Patterns
“Nature’s a shrine where living columns stand
And now and then breathe a confounded phrase,
Man wanders there amid a forestland
Of symbols, followed by their intimate gaze.
As long-drawn echoes blent from far away
together into dark deep unison,
As vast as night and like the light of day,
colors, sounds and perfumes respond as one.”*
‘Correspondances’ Charles Baudelaire
Patterns are everywhere. We can see them (if we care to regard them with more attuned and consciously discerning eyes). Between us are the invisible patterns (of molecules), within us are red patterns (of corpuscles). When we close our eyes, patterns appear. The young and the innocent can often see patterns in life that adults cannot. Poets, cognisant and observing, can see patterns. Artists perceive spaces between, and can see patterns. In ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ (1857), Baudelaire speaks of ‘Correspondances’ or our interconnectedness with nature and spirituality, much in the same way that Emanuel Swedenborg (scientist, philosopher and mystic) does in his works. For much of the 20th and 21st centuries artists have pursued patterns, sidestepping ‘figurative’ or ‘object based’ art in favour of the non-representational. If we let them, patterns will launch themselves into our subconscious minds. They will seep through into our consciousness, blindsiding us with their own reality.
According to Robert C. Barkman, Ph.D. in “See the World Through Patterns” (Psychology Today, Jan 18, 2018)
“Pattern recognition according to IQ test designers is a key determinant of a person’s potential to think logically, verbally, numerically, and spatially. Compared to all mental abilities, pattern recognition is said to have the highest correlation with the so-called general intelligence factor.”
In retrospect, we observe patterns in our lives. When young Françoise Issaly fantasised about going to Canada, and of living in China. She achieved both. She is tenacious. A person of capabilities, and of a strong mind. Was it due to destiny, fate, kismet or things that are determined such as ‘Karma’ (Kamma in Pali), of cosmic ‘action’ (and ‘reaction’) which ‘The Story of Buddhism A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings by Donald S. Lopez Jr.’ explains as “..the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and non virtuous actions create pain”.
We could imagine spiritual or cosmic patterns stretching from China into Françoise’s childhood. There was a large Chinese stone at her French grandmother’s house, in which the budding artist, as a small child, would play. There was also, back in France, her mother’s carved Chinese horse ‘chinoiserie’ statuette, the style of which Françoise instantly recognised on a later trip to Xitang, China. As a woman, as a Mahayana Buddhist and as an artist whose production is revealed as being poesy, Françoise recognises the above as indicators to the path which had chosen her, leading her to teach and create art in China.
As a child growing through to adulthood, like the Chinese musical instrument the ‘erhu’ Françoise always had two strings to pluck, those of science and of art. She studied maths, biology, optics and physics, yet still continued with her art endeavours. Finally, it became make-your-mind-up time. She had to choose one path or another, science or art. Françoise chose art. Though, in reality, she melded them rather than opted for one or the other, and continues to use her knowledge of science within her art production, just as many artists like Berthe Morisot and the French Impressionists, as well as Marie Laurencin, and her inquiries using echoes from ‘Cubism’ in the Section d'Or ("Golden Section") group (active between 1912 and 1914), have done before her.
Over two decades Françoise has developed as a rational, painstakingly methodical artist. Who like Émile Gaboriau’s methodical, scientifically minded detective Monsieur Lecoq, investigates her art. As a traditional European art training suggests, Françoise begins with drawing as her visual thinking. Before the naming, before the colouration of her patterns comes the carefully investigated drawing process. She approaches her mark making as a scientist would, investigating, probing, scrutinising. She reveals the nuances in her thought and thoughtful processes with a studious intensity in her pattern making interactions; a mindful connection between her, her materials and inner spirituality eventually manifests the practically intangible, tangible.
André Breton de facto leader of the ‘Surrealist’ movement, believed that modern man had become too blaise, too familiar with everyday objects and things in his world, blaise enough to render him blind to what is there. ‘Surréalité’ is a reminder of the unseen, of the forgotten. Méret Oppenheim’s ‘Le Déjeuner en fourrure’ (‘The Luncheon in Fur’ 1936), is a cup, saucer and spoon covered in, ironically, the fur of a Chinese gazelle. Fur renders those objects useless for their purpose which, in turn, helps us reflect upon that purpose. Françoise Issaly, by focussing upon the space between objects in her abstraction, is similarly revelationary.
‘Cadeau’ (The Gift, 1921) by Man Ray is a similar reminder. It is an iron having nails protruding from what is usually a smooth, flat surface suitable for ironing. This gift cannot fulfil its purpose as an iron, just as Oppenheim’s cup etc is unsuitable for its supposed purpose. We therefore reflect on the object’s purpose, just as we do when confronted by René Magritte’s ‘La Trahison des images’ (‘The Treachery of Images’, or ‘this is not a pipe’, 1929). The unseen becomes seen. Surrealism, or the notion of ‘Surréalité’, grew to encompass various forms of a more organic (or biomorphic) abstractions, as witnessed in the works of Joan Miró (such as ‘Carnaval de Arlequín’, or the ‘Carnival of Harlequins’,1925) or, looking further afield, the abstract works of the (non-Surrealist theorist artist) Wassily Kandinsky and his ‘Circles in a Circle’ (1923) and “Composition II’ (1910), or in the works of Jean (Hans) Arp. The ‘Modernist’ move was towards abstraction, with artists experimenting with non-object based imagery from which has grown offshoots such as those revealed in organic art, or ‘Biomorphism’.
Wassily Kandinsky (in ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’, ‘Über das Geistige in der Kunst’, 1910) remarks that “The spiritual accord of the organic with the abstract element may strengthen the appeal of the latter (as much by contrast as by similarity) ...” His ‘Squares with Concentric Circles’ (1913) is a testimony to this and the power of patterns.
We may step back and observe Françoise Issaly’s canon to date, remarking upon the vigorous 30 day challenge of her watercolour 'Meditation Series’ (2013), her series of ‘Manifolds’ (like ‘Manifold XI’, 2013, three dimensional manifestation of her patterning with Pollack-like webs such as bringing to mind ‘String Theory’, and Matisse-like cut outs such as ‘Conjoncture I’, 2014 and paper installations which bring her patterning to life, and a host of other three dimensional representations of patterns). We may marvel at Françoise’s intriguing ‘Plis & Formes’ series (2018) (acrylic-on-canvas) where shapes which are distinctly ‘biomorphic’ tantalise and present fresh pictorial stratagems, to her (also acrylic-on- canvas) 2020 ‘Clouds’ series, inspired by biomorphic minutiae gleaned from Buddhist Thangka imagery, the diligent observer might witness a distinct gliding towards a fresh spiritual theses within the artist’s patterning.
Like Kandinsky, Françoise imbues her artworks with spirituality in form, shape and colour. Occasionally in name too, though the precise naming of her work has only begun later in her working life. In the marks she makes, the models she constructs and the hangings which grace halls and galleries, she draws essences from her love of China, her visits there, her understanding of Mahayana Buddhism and of various symbologies associated with differing sectors of Buddhist iconography (such as ‘Thangka’, Tibetan Buddhist scroll painting). Works such as Françoise Issaly’s ‘Clouds’ series, are conscious patterns observed from ‘Thangka’ iconography. This, as mentioned, is a conscious, rather than a subconscious process, and part and parcel of her ‘scientific’ approach (again similar to Kandinsky) to her work.
In Tibetan imagery, swirling, graceful clouds (we are told), represent ‘Mahamudra’ (or the union of compassion and wisdom, the ultimate realisation of our true nature as mentioned in the Buddhist ‘Heart Sutra’). Other interpretations speak of the ‘Buddha Mind’; clouds eternally passing but the sky (mind) remaining unchanged. It is fitting that this scientific, and yet spiritual, artist chooses to bring to the fore those elements in the ‘Thangkas’ which grace the background to the Buddha and deities. Françoise’s focussing down on those clouds, painstakingly drawing, then painting those forms, like with her painting ‘c'est ici que l'on retrouve le mythe II’ (2020) and before that ‘In the Clouds I’ (2018) are enclosed within a sacred or perfect circle of completeness (a ‘Mandala’, essence/container) which brings us (her audience) closer to personal revelation. Kandinsky mentions
“In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the abstract, the non-material...Consciously or unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements....”
Françoise Issaly’s patterns, and pattern making, is organic, redolent of biomorphism, and a byproduct of a keen analytical mind and skilled draughts person. Kandinsky had pointed out that it takes a greater skill to render abstraction than it does mimesis. Keener mental, analytical processes come into play when tackling abstraction, which is something demonstrated by Françoise over the past two decades of work.
*La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.
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