Original artwork description:

Here is an example of the pompous and flatulent language that can be used in the wonderful world of art: ‘(It)….is meant to evoke the experience of pure non-objectivity in the white emptiness of a liberated nothing.’ If you read this about a painting you’d probably roll your eyes at such pretentious twaddle. And yet this was said by none other than Suprematist Supremo, Russian artist Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935). 'It' refers to his seminal Suprematist work ‘Black Square’ (1915) which comprises…er…a plain black square with a plain white border.

The use of flowery language in the art world has been dubbed International Art English (IAE) by artist and art critic David Levine and Alix Rule, and it runs through the Suprematist art movement like a stick of rock. Suprematism is ‘the supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts.’ Suprematism is ‘all about feeling and getting away from previous art movements.’ Suprematism is the ‘zero degree of painting, that is the point beyond which the medium could not go without ceasing to be art.’

All very deep and meaningful I'm sure. Way too intellectual and abstruse for the tiny little brains like yours or mine to grapple with. This is the sort of nonsense that turns than man on the Clapham omnibus off art for good. And yet Suprematism, with its reliance on limited color palette and use of basic shapes like squares, circles, crosses, mostly floating around on plain backgrounds, is one of the shallowest form of art there is. It could well be called Simpletonism, or even What-I-Drew-On-My-First-Day-At-School-Ism. Don’t get me wrong, I love Malevich but …’the white emptiness of a liberated nothing’? Who is he trying to kid? Revered Art God Mark Rothko was also not averse to hyperbole: 'People who weep before my paintings had the same religious experience I had when I painted them.' Yeah. Right.

New York based artist Levine may be right when he says: ‘The more you can muddy the waters around the meaning of a work of art the more you can keep the value high.’ And, of course, the water muddy-ers - art critics - make a pretty good living out of looking for things in paintings that, mostly, aren't there.

I write about how my paintings come into existence and the toil that goes into them, but I don't psychoanalyse them. My contribution to International Art English is this: ‘How is the painting going to look on the wall above your IKEA sofa?’

Anyone could have painted this painting you see here. It involves no difficult techniques at all. It is a just a patient Stakhanovitian slog involving basic hand/eye co-ordination. Day after day, getting a few more sq cms filled in, until, eventually, after six weeks or so, it is finished. You are paying for the work involved, not some chimerical bogus emotion. You are paying for the 99% perspiration and the 0.01% inspiration. (Thomas Edison's definition of genius inflates the inspiration quotient to 1%, but only a few artists since the first cave painters could claim to be the full one percenters, and I certainly am not one of them).

I don’t expect you to weep tears of joy or have a religious experience when you look at this painting. You don’t have to emote or delve deep into your soul to appreciate what it means. It doesn’t mean anything. It is a colorful picture that might just brighten up a room in your house.

That is all.

Materials used:

Acrylics

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