Fred Mandell Artist Statement

My goal is to make a good and true picture.

A good picture engages the viewer. Perhaps it disturbs the way he sees the world. A good picture will not affirm what is already seen. It will not charm or beguile. It will bring the viewer to a place he has never been before.

A true picture reflects the search for new ways of seeing. It must come from the right place within. It cannot give in to artifice. I am discovering that trueness for me expresses itself at the edge, where representation and abstraction meet, struggle, dance, re-form.

The Greek philosopher Anixamander said: One cannot step into the same river twice. The observable world cannot be frozen. Trying to capture it is a form of hubris and contradictory to the laws of nature. It is akin to grasping at filaments of dust.

But expressing the experience of the observable world is different. It is what accounts for the humanity of art. It speaks to the assertion that we are here. It creates a new alchemy between who we are and what we see. Expressing the experience of the observable world is the task I have set for myself. I must account for what I see and what I feel and think. My hope is that by engaging in this task I can create a community of interest, a community open to the wonder, the mystery, the sadness, the exhilaration in our world. A dialogue between me, the viewer and the world we live in.

My picture making is physical. I put down markings, strokes, layer on with the palette knife. I dilute, thicken, scrape, slash, moving into and away from the canvas. I begin with a general sense of where I think I want to go, understanding that I never end up there. I have no preconceived color ideology. Color is an opportunist for me. I am always testing, challenging the place from which my energy, my markings come. I will scrape away what is not true. I have completed paintings and put them aside for months only to discover on later examination that they were not true. They must be re-engaged. The search goes on.

I hope the viewer will not only appreciate the picture for what it is, but how it got to be what it is. There is history within each picture.