There is no figure. There is no ground.

Monochromes are one of the most important forms of Modern painting. Artists have produced them since the onset of abstract or "non-representational" painting. They are an ultimate refusal of one of the primary objectives in painting as most people understand it, illusion.

There is no figure.

There is no ground.

Kazmir Malevich, 1918

Taken in this respect, the monochrome is an obvious denial, a negative. Certainly this is an understandable point of view. Greenbergian Modernism outlines this model, the exclusion of everything not essential to painting. In effect reducing thousands of years of "progress" to little more than a piece of colored cloth. This is reinforced by the declaration in the mid-twentieth century that painting was dead, that it had exhausted its content and lost its authoritative power over modern society.

Ad Reinhardt, 1960's

installation view of Ad Reinhardt's black paintings

On the other hand it can be argued that the Monochrome opens up the possibility of painting and its uniqueness and originality. The obvious comparison here is to the blank canvas and its seemingly unlimited potential. Monochromes may be seen as a way of unlocking Painting's frame to the outside world much like John Cage did with musical compositions in his iconic "4' 33"."

Installation of Ellsworth Kelly paintings.

Of course both of these takes on the Monochrome are extremely generalized and do not articulate the tens of thousands of individual approaches to the form. Personally, I use the Monochrome for both of these reasons. It is at once a reminder of the frailty of its form as well as a symbol of its strength and endurance.

Brent W. Collins
"Untitled (Blue Broken Grid)", 2000
Post-It notes on wall

I use the specific form of the Monochrome as a sign of painting, drawing attention to itself as material and form all at once. The paintings become the objects. The paint becomes physical and instead of asking us to think about illusion we are confronted with an object in real space.

Brent W. Collins, "Untitled (Six)", 2005
Latex paint on vellum with hardware

Brent W. Collins, "Untitled (Double  Censor)", 2006
Latex paint on vellum with hardware

I like the idea that a painting can be ambiguous, its only certainty is itself. My monochromes remain forceful and passive. They insist on the viewer to become a part of their system of reference. They exist in our space. They are confrontational. This confrontation does not just come from their physicality, but also from their politic.

Brent W. Collins, "Untitled (Attempting Monochrome)", 2002
Latex paint on MDF

Brent W. Collins, "Untitled (Formal Abstract Experimental Object 4)", 2008
Enamel on 2x4

I think it is important, detrimental, for a work of art to be able to sustain a dialogue with the viewer. I do this by interrupting the viewers' expected experience with an object. Frustration and denial are built in to the work.

Brent W. Collins, "Untitled (Apparent 3)", 2001
Concrete on linen

An Introduction

apparent:

            adjective

            Clearly visible or understood; obvious.

            Seeming real or true, but not necessarily so.

"Untitled (Pale 4)" 1999
latex paint on 100 bricks

I am an artist. In particular, I am interested in using painting as a tool to explore complex philosophical ideas. Painting can be simply defined as a surface coated with color or pigment, or as the action of producing such an object. Given this broad definition, how are we to delineate between “art” and “ordinary?” We are left questioning context, intention, and function. It is this slippery spot where definition becomes insufficient and relativity becomes apparent that interests me. So, I approach painting from many points on its periphery all at once; as object, as surface, as illusion, as action, as material. This is not saying that any single work produced embodies all these places, but rather that all the works taken into consideration at once begin to solidify the concepts that concern me.

Installation view of work in "Beyond the Second Dimension"
Painted Desert Gallery, Lancaster, PA, 2010

Philosophically, I am a phenomenologist. The idea that the only “true” object exists in the mind of the perceiver, created from a hybrid of sensed and learned knowledge, is by no means new, but is more poignant in our current condition than ever. Knowledge is fragmented into systems of digital data. Computers are on the verge of super-intelligence while the virtual world of video games grows increasingly complex. The real and the fictive are blurred through “Reality TV.” Today, we are presented with more succinct examples of the relative nature of reality than we have ever been in the past. This, like the insufficiency of simple definitions like that of “painting,” is what I am interested in.

Installation view of work in "Collision Cross Section"
GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, Reading, PA, 2011

Generally, I do not intend the works to explain these conditions universally, but rather to use the very specific example of Painting as an object lesson to create works that live at the edges. The works operate only minimally as “paintings.” 

Installation view of work in "Collision Cross Section"
Showing "Untitled (First Proposition for the Construction
of a Painting in the Post-Historical Age, Version 2)" in
foreground, and "Untitled (Necrophilia)" on left in rear