Inspiration – Antonio Tapies

Artists are often asked what other artists inspire them. Yesterday I was interviewed on www.blogtalkradio.com/annette-coleman in the Artist name names, what artists inspire their work episode. I thought I’d share my thoughts about inspiration in my blog also.

One of my favorite art books is The Language of Antonio Tapies: Surface and Symbol. Both surface (texture) and symbols are a major element of my artwork as well. Antonio Tapies is a Spanish artist who does prints, mixed media paintings, assemblage and sculpture. In the 1950’s he did Matter Paintings in which he used sand, dust, and other materials that suggested fossils, cracks, and fissures. Matiere painting refers to use of texture. Tapies also often used letters, graffiti, and calligraphy- like symbols in his artwork, possibly because he came from a family of bookmakers. In my Arborglyphs series of monoprints, I also use calligraphy-like symbols. Tapies once said, “Art is not decorative, it is a philosophical system or language that contains a total vision of the world”. I like his use of the word “language”. Although my Arborglyph symbols have no specific meaning, they often ‘seem’ to evoke a memory of something in the viewer’s eyes.

I was also inspired by a video about him at the Tapies Foundacio in
Barcelona, Spain. Tapies was filmed walking in his garden, home, alleys and pathways, where he observed what he called “glimpses” of the fairly mundane things. Texture on the cobblestone, scratches on an ancient door, shadows in the garden, or flickering light across a rugged wall. All these so called unimportant close-ups of the world played an important role in his abstract imagery, and I also make the same close-up observations of nature.

If you look at his artwork and at mine, your would probably not see many similarites, yet our visions are fairly similar. We both like surface and texture, both make use of symbols and language in an abstract manner.