Exquisite Arts Magazine Vol 1 - July/ August 2016 | Page 52

representationalism, although it surely evolved. For one thing, most of the non-representational paintings
displayed in even the most cutting-edge galleries and museums were, and still are to this day, shaped like
rectangular windows. Considering how much painting itself has evolved during the past century, this fact alone is
remarkable. But this would not be the case, I maintain, if the “simulated-looking-through-the-window” experience
did not remain a useful model of aesthetics.
In a more substantive way, the “visualist” approach to painting has continued to be vital. Consider
Rothko's “signature” later artworks as an example. His large color-field paintings may appear at first glance to be
flat and uninteresting, composed of seemingly meaningless, and often monotonous, rectangular “clouds,” usually
positioned in close proximity on a rectangular canvas. However, upon closer inspection, viewers have reported
the feeling of being “swept into” Rothko's created spaces. As if they had been “absorbed” into those rectangular
clouds of color which appear to float before the viewer through a simulated window. Some viewers of Rothko's
works have found this experience to be profoundly spiritual or emotionally overwhelming, even moving some to
tears. Gazing into the alien spaces on the opposing sides of the portals that Rothko created, the viewer plainly
does not see familiar objects like landscapes or animals or flowers, but nevertheless beholds a mysterious presence,
silent and ineffable. The aesthetic experience of such non-representational artwork, I would argue, remains a
“visualist” one - a simulated-looking-through-a-window.
One might properly describe this particular “visualist” experience as one of “transcendence,” since the
created space and images viewed through the simulated window reveal a deeper or more essential reality rather
than the more familiar, natural one. It is not surprising to me, for this reason, that Rothko was commissioned in
1964 to create a special meditative and reflective space in which viewers could quietly contemplate his
“Transcendent Visualist” paintings, although he unfortunately did not live to see the Rothko Chapel completed.
Although there are certainly many other famous painters whose artworks exhibit the elements of
“Transcendent Visualism” that I've outlined here, such as Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Yves Tanguy, and
Zhao Wu-ji, my favorite remains Mark Rothko. In my opinion, no other modern artist has been able to capture the
essence of “the transcendent” that I personally value in the visual arts, and that I have strived to create in my own
paintings.
Along these lines, over the past several decades I have been developing a distinctive and rather unusual
style of painting, by which I apply layers of acrylic pigment to the reverse-sides of clear acrylic panels, often in a
manner that does not permit me to see the painting while I'm working on it. When one of my reverse-painted
acrylics is viewed in person, I am often told that it resembles a large photograph with unexpected depth, detail,

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