‘Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body… I dunno’
The Smiths – Still Ill
Lynch presents us with an adherence to the formal notion of the monochrome suggesting order and tranquility and yet there is the Informal mark making delivering an element of chaos to proceedings.
He just couldn’t put his finger on it… Could he?
Lynch has developed a highly idiosyncratic approach to keeping abstract painting vital. He is the painter after all who points his slow and moving finger to his work and marks it. Lynch has devoted himself to this act of ritual – it has become a kind of signature. The gesture is begun early in the layering of the work and the subsequent coats he applies are about attempting to suppress the power of the mark. It is a transgression of formalism. Lynch’s gesture slyly violates, breaking the rules of logic, space and time, within the framework of painting.
The finger is Lynch’s zip, his erasure, his gash, his turpentine, his fire – his way of creating and destroying at the same time. They are in the mist between control and spontaneity. He is acutely aware and respectful of his predecessors but not too reverential. Too many abstract painters today play it so fucking safe. Thankfully, Lynch keeps the work in the more radical spirit that was the initial intention. Wols scratched the surface and Lynch has gone inside. The tip of the finger provides all the mark you need and makes it a direct bodily contact. The mark opens up the work into a state of flux – makes it physical, primal, playful. Yet the control expressed shows the mind is fully in control. The poet Keats called it beautifully in his phrase that I find so apposite for Lynch’s abstraction – ‘Negative Capability, that is, when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason’ John Keats, Letter to George and Thomas Keats, Sunday 21st December 1817
John Keats also offered the metaphor of the Mansion of Many Apartments to symbolize the creative process. ‘Well – I compare human life to a large mansion of Many Apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me. The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think – We remain there a long while, and notwithstanding the doors of the second Chamber remain open, showing a bright appearance, we care not to hasten to it; but are at length imperceptibly impelled by the awakening of this thinking principle within us – we no sooner get into the second Chamber, which I shall call the Chamber of Maiden-Thought, than we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere, we see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight: However among effects this breathing is father of is that tremendous one of sharpening one's vision into the heart and nature of Man – of convincing one’s nerves that the world is full of Misery and Heartbreak, Pain, Sickness and oppression – whereby this Chamber of Maiden Thought becomes gradually darken'd and at the same time on all sides of it many doors are set open – but all dark – leading to dark passages – We see not the ballance of good and evil. We are in a Mist. We are now in that state – We feel the burden of the Mystery.’ Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds Sunday May 3rd 1818
The Grey Area
Lynch has been wrestling with the black painting demon and is now doing battleship grey. We have seen the Black of Ad Reinhardt and Kasimir Malevich. Now for the grey of Alan Charlton who since 1969 has only painted it grey. Charlton states “I want my paintings to be: Abstract, Direct, Urban, Basic, Modest, Pure, Simple, Silent, Honest, Absolute.” They are all that and more. These are not easy predecessors to choose to confront. Richter too has tackled grey but within his peripatetic practice it is only one strand. He is not part of The Monochrome Set.
Lynch has gone through most of the spectrum at some point but the decision to work on a series of greys at one time conveys a hardening in approach to his task. It asks that much more of the viewer to not seduce them with colour but to make them concentrate on the gesture. It is an acceptance that the gesture is so powerful – the best way to appreciate that contrast is within a room of works in the same colour.
Yet there is one yellow painting in this exhibition. A Primary, Acid Yellow. A Double Yellow Line Yellow. Lynch still clearly loves colour but he understands that in the mansion of many apartments there are corridors to go down and darker chambers to be entered. Lynch is not in his maiden thought phase anymore. The works of the late 90s in retrospect resemble chocolate boxes pulling at your heartstrings, wanting to be loved. Even the bright coloured monochromes represented here with the yellow are intoxicated with the light. Now he has learned to make avowedly truculent works. The Greys are like those dark passages for Keats and they are rich and demanding works.
References
The Letters of John Keats edited by Maurice Buxton Forman, Oxford University Press, London 1947
Alan Charlton – Inverleith House, Annely Juda Fine Art, London 2002