my unconscious to communicate with me. I empty my mind, and draw as quickly as possible with an ink stick on
wet or damp paper. The results almost always seem meaningful to me personally, and do not require re-touching.
Just recently I discovered that the abstract expressionist artist Robert Motherwell used a very similar technique
involving very rapid drawing on wet paper in the series he titled ‘Lyric Suite.’ Quoting the artist from “Robert
Motherwell: with Pen and Brush” by Mary Ann Caws:
“Without a priori traditional or moral prejudices or a posteriori ones, without iconography, and above all without revisions
or additions upon critical reflection and judgment. Give up one’s being to the enterprise and see what lies within, whatever
it is. Venture. Don’t look back. Do not tire. Everything is open.”
Caws writes: “He completed the drawings in seconds with brushstrokes made ‘with as much violence as possible
without tearing the paper.’ After Motherwell finished drawing, he allowed the ink to spread out uncontrolled on the absorbent
rice paper so that the drawings ‘continued to paint themselves.’ This incorporation of chance further demonstrates
Motherwell’s debt to the Surrealists, who invited accidents into their work. … The title of the series, ‘Lyric Suite,’
refers to a musical composition for string quartet by Alban Berg that Motherwell listened to while making the drawings.
This is a larger piece (17x22). The upper four are approximately 8x10
