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Bash... |
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Kent in his studio with a current project Bash, as he is affectionately - and ironically - known to his friends, has never pulled a punch in his life - not at least, when it comes to his art. Whether he is evoking the beauty of his native environment or the poignance of an expression, capturing the essence of an individual or the signposts of a culture, or wryly satirizing some of our modern - and perennial - obsessions and insanities, his artistic vision cuts to the heart of the matter - even if radical surgery is required to accomplish it. All of his artistic strategy and skill is directed toward making you feel what he has to say. Which is as it should be, since Bash - the artist and individual - says what he feels. This is an eye who looks at the world a little closer than most, sometimes applauding, sometimes lifting the rug of our fragile facades to reveal what we have swept beneath it, willingly or not. On the whole, he manages to successfully escape easy classification. He is neither the follower of any particular "school" of artistic though nor the guru of a new one. His art is his personal medium of communication to the rest of humanity, though the code necessary to interpret it is as the artist intended may sometimes be equally as personal. Both great and small are captured by his brush, in what ever light he sees them. The genuine he memorializes; the hypocritical facade he crucifies. Even his own image is portrayed both ways. |
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| He is neither a pessimist nor an optimist, for his eye sees that the whole world contains both the laudable and the detestable, and that the fate of the future is still waiting for us to decide it. Born in Culver City, California in 1946, Bash began drawing and painting as a child, and like many young boys in the 1950's, he built models, and read
comics, science fiction and hot rod magazines. He Imagined that one day he might become a cartoonist, automobile designer or science fiction artist, but Bash's visionary journey to become a serious fine artist did not truly begin until shortly after a close encounter with the military of the Vietnam era opened his eyes to some of the insanities that to many of us call normal. The eye, once opened, never
allowed itself to close again. Steven Reed Porter |
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| Quotes & Comments by Bash...
"To be asked to provide an explanation for a
painting can be a highly private request.
The reasons and motives for many of them
are personal and not open for debate. Many
of the paintings were intended to be illusive.
You, as the viewer have a part to play in "So, if I offer some insights to the paintings, and they don't seem rock solid, or my view is not shared by millions, that can't be helped. There can only be my personal slant. |
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About The Paintings I've decided in writing about the Automotive paintings, like the rest of my work, not give up their secrets, for example, like who the cars belong to, the locations of the nostalgic scenes, whether real or imagined, and their meanings. The viewer has a part to play in this. I've decided instead, to write about some of the things that crossed my mind at the time I was painting them. I tend to write my ideas down rather than to make sketches. So just about every painting has some text or notes somewhere. I write my Ideas down because when I create a painting I don't want to be doing it for the second time, or to be referring to some already stale drawing or sketch. Many artist like to make sketches, and then to slowly developed the idea into some final drawing to be transferred onto the canvas, redrawn and then to be painted. To me this is more like building something than painting. For me the whole Idea of painting is to go on the adventure/ journey and let it happen as I go. I want the Image to be new. An Idea can be interpreted a number of different ways, I decide as I'm doing it. It's a journey. As for myself the problem of working the painting all out before hand is not a problem, because I don't, this is the fun part of painting, this is what it is all about. This is why I write it down as verses sketching it. With my drawing I'm the same way, in fact I don't sketch at all, even in drawing, if I sit down to draw, I'll create finished art, that's just the way I am. Kent Bash copyright 2001
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Kent's Book Titled "Crusin' Car Culture In America" |
" I wonder if to give an explanation of a painting, is to let go of its magic." Bash Nov. '99 " I live in this slice of time, therefore, it is this time I am most capable of painting about." Bash '82 " I find the medium of painting as an excellent vehicle to visualize insights and observations." Bash '78 |
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" There are countless volumes written on art. The prognosticators, pontificators, critics, curators, and freelance writers that have been busy. But I'm afraid rather than them helping us to understand art, they have only succeeded in helping us understand the art of writing. Painting/art is a language of it's own, it's not a letter and word language. However, at some point in time a few artists took off from their normal duties and designed 26 characters and corralled them into an alphabet so that writers yet to be would have something to do with their spare time. They have been bugging us ever since." Bash '77 |
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Comments Aug 2001 If words alone were adequate, perhaps we wouldn't need art or music.... Kent Bash ,1975 Over the past 30 thousand years or so, we as human beings have managed to create a symbol systems with which to communicate, and bridge the gap of aloneness. It is a manifestation of our ability to think abstractly. When we use this , Letter, Word , sentence, spoken, written language, we quite often find it falls short of conveying all that is felt and thought. A greater knowledge of the words and language will help tremendously, but it's still not complete enough. We obviously take the Idea of communicating very seriously, which seems to explain the apparent simultaneous development of language around the world, but letters and words are still symbols, and as symbols they are subject to the short comings of symbols, that they merely represent. There is nothing wrong with this, but its not the only language used to convey Ideas and to stir the emotions. We have the Language of Art and the Language of Music, with alphabets of their own. The spoken, written language of symbols and their meanings are based on a collective mutual consensus of meanings or definitions. The alphabet of art is a different and a more subjective language, where the focus of definition is left more to the individual, on levels that have little to do with words. A number of years ago I remember seeing a painting of a soldier crouched in a ditch with his head in his hands, It was the aftermath of a battle, and he was the only one left alive. His spirit was crushed, his faith, demolished and he was on his knees weeping. I could have written volumes describing the subtleties of the painting, while the painting conveyed its story without ever lifting a letter or uttering a single word. The story of the painting of coarse, came from my own imagination and from my own library of life experience. Paintings use a visual image alphabet to stir the viewers imagination and personal experience to interpret what's taking place, much in the same way a writer uses letter, word symbols to stir the reader's mind, It's a question of palettes. Kent Bash |
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THE CRITICS DIRTY LITTLE DIS MANTRA
Disquise, disarm, disable, dismantle, discolor, discourage, disembowel, disgust, disenchant, dissuade, disregard and dispose. (1996) Behind the mask, identity is hidden, the fear of being found out is safe for now. The monsters that stir within are free to feast upon all the lies and fakery, while the festering plot is hatched. (1987) If we didn't have the mask, we wouldn't be able to hide the emptiness behind it. (1987) I don't let television set the agenda of what I think about. (1995) |
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" Art needs a theory when it fails to stand on artistic merits." Bash '81 " If art needs a theory, it probably sucks." Bash '82 " There is this old cliche..."That a painting is worth a thousand words." Well, I think that depends on the painting." Bash '85 |
