On Painting Ceilings

Kazimir Malevich 
Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918) 
Oil on canvas (79.5 x 79.5 cm)

I.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is certainly an impressive piece of interior decorating and design, incorporating over 340 figures, both clothed and nude, allowing the artist to fully demonstrate his skill in creating a huge variety of poses for the human body (poses that have been much imitated ever since). 

Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo painted in a standing position, not lying flat on his back, and endured great physical discomfort; eye strain, neck ache, muscle cramps, etc. Little wonder then that he bodged certain sections and that it was left unfinished. Nevertheless, according to Goethe, those who haven't seen this work for themselves can have no appreciable idea of what greatness a single man is capable.


II.

I was thinking of Michelangelo and his High Renaissance masterpiece whilst painting a ceiling in my mother's house over the weekend. Not that I drew inspiration from the Italian; that came rather from the avant-garde Russian artist Kazimir Malevich and his Suprematist composition of 1918 entitled White on White (shown above).  

For that's essentially what I was doing: painting white on white, inch after inch and one polystyrene foam tile after another, using Farrow and Ball's All White Estate emulsion; an expensive but soft and sympathetic paint which provides a chalky, very matt finish, with just a 2% sheen (which is more than enough lustre for any ceiling in my view).      

Whilst most people today probably prefer to use a roller and get the job done as quickly and as conveniently as possible, I like to take my time and prefer to use a small (12 mm) brush, ensuring that individual brush strokes and small imperfections remain evident; the thought of machine-perfect smoothness - or machine-smooth perfection - is anathema to my tastes. 

Having now completed the second coat, I have to confess that I prefer my ceiling in all its infinite and abstract whiteness to Michelangelo's, which - for me - is far too busy and show-offy. It's nice to dispense with illusions of depth and to also rid painting of representation and colour. The foam tiles - that were so popular at one time, but which are now deemed to be a fire hazard - provide a richly textured surface.      

Although I don't much care for his ideal fantasies of purity and spiritual transcendence, I share something of Malevich's exhilaration and know exactly what he means when he claims in his 1919 manifesto to have overcome the lining of the coloured sky and learnt how to swim in the freedom of the white abyss ...

On Entering and Exiting the Fourth Dimension with Gedvile Bunikyte

Portrait of the Artist Gedvile Bunikyte (a.k.a. Grace B) 

by Helena Wimmer (2015)

For those of us who do not belong to the art world and have only limited knowledge of what goes on in this realm where lines and colours and large sums of money reign supreme, there's long been a belief that Suprematism died sometime shortly after Socialist Realism triumphed over geometric abstraction; i.e., when the brutal expression of political ideology negated pure artistic feeling.

Apparently, however, that wasn't the case: Suprematism survived - and still lives on to this day, as we discover in the fascinating work of Gedvile Bunikyte, a.k.a. Grace B., over whose pictures the ghost of Malevich lingers.  

Using a few basic shapes and a limited range of colours, Gedvile takes us back to the future and dares us to experience again the intensity of emotion that belongs to art whenever it frees itself from the banal attempt to visually depict objective reality and allows itself to dream of unseen worlds and vibrate to strange rhythms and possibilities of being.

Miss Bunikyte is, we might say - using a rather old-fashioned idea - an artist of the fourth dimension. In other words, whilst she wants to make some kind of real (but withdrawn) presence immediately visible within the realm of time and space, thereby introducing into our field of vision  something which is neither optical nor merely symbolic, she wants also to transport us to a very different space that is, if you like, outside the gate. 

Nietzsche thought of this space as one of dangerous knowledge, full of tigers and rattle snakes and all the other wonders that the hot sun hatches. But for Gedvile, it needn't be quite such a savage exteriority and contains not only wild beasts, but mathematical equations and beautiful abstractions; a creative realm in which things come to perfection and new forces and forms arise.  

Now, all this might sound suspiciously like the worst kind of mysticism or idealism; an attempt to leave behind the real world of things. However, I'm tempted to think that we might better interpret Miss Bunikyte's work as a weird and speculative form of realism; albeit one concerned with virtual objects rather than actual entities. Thus, unlike those who find all forms of geometric abstraction puerile, I think there's something philosophically interesting and contemporary about her work.     

Gedvile tries to find her own way forward governed by a certain precision, clarity, and discipline. But so too is there a rhythmic violence and an experience of chaos in her work, adding to its beauty and its power. Follow the rhythm and plunge into the chaos and you'll reach the point at which lived experience confronts its limit.

But, crucially, rhythm also relates closely to the question of sympathy - a concept central to modernism - and, by her own confession, Miss Bunikyte is primarily interested in exploring how colours and shapes can express a physiology of feeling. In other words, she's an artist who wants us to feel our way into tomorrow and who, via a series of ever more fascinating abstractions, attests to the intrusion of an occluded realm into the visual world of figuration. 

By providing an artistic medium between natural science, esoteric philosophy, and personal fantasy, Gedvile has created a visionary system and an uncanny paraspace that is both inspirational and transformational; pulsing with real and imaginary energies, her geometrical abstractions challenge and reconfigure the earlier fourth dimensional constructions of late nineteenth and early-twentieth century art.

Like Ouspensky whom she so admires, Gedvile provides us with a small key to the enigmas of the universe. And for that we should be grateful.

Planets, Mountains and Mystical Planes (2014)

Note: those interested in knowing more about Miss Bunikyte and seeing further examples of her work should visit her website: studiogedvilebunikyte.com