20 December 2011

Automatic drawing and painting - to be published in 2012

The sketchbook gives 66 examples of my automatic drawings and paintings, created from my journeys through the USA.

The following is text from page 1 of the book:

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I did because I could.

We should because we can.

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Each piece within this book is a meditation.

We must take our time.

Each blank page will transform into a slice of a visual spirit; this it will do when we 'pick up the pen or brush - and let go', allowing that spirit to create its mark.

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Automatic visual responses to places, people or events communicate in a different visual language than that to which we are accustomed.

Automatic art is not unintelligent or unthinking.

Automatic art reaches beyond what we know; it provokes thinking in a new visual language.

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A situation drives us to select golden yellow or pale blue, to choose a bold line or a fading smudge, to employ a peaceful blend or a conflicting, arresting adjacency, to use a hint of a recognisable image or a determined and complete abstraction.

Why?

We will not find the answers on this page, however, through the journey of this sketchbook, we will advance our consciousness of this complex and beautiful conundrum.

We will find enlightenment.

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We should reach out beyond what we know.

We must lead adventurous lives - lives that ignite automatic visual responses. It is incumbent on us to 'pick up the pen or brush - and let go', allowing the responses to communicate, unobstructed, the only way they know how - through their own special language.

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Richard McIlwraith

21st century abstract art

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