Stand in loyal opposition to the perfect
Every so often, I return to the bedrock of my practice and attempt to paint the accurate likeness of a circle by hand. Then I try to see a more perfect circle referencing the circle I made, adjust the color enough to distinguish the new attempt, maybe switching to a finer brush, and do another round. Wash, rinse, repeat, until I don’t see a clear way forward, and the thing vibrates. Is it a little off? Or are the earlier attempts exerting a suggestive gravitational tug? Schrodinger’s cat rendered out in the open in simple geometry.
I also like the way these circle paintings (circle cycle?) remove the guesswork around establishing a common context for the intent of the maker and the experience of the viewer. You and I both know what a circle is. I attempt to paint one and you assess the results. I trust my eyes, you trust yours, neither of us is 100% certain. And now we’re no longer just talking about the painting. We’re sharing an experience at the edge of what we can know, looking out over the expanse of Gödel’s incomplete magisterium.
Or we can be. At the same time, you could just open the image in a graphics package and check to see if the cat is alive or dead. I haven’t done so, much preferring to continue to exercise the mental and emotional muscles that make it possible to sit comfortably with the unanswered question. That way, when the truly unanswerable questions come around, I have a leg up.
This painting was a commission, and when I took it to UPS to get it shipped, one of the guys behind the counter glanced at it on his way to doing something else, stopped, turned his head to the side a bit, then said, “Hold on. Is that a perfect circle or not?” I said, “Exactly.”
Except, then we also had a conversation about it. I didn’t want to leave it with me just being a smartass.