SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

Mark, I have a couple of thoughts about your painting(s), questions too, so bear with me as I briefly throw them out to you.

If text lies, can painting too? Without being facetious, can an artist lie about what he says about his/her painting and still paint the truth? Or vice versa?

How and why did you choose to use a recognizable cultural icon such as the comic/funnies page - bande dessinée - to relay your text/message so to speak? Bright colors, flashy titles, bronze age comic graphic layout etc. Why détourne one popular image to relay another? Do you need this structure/frame and do you think it helps you reach the audience quicker in doing so? Is it a spoof on popular culture, Pop Art, artworld "artspeak" from critics and the like? I wonder as a viewer, if the packaging is so good that your afraid to open it up further. Thanks.

Oh yeah --- and the little circle up in the upper left (the "company box"), which you can't read in this reduced jpeg, reads "EVEN THESE."

Mark, Erm!!! Ahh!!

A favorite topic of mine!!Words; sort of like "throwing taffy to wolves."'Tis terribly easy to lie, especially- using the english language.

As emphasised, ( lots of other deeper parallels, as well)by you-

There is hope- sort of ...( place smile here)

Body language...Non-verbal Communication..

A frequently asked question is, "What percent of our communication is non-verbal?"

94% of our communication is nonverbal, estimates the statistics of anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell.65%; Knapp (1972) and of psychologist Albert Mehrabian (93%; 1971) are hard to verify. But the proportion of our emotional communication that is expressed apart from words surely exceeds 99%.

"The latest communication research indicates that as much as 90 percent of an emotional message is nonverbal -- and people who think emotions don't exist in the workplace are sorely mistaken."

& word as dialogue?

"David Bohm : Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. We haven't really paid much attention to thought as a process. We have ENGAGED in thoughts, put we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process. Why does thought require attention. Everything requires attention, really. If we ran machines withinout paying attention to them, they would break down. Our thought, too, is a process, and it requires attention, otherwise its going to go wrong ."

"Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, helped validate Marcia Firestone's interest in nonverbal communication long before "body language" was an accepted part of business consciousness. Firestone, CEO of the Women Presidents' Organization, may have been one of the first executives to study nonspoken language.

When she was working on her Ph.D. in communications at Columbia University, she said, "It amazed me when you talked to people and you had the distinct impression that what they were saying to your face was inconsistent with what they believed."

"Gesture-speech mismatches, they say, indicate a transitional state of knowledge, a time when people don't completely understand a new concept, but are ready to learn. " (wink)

Amy Denes

"throwing taffy to wolves."
What a great expression! Although more like throwing taffy to the Lemmings, nowadays.

Tis terribly easy to lie, especially- using the english language.
Oh, it's terribly easy to lie in any language in which you are proficient --- look at all the politicians around the world.

I love that old African-American saying (and they would know best, having had so much used against them): "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see."

Hi Kevin --- sorry about not getting your comments and questions up until now. I just really learned how to "approve" comments.

Can an artist lie about what he says about his/her painting and still paint the truth? Or vice versa?

Yes, of course. I think it is self-evident that anyone can lie in any form --- worst of all to themselves.

How and why did you choose to use a recognizable cultural icon such as the comic..Why détourne one popular image to relay another? Do you need this structure/frame and do you think it helps you reach the audience quicker in doing so?

I don't mean to belittle your question, but it brings a complex answer. In short --- it is MY inherited "scene of Instruction." Please see the discussions of my work at my website: http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/articles.html

and my writings and such, esp. my speech to the CAA also at my website: http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/articles2.html

Is it a spoof on popular culture...?

No. It is a a disjunctive use of MY inherited grammar. I came TO fine art from comics --- and lettering. My father was a sign and billboard painter and display man. My masters were first comic artists like Gene Colan (about whom I have published). As James Brown said of his use of his inherited tools, they may be apparently insufficient but they are mine. Indeed, if anything, it is a use of vernacular techniques to reinvigorate fine art now, which I see as enervated, while also critiquing the absence of serious ambition in popular culture at the present.

The Comic-like Covers are not "bronze age" as you state --- thanks for using the lingo though; that's probably the "age" of comics you know. They are predominantly Golden and Silver age, some bronze and postmodern, but MOST OF ALL are using so-called show-card lettering such as 40s letterer, African-American Howard Ferguson or such as the elements used by my father. They also use word-phraseology I have inherited from Gospel church services and the blues.

I wonder as a viewer, if the packaging is so good that your afraid to open it up further.

You'll excuse me, but I have no idea what you are insinuating here. "Opening it up" how --- do you mean why don't I paint like you would like? If so, do it yourself. I AM opening it up more than it ever has been. See my Panels installations, the installations of the Covers works, etc. But I also want them to be exactly as they are --- references to my scene of instruction. They come "bottom up" so to speak, not "top down" like Roy Lichtenstein (who I like, but is not an influence.) Again, please go to my CAA speech where I discuss this in depth.

Thanks.

Thanks to you for the extended interest and thought about the work! And again, sorry your comment from long ago just sat in storage because I didn't notice it.