“The Artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him…”
—Casper David Friedrich (1774 – 1840)
Richard Nattoo, The Black is Disturbed, Watercolor, pen & ink, on Japanese Yupo, 48” X 31.5'“
Richard Nattoo, b. 1993, is a Jamaican Artist, architect and musician. His love and passion for art began at an early age. In High school his teachers recognized his talent and encouraged him to pursue an art education. Concerned that Art school would interfere with his ideas and style, he did not attend. He is interested in the human condition. Watercolor, glass, pen and ink are his media. He has been exhibiting his work since 2012.
“True Philosophy consists in the relearning to look at the world”
--Maurice Merleau-Ponty , 1945
Art Hedge welcomes you to our first art seminar on the “Aesthetic of painting”, with Professor Richard Nattoo. For those who know Richard, your reaction might be, “Wait. I didn’t know that he had a PhD”. You are correct he doesn’t. But Art Hedge has granted him our Honorary Degree. We did not do so glibly. Richard’s intellectual facility, heft has earned him the title. He is a natural philosopher of the aesthetics of painting. His ideas about the artwork-viewer relationship put him in the same league as the German Romantics, Violet Paget, a British Romantic, aka, Vernon Lee, Theodor Lipps and philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The German Romantics Romantics, Friedrich Vischer and his son, Richard, were interested in aesthetics as a way of understanding nature and art by “Feeling into” the landscape or the painting. The younger Vischer coined the term “Einfühlung” for the concept of “Feeling into”. What is remarkable, Richard did not study philosophy. His art practice has been his teacher, his Don.
What separates Richard from the rest of his colleagues? Certainly not passion. Lots of artists are passionate about art making. Nattoo separates from the rest because, of his high level of creativity; curiosity about himself, art making and the human condition. He embraces the spirit of inquiry, and experimentation. A keen observer, he makes connections, draws inferences and gains deep levels of insight. He listens and learns from his painting. Richard eschews rationalism; like the Romantics, Schopenhauer and Merleau-Ponty. He is a true intellectual. An original.
Richard’s current practice explores, “Emotions and Feelings”, his emotions and challenges the conventional view of the “Artwork- viewer” relationships; his ideas are novel and are similar to Paget’s. These paintings, we are calling them, “The Feelings series”, have a Basquiat-like sensibility. They are playful, even The Black is Disturbed; delightfully primitive and animistic (In a Tylorian way, but certainly not pejorative). Yes Richard, we hear them talking too! Art Hedge is awestruck with the “Feelings series” and would be greedy, remiss, not to share them with you. So, we are honored, pleased to introduce the paintings to you (see if you can hear what they are saying) and their genius creator, Professor Richard Nattoo.
The reference material for the seminar is Art Therapy: RXR, produced by Richard. (The evidence upon which we based our decision to grant Richard the Honorary Doctorate):
Nattoo’s “Dialogue”
Richard Nattoo, The Sepia is Aroused, watercolor and pen & ink on Japanese Yupo, 48” x 31.5”
The Existential question: Why?
Art Therapy: RxR
R1: “Richard, why am I painting these images?”
R2: “Because you have to! Now tell me why you have to paint these images.”
R1: “…I paint these images because I want to talk about emotions and feelings. And… I guess these paintings to explore that narrative. And they challenge the narrative of the artwork versus the viewer…”
What are Emotions, Feelings?
R1: “…You see…emotions are just chemical…Put them outside of the context of the brain…are they still feeling? …My paints, they are not inside (The brain) reacting on anyone…but my paints…have a way of reacting to persons externally…”
How did this all start?
ART THERAPY: RXR
R1: “They started as junk paintings….”
R2: “Drunk paintings?!”
R1: “They started as junk paintings….on HiG… I liked mixing the colours…I feel so alive painting those things. Because it wasn’t about me trying to get the right form or the proportions. It wasn’t about that…It was about me being one with the colour…expressing my love to paint. And then I saw a lot of things coming out… (of me) When I let go of some of these things it created this type of energy that was untainted and was just true. It was not about what other people think. It was so much about me. And that was something special…That was something special, really, really special…”
Richard Nattoo, The Sepia is Convinced, Watercolor, pen & ink, on Archival paper (130 lb.), 24” x 36”
“Painting, poetry, philosophy have boldly forged ahead by giving us a very new vision characteristics of our time of objects, space, animals, even humans, seen from outside, as they appear within our conceptual field. ”
—Arthur Schopenhauer
The Self and Painting: Letting go of “Ego”
“…It is by lending his body to the world that the artist changes the world into paintings…”
—Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind” (1961)
R1: “…With these paintings I am trying to create a direct line… of emotional communication between the art work and the viewer…by stripping away ‘ego’: which is the noise barrier between us and how we feel …what we are allowed to feel.”
ART THERAPY: RXR
R1: “There is a certain art of falling when you create these works...” Imagine a dark room with every skill that you get a light goes on; these skills are things you learn in school…Certain drawing conventions: proportion, form, light, shadow… When I am creating these works I have to turn off all those lights. And I …have just one single candle that I use to go around the room and try to light my path. That light is my internal light. When I am creating these works I have to turn off all those lights…”
Living with the Creations
ART THERAPY: RXR
R1: “…. When I get up…I see The Crimson is astonished and I see Indigo is Aroused…Some people might say his is ‘slick’. Indigo is a little bit frightening…(just ‘slick’). In the bathroom The Emerald is chastised”. They look at me…I have to live with these paintings because they teach me so much…”
The Artist and painting relationship
ART THERAPY: RXR
R1: “…And when I look a people like Mark Rothko, those large scale paintings, in order to feel these paintings you have to bring a part of yourself to the painting…with those works, the painting is bringing it self to you. Now can you accept what the painting is trying to tell you? Can you accept what the paintings are telling you…to float. Because that what these paintings feel like…They feel like floating on top of water…If you have been to a river and… fall back and let the wave carry you. That’s how I feel like painting them…And I think that’s the experience that a lot of these paintings give the viewer.”
Can Art challenge the human condition?
R1: “…How the paintings react on persons externally…I am…trying to create a direct human connection…trying to challenge the human condition. With these paintings I am trying to create a direct communication, of emotional communication by stripping away ego: which is the noise barrier between us and …what we are allowed to feel…How I think I have done that? I have given the power to the paintings, per se. I give the feelings to the paintings. So instead of the paintings telling the viewer how to feel, the painting is telling the viewer how it feels.”
The willingness to learn
R1: “I think there is something special, different, that these paintings are trying to tell me. They are trying to teach me something special and quite phenomenal. That there is a lesson in all of this. That I can take back to my other work…The thing is…I can’t stop painting. It all boils down to either paint…or die.”
Richard shows us that to create paintings like these you are not thinking; instead you are operating in a non-rationalist, non-judgmental, accepting mode. Free to create. You “dim the lights in the room” to create sentient, animated paintings. paintings that are alive.
—Nattoo is brilliant. He has found a way to paint his feelings By assuming a-way-of-being: an ‘ego’ free state, where the harsh lights in the darkroom are off, he can move about it with a sole candle, his “Internal light”, to guide him. He gives birth to paintings that are alive; they speak. Richard has found another perspective of viewing and experiencing art. One which could be a balm from the human condition. By relinquishing ‘ego’ and giving power to the painting (Art), we can reverse the conventional way of viewing art. Through the reversed lens, the painting becomes the subject (the doer of the action): it “sees”, “looks”, “gazes” at us, suffering humans. We are now free to learn from the paintings and by extension the World. We can float!
Thank you Professor Nattoo for your profound insights, and openness.
For the audience: Your questions, comments, concerns. We would love to hear from you.
Other Works by Richard Nattoo
