Meditating on Mark-Making

I find it interesting that some artists share certain graphic elements in their work. This is especially true with abstract painters. One might imagine that these commonalities might be the result of being inspired by others or even copying. That notion might be true to a small extent, however there are some aspects of the painting process integral to a collective consciousness of many abstract painters. I am specifically taking about the impulse for mark-making. Marks that range widely from recognizable symbols and letterforms to undecipherable gestural lines or graffiti-like scratches or drops. I have incorporated marks in most of my painting for decades. Marks that form patterns, marks that are derived from ancient letterforms (both mysterious and readable), marks that are unexplainable. What is behind this phenomena of mark-making in art? What possesses me to make marks? I am usually advised not to ask this kind of question – it is best not to explain I'm told. But I don't want to interpret these mark, I am interested in what inspires a group of seemingly disconnected artists to employ a common artistic language of mark-making in their work. Here are some examples of both emerging and famous artist's work to help illustrate my point about the collectiveness of mark-making (by the way, the last painting's mine).

The above examples are only a tiny representation of artwork that incorporates some form of mark-making. As I embarked on trying to understand why so many artists from all over the world are motivated to express themselves with some sort of mark-making, I felt it was necessary to establish a foundational premise to structure by thought journey. My premise is simply this: The realization that marks possess symbolic qualities beyond their gestural compositional value. It is not necessary to know what a mark symbolizes or even if there is an conscious intention behind creating it. The virtue and beauty of a symbol (mark) is that it can reflect a multitude of meanings.  Meanings that are conditioned by the experiences, culture, and degree of perception of the individual viewer.

Specially shaped marks may be identified as letters. Some letterforms have a lot in common with artist's gestural marks from a cognitive point of view. That is, if we are not of the age or location where the letterforms (symbols) originate we cannot decipher them, rendering us clueless as to their meaning. Despite this, there are some of us who can mysteriously connect with them, just like we do with artist's marks, not needing to know what they represent. Here are some marks or symbols of past ages that I can't read but they speak to me just the same.

These marks possess both meaning and aesthetic beauty. It is always a combination of the intellectual and the emotional. It is the head and heart embracing!

Continuing on my quest for deeper understanding, it seemed logical that I explore written languages. There letterforms were intentionally designed or arranged in an established order. When this occurs they increase in symbolic power – they become words. A letter has little or no meaning disconnected from a word. Words are symbols for concepts, both simple and complex. Because they are symbols they have the capacity to transmit more than one meaning depending on context. When words get organized in higher degrees, grammar and written language come into being, higher levels of communication is possible, understanding is increased and civilization advances.

Now here's a thought that thrilled me: Symbols – letters, numbers, alphabets, words, sentences, paragraphs, books, in fact all accumulated knowledge flows from a single point, which is in reality, the genesis of a mark. A tool pressing into soft clay, a quill or brush stroking papyrus, a pen contacting parchment, or my Pilot V5 fine point scratching the paper of my sketchbook – it all begins with a primal point and then flows in an infinite number of creative and symbolic directions.

Maybe this intellectual concept combined with the pure joy of creation is why I am attracted to mark-making! And possibly that's why collectively many artists (and especially children) are also attracted to it. Who can really say? Most of the time we operate on an intuitive level, we shun the reasoning of this kind of subject. We just feel it – the power of the indecipherable symbol, the cosmic metaphoric thrill of mark-making.