“Act on the unplanned with as much energy as with what is planned”
Any hard working artist will tell you that, when creating a piece, it is always the actual work the one that tells you what it needs, and what it does not.
Writers talk about characters basically writing themselves or dictating dialogue. In painting, no matter how much planning, it will also happen. Some will allow it to happen more than others (I am one of those), but it happens to all of us. Reality takes over the theory. Chance (or what we feel is just chance) takes a look and decides to be heard.
When I am asked about what do I think is my biggest strength as an artist, I always reply that I feel it is probably my capacity to turn what may have originally felt like a blunder (i.e. a deviation from my original and thought out path, at the very least), into some kind of a triumph.
I make a lot of mistakes. Like the gentleman whom, while I was doing some live painting at an event, asked me very politely what was it that I was obviously correcting when he could not see any discernible elements or recognizable figures in my work, the truth is that the difference between intent and chance is not easy to see sometimes from the outside. In fact, I may be the only one who knows that what I did was not what I intended to do. But that does not rule out the fact that for some reason I did something unpredicted to me and even unwanted at the time.
When we are learning, more often than not, we immediately correct course (in painting that means that we repaint and correct). After we start knowing what it is all about, we sometimes respect chance and follow the new course that has just been dictated by the forces of nature. I usually find that my work is a lot richer if I work on the unexpected with as much vigor and excitement as with what I had planned.
My Digital Art Series are another example. I work my drafts in digital form. Then I paint. There is a very reasonable explanation to do this, and one which I may write about in the future, but let´s just say that I test everything with my electronic pen and screen. Colors, shades, textures. Even where my emulsified ink drippings will finally land come into consideration in that digital realm.
Looking through some of my drafts last year, the very knowledgeable and hard working Jack O´Brien, who is the Director and Curator of the Watson Gallery at the Naples Art Association (he has been there for almost 20 years now), suggested I try printing my digital drafts (artwork) on metal.
Today, m
y ALPERIN DIGITAL art series allow me to reach a completely new public and it is an exciting way of venturing beyond paint.
I was not looking to print and my digital work was almost private. My chance conversation with Jack planted the seed. Everything else is now history.
If we want to go a little further into the theory, we could say that there is no chance, and there is no fortuitous, There is only unexpected (because it is so in reference to our expectations).
Thus, in these cases there is only that what was due to happen and we did not see coming.
Now, if you run a nuclear power plant, unexpected may not be that good. But if you are in a creative or executive position, if you are in business, or if you move in the realm of the arts, this may be your chance to add new layers to your work.
I believe everything we do in life can be explained as part of a huge (astronomical may be the word) mathematical equation. Everything is in the realm of a possibility, and in hindsight we may find the elements that explain how that possibility became a probability, and after that, a reality.
As I always say, the fact that we did not expect it only highlights the fact that we did not calculate correctly our path (and because we cannot incorporate everything into our calculation, it is also a reminder of our human limitations). Yet, if it happened, then probability theory will tell you that there was always a big chance of it happening (whatever “it” was) if certain elements finally combined in the formula. Thus those elements were always there (or within the realm of probability), and we can only see them as we reverse engineer whatever it was. Then, we usually say: “of course, it HAD to happen, how did I not see it!”
Thus treat chance as your friend. It is part of the reality that you did not expect but came knocking at your door. Fortuitous is just another way of saying, I didn´t see it coming. But it came anyway. So don´t fight it (unless it creates a major problem). Embrace it, open your mind, use it to your advantage and make good use of it, see what you can incorporate (totally or partially) to your original plan, and allow it to open new realms for you (and your art, your project, your career or your work, whatever it may be).
Because the fact is that, if it is here, then there is a very good chance that under the present circumstances, it was always supposed to be here.
Happy surprises and until next time!
Ignacio
©2017 by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera
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Published by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera
ABOUT IGNACIO
Ignacio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, grew up in Australia and lived in several countries around the globe until his return to his country of origin 15 years ago.
At a very young age and with the help of his mother, a talented artist herself, and his father, an engineer internationally renowned for his creativity and innovation, he took his first steps in the world of art. Surrounded by drawing tables, technical pens and architectural influences he began to create his own path.
His early influences were very eclectic and mature for his age. They included great masters like Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso, as well as modern masters like Kandinsky, Pollock, de Kooning and Rauschenberg. Drawing, painting, and a great deal of reading took an important place in his life.
During his early 20s he develops a love affair with jazz, becoming an avid follower of the local Australian jazz scene and as a result, his painting begins to show signs of this inspiration. Complex rhythms, intertwining melodies, and a great deal of improvisational skills are developed in his art.
That slow and jazzy pace also helped him mature his own approaches and techniques while freeing himself from classical ties, finding stimulus in unusual places and developing a unique and sensitive voice.
Added to that, his artistically applied synesthesia –condition which he shares with Kandinsky-, adds to his work an unusual share of musicality and innovation. The artist admits the complexity of combining his artistic imprint with the possibilities this "gift" generates while always underlining that it is a constant exploration, full of achievements as well as challenges.
The result is a fusion that explores the limits of colors and shapes within a marked abstraction. An expressive path without reservations strongly anchored on his individuality and unique experience.
This exploration has not only been applied to his painting. He has also pursued his vision into other forms of artistic expression, including smaller architectural and design projects, and graphic design assignments applied to advertising and marketing.
VISUAL JAZZ
IGNACIO ALPERÍN BRUVERA
The works presented in his Blog are a fraction of the main series developed by the artist and which has been travelling around different cities around the world since 2010. The artist’s "Visual Jazz Tour" encompasses works aided by his synesthesia and based on a visual interpretation of melodies, mainly from traditional and avant-garde jazz, soul, Motown and the American songbook, expressed in shapes and colors.
Fascinated by this musical genre, Alperín has created his own visual language through the same methods of inventiveness and spontaneity as musicians. We find in his paintings spectacular spiral lines and longitudinal strokes which glide through the canvas, outlined by an energetic use of the primary palette, extracting from these colors unthought-of shades and gradations that have become a signature and a characteristic of his bold and powerful style.
In this way he has built its own movement filled language to communicate and engage in a dialogue with the public; mostly divorced from figurative representation, he constructs a visceral abstraction that stimulates the imagination and turn on the viewers’ inner sensations.
Ñ magazine (South America´s largest selling arts and culture magazine), in its issue of September 11, 2010, under the title "IGNACIO ALPERIN in NEW YORK – an Argentine visual Jazz show" went further than that, drawing a parallel between the love of jazz from the great Argentine writer Julio Cortazar and his incorporation of this musical form into literature, with the work of Alperín and his intention to assimilate this same musical form, this time in the realm of visual art.
Many subsequent articles in La Nación and Clarin newspapers (Argentina´s best- selling newspapers), as well as specialized magazines such as the above mentioned Ñ, ADN and Maleva Mag –just to mention a few - have also constantly highlighted his originality and constant growth.
The artist has conceptualized his art in a term that expresses the musicality of his work together with the movement that he seeks to impose on it.
The viewers are thus encouraged to become emotionally involved, transcending everyday reality in a process without space, age or time, towards a more universal, melodic and harmonious view of everything that surrounds them.
The work of Alperín has movement, rhythm, coolness and a degree of visual improvisation that is meant to hide a very well studied score. The result is constant dynamism and exceptional use of color in a never ending search for beats and counterpoints.
This synthesis of Art and music, or "Visual Jazz" as an American journalist baptized it a few years ago, it is almost a trademark of Alperin´s work with a strong track record and exhibitions in New York, Miami, London, Melbourne, Zurich, Lisbon and in Argentina.
Currently, the artist discloses the development of his work and research, and how it applies to corporate and professionally applied creativity in academia, as professor of Creativity and Innovation at the Universidad Católica Argentina (The Argentine National Catholic University in Buenos Aires), and gives seminars on the subject in the context of workshops and events for individuals, companies and artists both in Spanish and English. View all posts by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera
