I am beginning this month with the mention of Circle of Truth, a group exhibition curated by Laura Hipke and Shane Guffogg, which opened to the public on October 18th at the New Museum Los Gatos. From the inception to the opening, the exhibition took Guffogg and Hipke 9 years to complete. They contacted specific artists to create work based on the essence of truth and its consequential visual language.
In seeing the exhibition first hand, I realized Guffogg is not only interested in spirituality, but also truth. Working alongside him, I have learned a great deal about his youth growing up in the bible belt of Central California. Like many other children of the area, he went to church and learned about the book of faith. From my point of view, I think this experience was about realizing its historical relevance to the world. Today, Guffogg keeps this information tightly stored in the contents of his brain. Should the conversation be relevant, he may recite a verse just to see if I am listening! With all that said, truth may still be one of the most important topics insociety and in art. From the very beginning of time, art seemed to be about documenting truth, creating visual references for the purpose of survival or, divination. Today we are still seeking truth, trying to figure out what is and what is not real. I took the opportunity to interview Guffogg about the Circle of Truth exhibition and asked him what it meant to him.
A Visual Game of Telephone that Explores the Subject of Truth in the Human Experience
Shane Guffogg, No. 1, oil on canvas, Courtesy of the Artist
“What is your definition of truth? and why is truth so important today in the art world? I ask this because I see so many well- known artists employing conceptual teams to create their work. Where does the vision lie with the artist to find their own truth? It seems a great deal of these conceptual teams that make up these “art stars”, create work lacking in resonance, and I don’t feel the pulse or truth that the artist is supposed to be unveiling. What I am trying to say is, I feel there is a lack of honest discovery. Isn’t that what art is supposed to portray?
Guffogg: “Truth is so subjective, but I think so necessary to have an idea of what it might be. We all have our own personal ideas or definitions about what truth is, and truly creative people, tap into it. That It, is what sets apart those that illustrate ideas and call it art, versus those that tap into their own truth, and make Art with a capital A. And yes, there is a total lack of honesty in our world at the moment, starting at the top and trickling down into virtually every facet of life. The speed at which information is shared or distributed doesn’t give anyone time to pause, contemplate, digest and understand the difference between what is real and what is make-believe. I think the artists have an important role, which is to distill the Now and transcend the cause and effect, thus creating a metaphorical flashlight so we can see where we are stepping.”
Click here to learn more about the Circle of Truth exhibition
Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de Benci
Being as this is Part 3, there is more to report about spirituality and it’s many influences on the artist. But there are other topics of importance as well, like the astrophysical planets and the science side to all this. When I look back at Guffogg’s work there has been a great deal of metaphysical influence dating back to his early works as well as Ginevra de Benci series, which had a retrospective in Naples, Italy in 2012. Cynthia Penna, the Italian curator, who invited Guffogg to Italy, wrote about Guffogg’s need for “Metaphysics”in her essay of the same title, below is the opening paragraphs to her essay,
“Metaphysics: a science that studies the essence of things, and not their real nature.
“… it goes beyond the contingent elements of the sensible experience … according to a universal perspective. Metaphysics focuses its attention on what it considers eternal, stable, necessary, absolute, seeking to capture the fundamental structures of being” (from Wikipedia)
Guffogg’s research in painting and the arts has always explored the essence of things, what is visible and what may immediately be obtained from sensorial prerogatives; his research focuses on what is beyond the phenomenal reality: research in metaphysics. What Guffogg describes in his painting is expressed through the immediacy of the gestural language, but he aims to go beyond mere physical gestures, beyond the physicality of the object. Ever since the Eighties, when he definitively abandoned figuration, Guffogg has begun to focus on the gesture, that is to say repetitiveness and its freedom.
Instinct guides the hand according to rigorous criteria that might seem antithetical with respect to the very nature of the gesture, but which are on the contrary stabilizing and appropriate to the research he wants to conduct. The purpose of metaphysics is to attempt to explain the universal and objective structure which is supposed to be concealed behind the appearance of the phenomena… Guffogg pursues a universal, placeless and timeless reply behind the outward appearance …
Cynthia Penna Naples, Italy
READ the full essay here
Shane Guffogg, Ginevra de Benci #13, oil on canvas, 30 x 24″, 2011
Cynthia Penna wrote about her experience with Guffogg’s work, which gives me a sense of relief knowing that she too sees and experiences what I am as well.
Going back to instinct, the divine, the unknown and the door to the next dimension. Guffogg is still searching, for all truths found in the depth of spirituality.
In 2013, and then again in 2017 -2018, Guffogg went back into an earlier series that was first revealed in 1994, titled Odic. This title which pertained to the hypothetical, vital energy or life source, was named in 1845 by Baron Carl von Reichenbach. My research followed that the baron/doctor borrowed the name from the Norse god “Odin’ when he was researching the human nervous system and how it could be effected by electricity, magnetism and heat. He also noted that Odic force permeates all plants, animals and humans and he found it had a positive and negative flux and a light and dark side. It was believed that some individuals could emanate it, from the hands, mouth and forehead – which further explained the concept of hypnotism. Since Guffogg had already created a new form of visual language with his ribbons and played with the light source in each painting, it wasn’t a stretch to realize that his next challenge for the viewer was to entice intoxication, by further pulling the bystander into his work, drowning them into the undercurrents of the ribbons as they appear through painted veils of light – getting lost in that moment of the now.
Odic #7, oil on canvas, 21 x 18″, 2013
Odic #8, oil on canvas, 21 x 18″, 2013
In Los Angeles, Guffogg has many art studios within the compound he dwells. Throughout the day, he moves from one studio to the next, taking a break from each body of work while carrying on with his daily routine. There have been times, while entering the large painting studio where the Odic paintings are created, that I literally gasp to take a step back to witness the pull of energy. The Odic paintings consist of cascading veils of soft light, containing and semi-concealing, the darker hues underneath. The silent force pulls me in. There is a sensation of melting into the very space I am standing in, lost in time but empowered in the moment of what I am looking at. A great high that comes about is followed by a release, as I take a deep breath, then relax my mind and body. It feels like a spiritual moment, like what one might feel when they see a shooting star on a dark night –you don’t really know if it is real and, you have to pinch yourself after the moment.
Odic #9, oil on canvas, 80 x 60″, 2018
Odic #10, oil on canvas, 80 x 60″, 2018
While revisiting the concept of Odic. Guffogg also ventured back into the “Between Heavens” series which he started in 2002 using Rembrandt tones. Then in 2013, coming off of the 2 year investigation of his Ginevra series, revisited the idea of Between Heavens, but this time with an endless stream of brushstroke size lines in pale greys. In 2017, like a dolphin that is keeping up for air, they reappeared. This latest series of paintings are white in color with different tonality.
I love looking at these – they are like the glistening matter between water and ice. As the ice melts, one uncovers a new reality. While looking, I can’t help but feel they are between two states. I asked Guffogg about the title and he said,
Guffogg: The Book of Genesis says there are two heavens, plural, and we as humans are between the two and I want to explore that further, it is written that there is also a third heaven …
Between Heavens, oil on canvas, 80 x 100″, 2013-2014
For me, I feel a lot of light coming in the picture plane from above, and then a flash enters the middle, ribbons swirl like arms of an octopus just like how water reacts to oil, they engage and dissipate. A residue of the moment lingers, until time slowly takes that away, similar to a fading memory. Further, a gray haze fills the composition and sound, in euphoric proportions, comes about. I sink deep into the painting,enveloped between the two states, and a kind of self- transcendence begins. This is how I would describe “Between Heavens #3. It’s massive, mysterious and contemplative, searching, reaching for answers to today’s problems. I ask Guffogg, “Where is the spirituality in this work?” This time I get a little more information to think about,
Guffogg: “The idea for Between Heavens first came to me in 2002 when I was working on a series of four large canvases called Avalon. The title references the mythical island where King Arthur went to heal after battle. They were so ethereal that I began to feel a sense of weightlessness at the end of a 10 hour day of painting. I felt a need to reattach myself to the earth, so I made Between Heavens #1, all in deep earth tones. The painting was a result of my hand, body and mind working in unison to create a pulsating golden thread. Once an idea is in my mind, it will often resurface and if it is fitting for that moment, I will go back into it for a second look. Between Heaven #2 and #3 are a great example of this. But this time, they are painted with muted grays and have soft veils of light cascading down the surface. I think of the veils as the invisible space that exist between what we can see and what we sense. The title and tones are akin to a neutral space where one goes to rest and clear the mind of all thoughts.”
Between Heavens #2, oil on canvas, 84 x 60″, 2017
Between Heavens #3, oil on canvas, 84 x 60″, 2017
Before I end this essay, there is one more body of work that ties into the spirituality and truth forum in Guffogg’s art that I would like to touch on, it is, “Before the Beginning and After the End.” It refers, back to that question about what we think we know or even what we were previously taught in this lifetime or in another. As our weekly conversations continue, Guffogg often shares some of the history programs he watches about past civilizations. Based on what he has shared and I have watched, there seems to have been a great deal of growing information on archeological excavations in Egypt, Turkey and other parts of the world. It seems like we are entering into an era that is allowing us to rediscover what was once common knowledge. Yes, we have had great advances in technology since then, but we still have not figured out how they move those massive boulders with their bare hands? And the pyramids weren’t just for worship, now there is very strong evidence they possibly could have been energy sources. I think our intuition and intelligence was far keener in the past and somewhere along the way, for example maybe in the “dark ages” mysteriously we lost some information.
Guffogg’s paintings of this title, “Before the Beginning and After the End” seems to jog our memory and contemplate the metaphysical and the spiritual side to truth of what was lost and found. The paintings are sometimes revealed to me, as a snake that is slowly, and however calmly, eating its own tail. The energy and movement is gentle and swaying, but there is something in my mind that calls to question; when or what is the beginning and when is or what is after the end? Are we just beginning to understand life, tapping into consciousness for the first time with all these great findings in science and technology? Or, as I read the newspaper today, are we headed for a massive catastrophe with global warming, political fall-out and a society that is stuck in an oil spill in the deep blue ocean? I think back to a line in Cynthia Penna’s essay that gives me hope,
“metá ta Physiká: the pursuit of what is beyond the reality of thing, the overcoming of the contingent and unstable elements of reality in order to seek the essence of man in something more eternal, more universal and more absolute.”
I am going to reach deeper into this topic and ask Guffogg about the title of this series to learn more.
Guffogg: “Time is something that consumes my thoughts. I am not thinking about my beginning or end, but about the notion of time itself. What came before it? Or is time something that we have created to understand the 3-dimensional reality that we live in? If I say Before the beginning and After the End, the space of time we occupy is not addressed and becomes an abstract thought, or at least, to me it does. The words Before and After becomea marker to measure an abstract idea. That idea is where we live, in the here and now. When I paint, my main objective is to stay in the “now” of the moment and allow the paint to be a documentation of that. It is really that simple, but in the same breath, complex.”
Thank you Shane Guffogg!
Victoria Chapman (November 1, 2018)
Studio Manager, Shane Guffogg Studio
Before the Beginning and After the End #1
oil on canvas, 30 x 30″, 2017
Before the Beginning and After the End #2
oil on canvas, 30 x 30″, 2017
Before the Beginning and After the End #3
oil on canvas, 42 x 42″, 2018