Vonn Sumner Essay
#8 Michelle Weinstein (Visiting Painting)
#9 Vonn Sumner (Response Painting)
This was tough. I have real reservations about the notion – or at least the word – Truth. The word for me represents something either so personal as to be almost incommunicable, or so huge and inconceivable as to also be outside of the realm of human communication. So I was starting from a place of ambivalence.
When I received the visiting painting, I had no idea what to make of it. I had expected a two-dimensional painting and when I saw this kind of assemblage/bas-relief sculpture/wall hanging, I drew a blank. I lived with it in my studio for several days while going about my business, then looking at it again.
Finally, I settled on a way to go and started. Then I got a sinking feeling. I was making one of my own paintings. I read back through the instructions and found what was nagging at me: “This is not a time for an artist to make another painting for which they are known.” Instead, we were to “convey” and “respond honestly” to what was presented to us. This realization should probably have been liberating, but I found it surprisingly frustrating. I started over. Staring again at the piece I was given, I tried to see the essence of what was there.
I decided that my painting should be like a non-objective Modernist painting since the elements here – grid, pure color, circles, Truth – are all things that I associate with high Modernism. I arrived at this floating shape that was a kind of hybrid between a Circle and a Pyramid, containing these pure colors, amidst a grey area. Certain measurements and geometric aspects are specific to the piece I was responding to, others are invented. I wanted a picture that could hover between representational and non-representational, cosmic and terrestrial.
At one stage I had just that shape, which is still basically visible. But after living with it for a few days I decided it was too static. What good is truth if it is boring? So I set about breaking up the shapes and spreading them over the composition to make it less predictable. I wanted to push the painting past what I knew it was going to be, into something I did not foresee. I made decisions that were less rational, and more visual and intuitive. I was trying to find a balance between revealing and concealing. I decided that I would try to pass on to the next artist some of the confusion that I was struck with.
It was a funny tightrope walk that I didn’t foresee,
and I’m sure that in some way this experience will influence what I do in the future with my work.