We are as Philip Guston said, “image ridden.” It is there, whether submerged, or on the surface forming relationships with each other, with the paint and with the accumulation of images we all have inside each of us, ready to form narratives, to be interpreted, to be understood. Many times we interpret differently even as we look at the same thing, for images and the readings they make are metaphorical and open-ended.
Approaching painting in this manner is to keep the interpretive experience always fresh, as if it is slightly different every time.
The same can be true with the abstract structure of a painting, that can be formed and reformed as we read across the surface and the depth of the painting with our intellect, for it too is seen as a series of relationships forming narratives of an aesthetic kind. And this too can be reread and experienced on different levels and thus remains open-ended, an allegorical construct.
- Russell Sunabe
