Black Studio:
A strange medicine cabinet. Once a radio station, then a Boxing ring, an apartment, a small business using computers with their reels of recording tape collecting and dispensing important information... then empty... the phantoms of the past echoing in it's sad hallways, rooms... one day
I enter... become a part of its history... as it becomes a part of mine... late into the evening, comtemplating my life's fate, images begin to emerge... figures appear in front of the metal and glass box called "camera"...
Sad and happy memories of images made in the shabby, dark studio chambers... first model dead ten years after... others drift away into quiet lives, unknown... now a book of images to look at and remember......images inspired by Artaud... Molinier... Van Gogh... the studio...my childhood... other things known and unknown...
%20Demon%20for%20Puga.gif)
Through the experimentation with computer software I happened upon a technique that opened a window into the marvelous. Images, colors, lines, forms all swirl in a mist of action. Digital pressure applied here and there allow the imagination to take hold and re-create a newer image in place of the one that was there moments before–– This manipulation of imagery is a smudging or staining effort. This discovery was referred as such in a conversation with the masterful Poet , Collagist and Painter Alejandro Puga.
In this method of exploration employed, it is objective chance that leads the way to the final destination of the image that which has been borne on the wings of desire. That is to say, there is no specific preconceived idea; perhaps a glimmer or fragment suggested by the base image upon which the work conceives itself. The alteration of the lithographic base image, obvious in its purpose and ultimate result, and the journey and evolvement the apparently disparate images suggest , are a direct result of this approach without concern for scripting or problem-solving. There is no solution for there is no problem. I abhor problem-solving.
Sometimes suggested images re-emerge at other points in time. The dis-association between elements brought together on the same two-dimensional plane may slip into yet another dis-association in another image base and this juncture is the threads that make up the whole of the matter. Many different methods and techniques are utilized for the glory of the final destination of the image and any and all techniques and materials are sacrificed to achieve this desire.
Series of images connected by the same root desire seem to be parts of a visual dialogue that can stand alone as word-image but somehow ‘sentence’ themselves when seen in a series. Oftentimes an object or image misbehaves visually and suggests an alternative, and this juncture of disparate associations encourages revisiting and redefining this dialogue in its disparity.
It is the ecstasy of this moment when one sees that object or image in a new light.
1974
Spiral Poem
on 9/3/06 1:41 PM, A. Torch at torchsurreal@hotmail.com wrote:
Most of our group participated in the International Surrealist Show in Iowa,I completed 2 paintings for the show. (It was not comprehensive, just a group of about 16 Surrealists showing work) I am back in the studio working on collages and box-constructions.......... I look at your spiral poem often in our living room.
Andrew Torch
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew--
I'm pleased to hear your group is keeping active and busy; ... I'm also pleased that you appreciate the Spiral Poem. The origins of that were directly dream-work. That is, I have a series of dreams that connect to each other (like an ongoing soap opera) and in one segment I remember my mother talking to me and warning me of something (though her words were muffled beyond comprehension yet I understood her tone) and all the while I was rolling up a stark white sheet of 'typing' paper and as I rolled it into a cone I saw wisps of white smoke form at the opening and then slowly work downwards onto the page and form words... I immediately awoke, recalling the dream vividly-- and the words---- and jotted the whole mess on a notepad at my bedside. The next morning I found the scribbles and then created the Spiral Poem.
Richard Misiano-Genovese.
