2003-04-04 - 10:48 a.m.

went with f and a group of painters and friends to some of the openings in the chelsea last night. in a weird way, going to the openings often makes me feel a lot better about my own art work. ok, i don't have a bling-bling gallery, my art is rarely seen outside my neighborhood, and sometimes i can barely pick up a brush. but i still think a lot of my work stands up favorably to what i see in the Art World. last nights' haul included: some competent monochome paintings, some large aluminum panels with paint splatters and bullet holes, an odd installation of c-prints and minimalist paintings on the visual theme of 'hello my name is' nametags, and delicate impasto paintings of bushes on the side of residential streets.

i've been having a little background discussion with cosmokane about whether art is capable any longer of trading in the cultural space now held by mass media. since the advent of photography, painting has become increasingly insular and self-referential. paintings these days are rarely about shipwrecks and war atrocities, they don't deliver the news anymore, and politically charged art is pretty much relegated to its own ghetto. abstract impressionism certainly has revolutionary abilities, but its a very personal, internal, and individual kind of revolution. one brain at a time, not exactly mass media.

i am currently making a series of paintings about the war based on photos that have appeared in the new york times. honestly, i paint for myself and most of the time i don't care if anyone sees the work at all. a private comment on the mass media? a way to personalise the giant impersonal media juggernaut of the war? i just know i can't think about much else these days and it feels good to make these images. a way of externalising an internal conflict?