At this stage, primordial expressiveness joins the technique of drawing from life. Driven by creative desire, we begin not by copying the subject but by “destroying” what we see on the painting surface. We translate external perception instinctively, without rules or inhibitions. Chaos brings forth raw matter and primordial energy. We then organize and direct this chaos, allowing beauty to emerge as harmony, rhythm, coherence, resonance and participation.
The transformation of forms in relation to vital energy
Everything changes and transforms, so painting is never static but dynamic. Energies move and change. We explore how this movement may be explicit, expressed aesthetically, or implicit, residing in the painted matter and in the artist. External movement is easier to achieve, as we explored through form and space in the first four stages. The movement of matter and color is more inward. In this workshop we seek to recover something seemingly “dead” and bring it back to life.
Beginning with a blank, neutral surface differs greatly from beginning with noisy, undifferentiated primordial chaos. Recovering forms means transforming painted matter while transforming ourselves.
We observe chosen subjects and translate the sensations they evoke into chaos. We reduce what we see to primordial, automatic, undifferentiated energy, without passing through rational thought. Bodily stimuli and inner sensations become the kinetic energy of movements that leave marks on paper.
From this chaos we bring forth figurative forms—plants and bodies observed from life—while preserving their chaotic energy. Instead of covering it up, we use its force to help forms evolve in a constructive direction.
Artistic and Technical Objectives: Paint subjects through dissolution and recomposition.
Existential Objectives: Work with inner energies, changing and releasing accumulated charges.
Spiritual Objectives: Connect with and experience the essence of things, or vital energy.
Workshop Topics: Life and energy cycles; Vital Energy; energy surplus; memory and the self.