welcome to our
SATURDAY EVENING POST
January 4th, 2025
The compelling force that drives artists to create, what we might call the "necessity to create", represents one of the most fascinating and complex phenomena in human experience.
When artists engage in the act of creation, they enter what might be described as an altered state of consciousness, a unique psychological and spiritual territory that exists parallel to, yet separate from, ordinary reality. This threshold state has been described by countless artists throughout history, each attempting to articulate the ineffable nature of creative consciousness.
In the creative state, many artists report a dissolution of ordinary self-consciousness. As Marina Abramović describes: "The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing. In performance, the simplest thing is the hardest thing. The moment you enter into performance state, you enter into different state of mind. Time becomes meaningless." This experience of ego dissolution appears to be a crucial component of the creative state.
Mark Rothko's studio practice provides an example of this phenomenon. His former assistant Oliver Steindecker described watching Rothko work: "He would sit and look at the paintings, turning darker and darker in his thoughts. Sitting there for hours. He would smoke and drink coffee all day, and sit in his chair looking, just looking." This wasn't mere passive observation, Rothko was entering what we might call a trance state or altered consciousness. He was known to create his large colour field paintings specifically to induce a state of total immersion, not just for viewers but primarily for himself during the creative process. Rothko himself said of this process: "A painting is not about an experience. It is an experience." When Rothko “looks”, it wasn't just casual observation but a form of artistic meditation. Rothko believed that colour could be a doorway to the transcendent, and these extended periods of observation were his way of opening that door. He wrote, "I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on."
"The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them." The darkness in Rothko’s thoughts (besides his depression) was a form of existential contemplation that he believed was necessary to create work of genuine spiritual power. This practice of intense, sustained observation would ultimately influence his signature style, the large colour field paintings that seem to pulse with inner light. This reveals something fundamental about artistic creation: sometimes the most important part of making art is not the physical act of creation but the altered state of consciousness that both precedes and accompanies it.
The emotional dimension of artistic creation extends far beyond simple self-expression. For example, Louise Bourgeois articulated this complexity in her statement: "Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said." For Bourgeois, art-making functioned as both emotional catharsis and psychological integration.
The work of German artist Käthe Kollwitz provides a powerful example of emotional transformation through art. Following the death of her son Peter in World War I, Kollwitz spent years creating a memorial sculpture, The Grieving Parents. She wrote in her diary: "I believe art has the power to overcome pain... Working on the sculpture, I lived with death, and while I was working, something of the understanding I gained must have been incorporated into the figure."
This extends deeply into the practice of Betty Goodwin, whose work often revolves around themes of loss and mourning, deeply rooted in the personal grief she experienced with the deaths of her father and later her son. These profound losses infused her art with a visceral quality that communicates universal truths about grief and healing. Goodwin’s “Vest Series” works feature images of vests, empty and ghost-like, serve as metaphors for absence and presence, life and death. The vests, often depicted as floating or suspended, convey a sense of what has been left behind, a poignant reminder of the individual’s absence. In her later works, such as those featuring swimmers and divers, Goodwin explores themes of transition and transformation. These figures, often blurred or fragmented, appear to be moving through a medium that both conceals and reveals them, metaphorically diving into the depths of the subconscious. Goodwin probs the spaces between life and death, consciousness and oblivion, capturing the fluid, often unsettling experiences of mourning and memory.
The history of art provides numerous examples of artists who continued to create despite extreme circumstances. During Frida Kahlo’s confinement to bed following a devastating accident, she wrote: "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." Her mother had a special easel made that allowed her to paint while lying down, and she created some of her most powerful self-portraits during this period. For Claude Monet, as his eyesight failed due to cataracts, Monet continued painting. He wrote: "I see less and less. In the end, I will paint completely blind." The later paintings, with their increasingly abstract forms and intense colours, reveal how his changing vision influenced his art rather than inhibiting it.
Creating work is an existential necessity. German philosopher Martin Heidegger's concept of art as "truth setting itself to work" helps explain why artists experience creation as necessity rather than choice. As Alberto Giacometti expressed: "The more I work, the more I see things differently, that is, everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is."
For Heidegger, art is not simply representing truth that already exists, rather, art is actively involved in the emergence of truth itself. This is fundamentally different from traditional ideas about art as mimesis (imitation) or expression. When Heidegger says truth is "setting itself to work," he means that truth is not something static that artists discover or represent, instead, truth is an active process that happens through the act of creation. The artist becomes a vessel or medium through which truth emerges and reveals itself. This explains why artists often feel they are not so much "choosing" to create as being chosen by the work itself.
Giacometti's quote powerfully illustrates this Heideggerian concept through lived experience. When he says "the more I work, the more I see things differently," he is describing how the act of creation actually changes his perception of reality. This is not just about developing technical skill, it is about how the creative process opens up new ways of seeing and understanding the world. Giacometti spent years obsessively sculpting and remaking the same figures, often working them down to impossibly thin forms.
The sense of compulsion many artists feel, they create not because they choose to, but because they must. This is because they are participating in truth's own necessity to reveal itself. The feeling that the work has its own demands or requirements that the artist must follow, rather than the artist imposing their will on the material. This understanding of artistic creation as participation in truth's self-revelation helps explain why artists continue creating even in adverse circumstances. If art is truth setting itself to work, then the artist's role is not optional, they're participating in something fundamental to the way truth manifests in the world. This also explains why artists often feel their work is never truly complete. If truth is an ongoing process of revelation rather than a fixed state to be captured, then each work of art is necessarily part of an ongoing dialogue rather than a final statement.
Many artists describe their practice as compulsive rather than voluntary. As Francis Bacon stated: "I paint for myself. I don't know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and I paint no matter what. But I paint because I have to, and I paint whatever passes through my mind."
Bacon's statement reveals multiple layers about the compulsive nature of artistic practice. When he says "I paint for myself," he is not just describing a preference or choice, he is acknowledging an internal necessity that transcends external motivations. Bacon, who was rather capable in other areas of his life had chosen to indulgingly express he does not know how to do anything else, only suggests that painting had become his primary mode of existing in the world. Bacon's mention of earning a living is a practical reality that exists alongside, but separate from, his real motivation to paint, revealing a common paradox in artistic practice, while artists must often consider commercial aspects of their work, the deeper compulsion to create exists independently of financial considerations. "I paint no matter what" points to the unavoidable nature of this compulsion. Throughout his life, Bacon painted under all circumstances, during periods of personal crisis, loss, and hardship. He maintained a rigorous studio practice even during his most self-destructive periods, often painting through hangovers or after sleepless nights. This wasn't mere discipline, it was a fundamental necessity for his psychological survival.
When Bacon says "I paint because I have to, and I paint whatever passes through my mind" he reveals what many artists experience as an almost physical need to create. This compulsion often manifests in tangible ways: artists report feeling physical discomfort, anxiety, or restlessness when unable to work for extended periods. The neurological basis for this may lie in how artistic practice affects the brain's reward systems and stress-response mechanisms. Regular creative activity appears to become integrated into the artist's basic psychological homeostasis. Bacon also talks about the need to externalize internal experience, who was known for his disturbing, visceral imagery, often depicting distorted human figures in states of extreme psychological tension. These were not chosen subjects so much as necessary expressions of his internal reality.
The sense of being "possessed" by ideas or images that demand to be realised: artists frequently report feeling haunted by creative concepts until they are brought into physical form. This experience transcends ordinary motivation or inspiration, it's closer to an imperative that must be fulfilled. The relationship between trauma and artistic compulsion is particularly significant. Many artists, including Bacon, report that their most intense periods of creative activity often coincide with periods of personal difficulty or psychological struggle. The compulsion to create seems to intensify during times of emotional distress, suggesting that artistic practice serves as a crucial mechanism for processing and transforming difficult experiences.
If this is all too esoteric, our modern scientific studies have allowed the age-old topic to come into light, there is a fascinating intersection of neuroscience and artistic perception in greater detail.
The relationship between visual processing and artistic creation is uniquely complex because it involves multiple levels of perception and cognition happening simultaneously. When we discuss the visual cortex's unique patterns of activation in artists, we are observing something remarkable: the brain is simultaneously processing external visual information while generating and manipulating internal imagery. In non-artists, the visual cortex primarily responds to external stimuli in a relatively straightforward way, processing what the eyes see. However, in trained artists, particularly during the act of creation, the visual cortex enters a different state of operation. This state involves what neuroscientists call "top-down processing," where higher-level cognitive functions actively influence and modify basic visual processing.
The increased alpha wave activity observed in artists' visual cortices is particularly significant. Alpha waves typically indicate a state of relaxed awareness or meditation, but in this context, they suggest something more sophisticated. These brain waves appear to facilitate what might be called a "permeable" state between perception and imagination. Rather than simply seeing what's in front of them, artists enter a state where seeing and imagining become intertwined processes.
This connects to what artist Paul Klee meant when he said, "Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible." The artist's brain isn't just recording visual information it is actively constructing and modifying visual experience. This helps explain why artists often report feeling they are discovering rather than inventing their work, even when creating completely abstract pieces.
The concept of "informed seeing" often refers to this specialised form of perception. It is not just more detailed or careful observation, it is a fundamentally different way of processing visual information. Artists develop what might be called "active vision," where seeing becomes a creative act in itself. This is why artists can often see possibilities in materials or subjects that others might miss entirely. The phenomenon of "artist's gaze" provides concrete evidence of how artistic training transforms visual processing. Eye-tracking studies have revealed that when looking at either artworks or potential subjects, artists' eye movements follow distinctly different patterns from non-artists. Where non-artists tend to focus on recognizable objects or central features, artists systematically scan the entire visual field, paying particular attention to things such as relationships between forms and spaces, subtle variations in colour and tone, structural patterns and underlying geometries, points of tension or dynamic interaction, and negative spaces and peripheral elements. This systematic observation becomes internalised over years of practice, leading to what neuroscientists call "perceptual learning", permanent changes in how the brain processes visual information. These changes are so fundamental that they affect not just how artists see when they're working, but their entire visual experience of the world.
Perhaps most intriguing is what happens during the act of creation itself, when artists report experiencing a dissolution of the boundary between seeing and making. Brain imaging studies have documented increased connectivity between visual processing areas and motor planning regions during artistic work, suggesting that seeing and doing become unified processes. This explains the fluid, almost unconscious quality that experienced artists often display while working.
These neurological changes are not limited to the visual cortex but involve enhanced integration across multiple brain networks, including those responsible for emotion, abstract reasoning, and spatial processing. This integration helps explain why artistic creation can feel so immersive and transformative, it quite literally engages the brain in a fundamentally different way from ordinary visual processing.
This understanding helps explain why artistic training requires such extensive practice. Artists are not just learning technical skills, they are developing an entirely new way of seeing and engaging with the world, one that becomes permanently embedded in their neural architecture through dedicated practice.
This “making visible” extends beyond the artwork itself to encompass new modes of being and experiencing that the creative act makes possible. The necessity to create might be understood not as a simple compulsion but as a fundamental human capacity to transcend ordinary experience and access deeper levels of reality.
“In my old fashioned or old age view, art is just a continuing process…it’s just a re-saying the same thing, over and over, it just keeps building on itself, and I think that same principle applies to good painters themselves…cause we paint not intellectually at all, at least I don’t, I paint from my belly…it’s instinct plus a gut feeling.”
— Jack Bush
We are proud to announce our upcoming exhibition
JACK BUSH: FLAUNTING THE RULES
Opening Saturday, February 1st, 2025
