Pedagogical Exercises / Self-Schemata

Stephen M. Skaar 2007, Acrylic on Canvas, 47” x 48”
(Click image to enlarge)

It all started rather tamely decades ago, with sketchbooks full of abstract line drawings exploring the relation of shape and repetition, like Paul Klee’s “Pedagogical Sketchbook,” from which I took my working title. In my case, a glutinous distillation of the weird has resulted from the low heat of thousands of versions and variations. It’s just gotten out of hand.

Taking the material from small drawings to larger paintings added complexity. The paintings set up a shallow space where tensions across a number of formal but unusual dimensions are arrayed, between open and enclosed, opaque and overlapping, real and symbolic, unfinished and complete. A variety of painterly concerns—scale, color, value--provide additional depth.

The term “Self-Schemata,” maybe that refers to the alambic vessels into which the weird spirits are drawn on line 2, maybe to the red row of faceless placeworkers above.