears ago I made preparatory drawings for my paintingson a sheet of paper dividedinto several areas. With pen or pencil I drew in them variations of an idea. I produced many of these sheets, some well worked out, some had colours added to them (cf. Fig. 1). When I transposed one of the drawings into a painting I...