Painting is a prayer

Contributed by Katelynn Mills / One can never hide who they are in their work - I’ve always known and felt that painting is a direct extension of the artist’s soul. Be the individual a shallow, fabulous Warholian, or a deep and tortured Rothkoan, or anyone in between, a (wo)man’s capacity is marked by their expression. Painting is a meditative diffusion of the ego, which allows something outside the artist, something much greater, to enter. It’s a white-hot focus of energy that cannot afford distraction. But mostly what painting is, is a yearning for the impossible union of spirit and physical matter – an insatiable prayer. A union is to be had in the completion of a picture, a provisional answer to our prayer. A form which demands the viewer to believe the illusion and content. But because time will not afford us the solace of everlasting perfection, the artist is thrown right back into the search for meaning. In lustful agony, our Greek ancestor, Diogenes asked “would to heaven that it were enough to rub one’s stomach in order to allay one’s hunger?” No. As long as there are people, painting, in all its decadence, will serve as essential means to meaning and truth for those who desire. One such artist who can be noted by his passion in his spiritual quest is Bill Jensen.

He plays with the idea of indeterminacy by allowing marks from used cups of paint to stain his canvas in Message and shows evidence of human touch with his finger smudges which pull across he surface. Jensen’s black on black compositions, such as End of the Ordinary Realm, are highly sensitive pieces that say something about the immensity and intimacy of the human experience. The air in these dark paintings is thick, more like water – affecting an engulfing experience. One cannot help but feel alone yet surrounded in this piece.