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From
The Daily Inquirer in The Philippines:
“There wasn't that much else in life he wanted to do. It was just him and the paintings.” Thus remarked a studio assistant of the great abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
He, whose paintings were regarded as among the most influential in the past century, was now the subject of a great controversy: Were his works, created when he was no longer of “sound mind,” of any value?
Famous for his densely activated canvases of lush pigments, his late works were now described as looking unfinished. A New York art dealer dismissed them: “They looked like underpainting.”
A museum curator, however, disagreed. He considered them “among the most beautiful, sensual, and exuberant abstract works by any modern painter.”
To this day, controversy continues to hound artworks that were created by artists regarded with “mental incapacities.” Indeed, the euphemisms that abound serve only to confirm the confusion attendant to the situation. “Intellectually challenged” is one, referring to works of psychiatric patients.
The French painter, Jean Dubuffet, collected the paintings of the psychotic and the insane and called these works Art Brut, meaning “raw art.”
Ever on the alert for judgmental labels, Western society has now given the all-encompassing term Outsider Art. This immediately signals that such works are not to be regarded as mainstream art. So are these works merely artistic curiosa?
Recently emerging in the limelight is Autistic Art.
Diagnosed at age three to be a high-functioning autistic, JA Tan strived to attain what others with less disability could not. In 2006, he received his Certificate of Fine Arts at St. Scholastica’s College. Thereafter emigrating with his family to Canada, Tan pursued his art studies, graduating at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia.
On a recent home visit, Tan held a celebrated solo exhibition at Ayala Museum’s Artspace in Makati City. The show’s centerpiece, a triptych, is entitled “Homesick for Manila.” It is a work that speaks volumes about the artistic journey, thus far, of this 23-year-old artist.
“Piece by Piece” was the title of Tan’s solo exhibition. It is derived from the artist’s statement which elucidates how images come to him: “I work on my paintings the same way I work at life. I paint from small images and ideas and build up to a unified whole. As in my life, I learn in small steps and take in as much detail and information as I can. I then put all these all together into a whole piece, which makes it possible for me to integrate myself into the world that everyone else perceives.”
The painting which graced the artist’s invitation is a self-portrait, intriguingly formed from a grid, suggestive of individual parts coming together as a whole. It is an apparition of a visage, as from a curtain rising, a veritable lifting of the veil of autism’s artistry.
Comprising of over 50 pieces, Tan’s show was a visual feast, reveling in his delight for form, line, color, texture and space. The quantity of works attests to the artist’s passion for work. It is a heady measure of the stimulating effect that painting has on him. As the artist himself said: “Once I start painting and I am able to bring a corner of the canvas to life, I am off and running.”
What made a lasting impression on the audience was the artist’s emotional range, from a jubilant exaltation of mood to anxiety-provoking depression. These emotions, in fact, are personally felt, indeed authentic experiences drawn from the artist’s own inner world.
Certainly a defining aesthetic experience to Tan was a visit to the house and garden of the greatest French Impressionist, Claude Monet, in Giverny. The resultant works, “Inspired by Monet,” are abstract constellations of color-drenched passages in streaks of vibrant reds, oranges and yellows rhythmically colliding with cooler tones of greens, blues and purples. Courting drips, daubs and splatters of pigments, Tan takes delight in evoking gardens, skies and clouds, a landscape emerging from the unexpected fragmentation of space.
In his quest for other expressive approaches, Tan reveals his familiarity with the icons of abstraction. Not surprisingly, Jackson Pollock is a presiding force in several of Tan’s works. “Inspired by Pollock” is an affirmation of the young artist’s allegiance to this mode of painting. A wet-on-wet process allows the aqueous blending of blacks and grays in a shadow play with ocher yellows, siennas, and auras of pinks and reds. Like a steaming engine, Pollock’s dripping technique is lyrically released in “Flowing Energy Series.” Shifting about in circular motion, these paintings are repetitive swirls of pigments, eddying toward a still centerpoint.
“Food and Wine Stains,” “Wine Festival” and “Drunken Thoughts” are allusions to Tan’s parents, who happen to be avid oenophiles. These are images of gaiety and giddiness, in a splendid and radical use of materials for painting. As narrative strains from an autobiography, such works have a poignancy when juxtaposed against the artist’s dark melancholia that creeps in intermittently. Provoked by climatic disturbances (“Ondoy Depression”) or the pain of departure (“Away Tears”), what remains in these paintings is the emotional weight that he carries, despite the awareness of a remarkable gift.
For a young artist still in search of his form-vocabulary, the various homages to artists are expected afterglows of admiration. Monet and Pollock, Philip Guston and Jean Dubuffet are his lodestars. In time, Tan will discover his own personal approach to abstraction, subsuming all influences, eventually to emerge with his own unique voice.
“Piece by Piece” by JA Tan should make us wonder whether autism is a debilitation of the mind at all. Autism, shored up by creativity, constantly reminds us of the richness of an inner life and the grace of the human spirit.
From The Daily Inquirer in The Philippines:
