The Negative Aspects of Negative space

Super Humanism (S-oohpaahhumanismmm)
A little known, half-remembered moment of seventies, domestic art. Sixth form shading experts each and everyone, the Super Humanist artists were obsessed with the rendering of all detail. Be it the heavily woven snakes of wool on an arran jumper or the reflection on the breast plate of a scantily clad female warrior from the year 3078, what united these slaves to surface detail was their fidelity and obsession with their chosen weapon of artistic deployment, the mighty pencil. Unfortunately Super Humanist’s were held in contempt by the art world; their output deemed too transparent in revealing their suspect adolescent obsessions with impossibly proportioned females and mythological creatures. What’s more they were prone to make the artistic mistake of slipping form realism into grotesque caricatured rearrangements of the human form. Today although they still often look like peddlers of soft core, misogynist fantasy, there’s something in their obsessive working procedure, their playful fusion of realism and fantasy, which is strangely uncanny.

The horror of a cardigan
A long time ago I found myself inebriated from the suffocating politeness of a family get together. Defeated by the overpowering affects of a Christmas cocktail of whisky, wine, beer and port I found myself staring at my Auntie’s mint green artex ceiling. Fixated on the swirling torrent of plaster peaks and troughs my twisted perception located a malevolent spirit, a snaking serpent coursing through the patterned surfaces in the room. It infected, and swelled through everything: leaping from the ceiling pattern onto the carpet , and into the increasingly grotesque floral patterns strangling the surface of my Auntie’s dress. With malignant intent this spirit poisoned the Barrett home perfection. It charged the air in between my similarly drunk family, rupturing the cozy platitudes of formal informality with suspicion and unresolved history.

Portrait of a Young girl
There’s a famous painting by the French artist Ingres of young girl in a white dress. At first glance this appears to be a picture of beguiling tranquillity and peace. She is porcelain perfection. Her skin is smooth and clean. Her wide eyed gaze filed with the wonder of innocence. But in the corner the picture is soiled. Coiled around the arm of this young girl, the initially inconsequential detail of her fur wrap increasingly assumes a threatening presence. Ingres technical virtuosity selectively magnifies and transforms this banal form into a carrier of burgeoning sexual desire and appetite. The folds of fur and lining appear to pulse with erotic charge. As Ingres hints at , for those attuned to the horror of detail, the contented assurances of this young girl’s life are about to be pulled about by the logic of desire.

The Silences are Louder
During the 1970’s Miles Davis, the one time pioneer of a sublime, perfectly balanced architecture of sound, lost his cool. Some say it was the after effect of standing too close to Jimi Hendrix’s fire, others the fatal, cumulative effects of years of heroin and cocaine addiction. Whatever, the music changed. The fragile geometry of his earlier work was pulverized in an explosion of sonic excess, which laid bare for anyone brave enough, the workings of mind and body in the throes of disintegration and potential madness. The music of this period is often raw and animalistic. Schizophrenia, neurosis and paranoia, both sexual and social, fills Davis’ orchestra of rumbling bass and drums, distorted guitars, screaming saxes, and minimalist trumpet. This pounding body of competing, contrasting sounds and bleeps is often terrifyingly intense, laden with psychosis. This is the music of self-destruction. Music with a personality disorder . However the most remarkable aspect of this truly astounding music is when it stops. Consistently, and unexpectedly, the grinding, ravenous body of sound is silenced. At this point the pulsating, frenzied rhythms, the often achingly beautiful lines of trumpet melody are superceded. The space between the music become the truly terrifying depositary of irresolvable tension and rage. It’s in these gaps between the sound, where the full, compelling vortex of pain, desire, and tension of Davis music is revealed. As Davis noted the silences are louder.