Beautitude :: Preventive War (2005)

Beautitude :: Preventive War (2005) Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 48'' x 24"


Beautitude :: Preemptive War This painting represents a breakthrough to me in terms of technique, Class IV aesthetics and my evolving feelings about political art. It was sparked by an interview with Kurt Vonnegut on the NOW TV program. He talked about the traditional Christian beatitudes of an evangelical regime and the paradox of preemptive war. But I wanted to go further. Most of my paintings throughout the course of these current two wars have dealt with war, women and children, the experience of the non-combatant. I wanted to do something about the soldier, of all sides, the human who wears the uniform and the un-uniform of armed combatants. But I wanted to go deeper than either pop/ironic political art or graphic depictions of blown off faces one can find on the pornography sites now. I wanted to hold simultaneously the polarities of the meat of the human body, damaged by war and the notions of sacrifice, compassion and beauty of humanity. I played with the word beautitude to connote a spiritual sanctity and beauty of human life. Yet there was a risk of glorifying pro patria more style, so I held onto the intent of a Picasso quote: What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time, he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.
I started with an underpainting of glorious Indian yellow that radiates as a buttercup flower held up to a child's chin. From this I built two cellular automata down the canvas in gestural impasto swoops with a baking tool. I then built an impasto expression of the body, without a leg, without arms, without a head in yellow ochre. Lately I have been experimenting with complimentary colors. If I have a Baroque-like yellowish gold earth mineral pallet, what would happen if I applied an intense cooler blue purple on top of it? What would be the optical effects of such a glazing? The bottom right of image directly above these words shows the blue sheen in the Pacific northern light of morning. The result surprised me in that it provided an old masterish atmospheric background, that changes constantly with the light. I then finished up with flesh tonalities on the impasto of the figure. The process and result gave me new insights into the concept of Class IV aesthetics: generative, emergence, ambiguity and paradox. I have been asking the frustrating but tantalyzing question for the last several years of what would Wolframian NKS Class IV patterns and processes mean to narrative figurative art? This painting seems to be the next level for me in that inquiry. Tara Krause Los Angeles Basin October 2005