JEFF BEEKMAN
Heart Sutra Abstractions / 7" x 7" / ink & watercolor on paper
Within the Heart Sutra are contradictory statements, statements aimed at highlighting how unsatisfactory language is to express anything as large as an essential truth. The value of the words is instead in how they are preparatory, used to encourage readers to enter into the correct mindset to first investigate and then to aid them in personally experiencing an essential truth for their self. To extend this idea, over 17 drawings, I used the actual language of the sutra as a physical guide.
Though the actual text that served as the basis for the abstractions has been entirely burned away, like a stone sinking invisibly into dark water, the ripples remain as abstract reminders, visually describing the texts former shape and presence.
Space Studies / 18" x 24" or 24" x 36" / ink on paper
Hole Editions Press (w/ Master Printer Lee Turner) / 14" x 14" / ink on paper
Inspired by the Conceptual Art mantra, that the “idea is the machine” that generates the artwork, these lithographs employ a rigid, formulaic approach to the drawing that grows out from the initial marks made. The resulting geometric abstractions become the scaffolding upon which color has been applied. The application of color follows another set of rules. “Failures” are inherently a part of the process, and I am interested in how these reverberate in the finished results.
Inspired by the Conceptual Art mantra, that the “idea is the machine” that generates the artwork, these lithographs employ a rigid, formulaic approach to the drawing that grows out from the initial marks made. The resulting geometric abstractions become the scaffolding upon which color has been applied. The application of color follows another set of rules. “Failures” are inherently a part of the process, and I am interested in how these reverberate in the finished results.
Inspired by the Conceptual Art mantra, that the “idea is the machine” that generates the artwork, these lithographs employ a rigid, formulaic approach to the drawing that grows out from the initial marks made. The resulting geometric abstractions become the scaffolding upon which color has been applied. The application of color follows another set of rules. “Failures” are inherently a part of the process, and I am interested in how these reverberate in the finished results.
Inspired by the Conceptual Art mantra, that the “idea is the machine” that generates the artwork, these lithographs employ a rigid, formulaic approach to the drawing that grows out from the initial marks made. The resulting geometric abstractions become the scaffolding upon which color has been applied. The application of color follows another set of rules. “Failures” are inherently a part of the process, and I am interested in how these reverberate in the finished results.
Inspired by the Conceptual Art mantra, that the “idea is the machine” that generates the artwork, these lithographs employ a rigid, formulaic approach to the drawing that grows out from the initial marks made. The resulting geometric abstractions become the scaffolding upon which color has been applied. The application of color follows another set of rules. “Failures” are inherently a part of the process, and I am interested in how these reverberate in the finished results.
Inspired by the Conceptual Art mantra, that the “idea is the machine” that generates the artwork, these lithographs employ a rigid, formulaic approach to the drawing that grows out from the initial marks made. The resulting geometric abstractions become the scaffolding upon which color has been applied. The application of color follows another set of rules. “Failures” are inherently a part of the process, and I am interested in how these reverberate in the finished results.