Direct and Indirect Marks

When we were little, my cousin and I used to spend what felt like hours, looking at the way the waves came into the sandy and pebbled beach. When a big wave broke on the seashore some of its sea water continued moving upwards into the beach, like a reversed little river. We loved to watch which way those liquid tongues would choose, whether they would branch out and how far they would go before the sea water was absorbed by the sand. It seemed to us that the sea water took the easiest and most natural way through the pebbles and sand and we loved to try and predict which would be its path before the next wave broke. Most times, after the first wave had broken and a wet, river like path was established, the following rounds of sea water would follow the same path, making the grooves in the sand deeper and smoother every time. Then a huge wave would come and erase all rivery paths, and the game would start again with a new terrain ready for guessing.

I have often thought that something very similar happens in my head. There are some thoughts and ideas that seem to have formed grooves in my mind, so that I have been thinking this or that way for a long time without really be conscious of it. These ideas must have once found an easy path through, so that they are now so well established, they feel natural, as if they were always there. Because of that they are comfortable ideas and should be at least challenged, if not redirected once in a while, even just for fun.

One such idea of mine, very personal and by no means objective, is that in Art there are direct and indirect marks. I find it quite hard to explain what I mean by that to someone else, as I normally just know when I look at something what I would consider a direct or an indirect mark. I am not sure why that would be important and why or when I started to make this distinction in my head. But it is something that I would think of almost as soon as I see a piece of work. I think that applying paint or another substance with a brush directly onto a surface would definitely in my mind be a direct mark. And I know that I would consider a collage, anything stuck onto a surface, an indirect mark. Other things, like stamps, etchings, screen prints and anything that might have been designed by hand, but then is transferred onto another surface, would also count in my head as an indirect mark. As would be paint thrown onto a canvas. But paint applied by hand or brush would be a direct mark.

I do not attribute more importance to one type of mark versus the other and I enjoy working with both individually. My problem is that I find it hard to mix, what I perceive as, direct and indirect marks in my own work. I find it hard to paint on top of collages and I find it even harder to stick things on top of a painting. I have made one oil painting which is done on stuck newspapers as a background. In the same painting there are some drawings of boats and houses, done on small pieces of paper which have been then stuck onto the painting and blended in with paint. Because these were drawn by hand they don't count in my mind as collaged pieces/indirect marks, although they still are in fact collaged by definition. I am not sure what kinds of marks this painting has (I guess both direct and indirect) and that bothers me a bit about it, but also makes me excited that I have mixed them up.

When it comes to sculpture things are a bit reversed. There I consider anything making a three-dimensional shape a direct mark, whether something is carved by hand or made up of found objects. But any paint applied on top of the final arrangement afterwards, for me would be an indirect mark.  I don't recall ever having mixed, what I consider, direct and indirect marks in my own sculptures and I am ashamed to say that it sometimes bothers me in other people's work as well, when a sculpture has been painted on top afterwards. A sculpture, say made by layers of thick paint sandwiched together, would be fine and it would be in my mind a direct mark. The more I have been trying to explain all this here, the more and more I realise that it must sound at best weird and obsolete and at worse plain rubbish and ludicrous. But nevertheless this is how I perceive things and that is what I have to work with.

I was recently invited to an event organised by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, to raise awareness of the plans to renovate Hatton Gallery and to restore Merzbarn Wall, which is permanently on display in Hatton Gallery. The gallery itself and Kurt Schwitters' wall are such a big part of the students' life at the Art Department, that I often catch myself missing this particular piece of work; it feels very familiar. As part of this event, we saw the exhibition Schwitters in Britain at Tate Britain and that is what brought all these thoughts up. Kurt Schwitters' collages are a mixture of everything, paper, bits of things, wood sometimes and paint as well. And I remembered how much I like them when I saw this exhibition. For him it seems, everything used was a mark and everything was valid as a mark in its own right. In his own words: "The word Merz denotes essentially the combination of all conceivable materials for artistic purposes, and technically the principal of equal evaluation of the individual materials...A perambulator wheel, wire-netting, string and cotton wool are factors having equal rights with paint. The artist creates through the choice, distribution and metamorphosis of the materials". There is no fear there of covering something up with paint or of mixing things together. They all seem to work together in his work, especially in his collages.

Kurt Schwitters, AERATED V (1941)

I still find it hard to like the sculptures I saw, which are of plaster and stone and then painted on top. However, what I did feel like when looking at them, was how liberating it would be to try something like that for myself, even if it does not come naturally to me. It would be a bit like a child-like play with things, with materials, without a preconceived idea of what I like and what I dislike. After all, I am used to applying paint when I make three dimensional toys for Aretousa, so why not try the same for what is considered "sculpture".  A friend of mine once suggested that all these ideas about direct and indirect marks and my finding it hard to mix them together, was something to do with "staying true to the medium" I was using or to the "integrity of the medium". I am not sure it is that though, as I never thought of it like that. I think it has something to do with control and my fear of using these things together, when I do not feel in control of creating a satisfying to me result.

Kurt Schwitters, Togetherness (1945-7)

How refreshing would it be though if I did at some point create something that pleases me from the exact things that I now find hard to consider? A bit like a huge wave wiping the terrain clean so that the game can start again. As this is very unlikely to happen of its own accord, I have started a small exercise of making a quick collage and a quick sculpture of two figures, and then passing the control over to Aretousa who can use paint on both the collage and the sculpture. I have retained control of the colours used, but all the paint application would be her own. In a following exercise I hope to attempt a proper collage made of whatever I like but with the addition of paint and also make a sculpture which will be painted on top. This time both will be finished by myself and I will have to make conscious choices of how I choose to mix my "direct and indirect marks". That will be in a future post.