A.E.: You were working or had finished working on 3 Little Cherries when you had your epiphany. How did that piece, 3 Little Cherries, change your approach to your work?
R.D.: This work was influenced by the mezzotint from the genre of intaglio printmaking – more specifically, by the Japanese and, French artists like Mario Avani. What many do not realize is that a perfectly executed mezzotint naturally has very similar luminous qualities to what the illuminists pursued. This was achieved by a unique blend of black etchers ink on white paper in a rather pointillist manner caused by the use of a rocker. If coloured inks are added to this then the result can be quite stunning with respect to the manipulation of light. At the time, I was very influenced by this genre and Japanese artists such as Hamaguchi Yozo and Hamanishi Katsunori. I was attempting to develop a similar look but in a different genre, one that exploited more of the modern technologies we had at our fingertips. It was this direction that finally led to my current work and the moment where I actually experienced a mezzotint look and feel for the first time in the genre I use today.
A.E.: You discuss the importance of ‘light,’ the ability of a work of art to reflect light. Lighting is also important in poetry or in the best kinds of writing. In the latter instance we refer to that light as ‘imagery’ or more precisely, as ‘synaesthesia.’ Would you say an artwork can or should be a kind of visual poetry?
D.R.: I think that enlightenment through our imagination might be more appropriate for literature. What I mean is as we read about light in art or in poetry we imagine its effects on our body and mind. If I were to write a poem about the hot summer sun on my skin, then light in the more classic sense of the word comes into play at a psychological level. Luminous art has physical properties that act upon our being using tangible photons that travel through space as a form of energy. We digest the suns rays that give us vitamin D, which is another use of light at a physical level. The fact that light can have an alluring quality when mixed with colour is what gives my work a common theme of romanticism. I myself write poetry and prose about my art which can be read under many of my works on my website.
A.E.: Apart from its broad sense of light/imagery in literature, more concretely synaesthesia is the description or apprehension of one sense by way of another one, which is not directly related to it. In C.S. Lewis’ fantastic children novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the four children protagonists, peter, is described as having a voice that is “pale in the dark” at a particular fearful moment. That sentence invokes a moment of aesthetic arrest, where more than one sensory organ is forcefully called to attention. Further, please consider that synaesthesia (more precisely described by some as ‘ideasthesia’) in its original Greek etymology, describes a involuntary fusing of cognitive and sensory processes leading to ‘illusory’ but well, ‘real’ ‘neurological’ perceptions. Some words induce certain colours in the viewer, or sounds or an object might result in an automatic recall of smells from childhood etc. Is this not the same thing the Illuminist’s work invokes in the viewer – automatic spatial, visual, olfactory… etc neurological responses? In short, do the illuminist and the poet not share the ability to evoke multifarious sensations, which one can refer to as ‘the sublime’? This is ‘aesthetic arrest,’ is it not?
R.D.: Correct in all your assumptions. Any great literature, be it poetry or not has, the power to do this. This is what allows one novelist to be more successful than another. My wife pursues reading as a pastime as I do art, and she often tells me how certain writers can make her feel more than others just by their style of writing. So too it is in fine art. Our styles and technologies combine to give the viewer/reader the impetus needed to fire the neurons within our mind that eventually, through cognitive interaction, allow – perhaps dopamine – to be injected at a physical level. I have experienced people so excited by the light in my work that they either start to cry or become angry. Anger is rare. I personally believe it has more to do with a negative response by a left brain dominant individual who by their very analytical nature need to understand the process as this is the only way they can truly appreciate the art. Because I refuse to explain my trade secrets, they suddenly loose control in the face of my work and gravitate to demanding how I do my work. I personally believe it is a response to being seduced by the light within the art, which causes a loss of emotional control which left hemisphere dominant people are not comfortable with at all. They realize perhaps for the very first time that the control they exert by the left analytical hemisphere over the right is not working in this illuminist environment. Their right hemisphere rises to a place of dominance and their left cerebral cortex feels threatened by something they cannot understand. These are my conclusions, of course, based on my in-gallery experiences and readings on the subject. I have dealt with many a personality and with many a different level of hemisphere-dominance in my time but one thing is definitely clear. Emotions are tied to light by any name and without it we have nothing.
A.E.: I was elaborate above and have asked what I did because you noted in your essay how it is important that a work of art should touch the soul. It is only the sublime that touches the soul. That is what good art of any kind, including poetry does. Could you elaborate on this kindly; this touching of the soul?
R.D.: So what is the soul? Well at a physiological level it might be described as two cerebral cortex hemispheres working together to achieve our maximum level of intellect at any given moment. Some may describe it as being something ethereal that cannot be described. Whatever the soul is, I believe it to be sensitive and compassionate towards nature, beauty and humanity. I believe that, in many it is lacking in nurturing and constantly looks for things to make it happy. I think those who love art are good souls in a world where the soul has been traded too often for monitory gain or power. This has more to do with ego I believe and as my son would argue, with narcissism. When I refer to light penetrating our soul, I am actually metaphorically talking about something as simple as happiness. I believe happiness is the only thing left worth pursuing in life. If you do not believe me try to be unhappy for a day. The light in my work makes people feel wonderful and happy, and by doing so it indirectly penetrates to the soul of that person. It feeds its need in a way that brings joy to those who have been searching for that but whom, through conventional means, have not found their own soul. Perhaps it is because of a poor relationship or a physiological disorder. Art, if it has the power to bring joy into ones life by what ever means, is transcending the conventional ways of achieving happiness by using the language of composition, shape, form and light to achieve something that has not so easily happened to these people before in a profound way. Almost everyone who enters my gallery will comment on the light but for those who need it most it has a profound and very emotional effect on them that somehow calms their soul.
A.E.: I have also noted, as a poet, that a lot of poets have no ‘light’ in their work, that is, the reader does not feel any ‘aesthetic arrest.’ In such instances such poets take refuge in the ironic expression ‘prose poetry.’ Do you read poetry at all; if so, what kind of poetry would you compare your art to – the lyric, the Ode, the Epic, and so on?
R.D.: Well I cannot say I am a poet or have read much in this genre but I can comment on this. In the past I have found that the only time my work felt complete was when I was able to articulate either a prose or a poem about my personal experience with the work. Case in point was the most painterly of my earlier years work, Late Winter Day. “Tall, willowed pines weigh heavy under newly fallen snow while fingered shadows stealthily crawl beneath their feet. Golden sunlit hues adorn each exposed branch while shyer boughs remain blue and hidden in shadow. I see light penetrating translucent green ferns that stand on a rolling blanket of soft powder, which shelters half buried deadwood on the right. A blue gray sky curtains the scene holding the composition together from all sides. I recall the hot sun on my skin as I turned towards the scene. The air was still and warm near sunset. Again, the golden hour was upon me so swiftly. Shadows grew longer by the second as I waited and waited for the light I needed.”
A.E.: Please let us a little into your concept of the “mechanical and intellectual” component of your art.
D.R.: Mechanically, of course, we have what might be considered trade secrets to my work which most respect. If I ever refuse to discuses the analytical side of what I do it is because I do not want to ever destroy the illusion that my work offers the viewer. This coupled with the light can be interpreted in many ways – one of which I love to call, Magic. Often when I am asked bluntly, “HOW DO YOU DO IT?,” I reply with an answer and then a question. The answer is “with great effort” and the question is, “Do you know why a magician will never share his or her secrets? Its because the moment they do the magic will be gone for ever.” Intellectually well I think the most profound aspect of me, as a person, is my awareness: awareness of everything. It has been written that a genius is a man who sees ten things when the ordinary man sees only one. I like to subscribe to the ingenious definition of my intellect as, “Ingenious, is the man who sees only two or three but has the ability to incorporate them into the material of his art.”
A.E.: There seems to be a studied intelligence, a theoretical precision, to the quiet genius of your work as an illuminist. What is that theoretical principle behind your work?
D.R.: This is getting into a very fundamental aspect of what I do outside of light. It is something I have been discussing with my son of recent. I have just finished my hearts desire which was to produce an entire B&W engraved collection built on a previous and early developed technique called Acetate Engraving. Simply put long ago I was able to scratch into the surface of a piece of acetate and then fill it with ink that eventually, through the use of modern technology today, I managed to produce a wonderful engraved look and feel on paper. This final collection of 38 works is based on that beginning but has now incorporated something very profound into my work. It is perceived sharpness based on texture rather than actual sharpness of the image. In photography for example, it has always been known that the human psyche can perceive a higher-level of sharpness and detail simply based on the use of a granular texture being applied to the image. That is why many of the older photographs with their grainy finish are appreciated and are perceived as quite sharp. In actual fact the sharpness of the detail has more to do with the sharp grain than the sharp image. The eye always has something to resolve. The engraved line in this work has been used to replace much of any detail that might have been initially there. As a result the images are stunningly sharp and clear but I know that part of my complex process actually removed any sense of detail from the work before its completion. This is just one example of the “ theoretical precision” that is at the heart of everything I do.
A.E.: Finally we will like to thank you very much, indeed. We appreciate you taking time from your very busy practice to talk to us. We wish you more creative breakthroughs.
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