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Doug Purnell: Six Triptychs, Artists and the Holy in the New Millenium. April 5, - May 14, 1999. Comments by Dr. Gregor Goethals, Professor Emeritus and form Dean of Graduate Studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, 8pm, April 12, 1999.
Recently, I placed a triptych in the Chapel at United Theological College in Sydney and was delightfully amazed to listen to a student telling her home congregation how she was mesmerized by teh wrok, drawn into it in ways that shaped her worship. Be still before the work. Don't try to work out what it is. It is paint on canvas, colour and line and texture, hopefully banlanced to please th eye, excite the heart, and touch the deeper parts of your being. In the stillness be open to the voice of the painting within you. Perhaps I have managed to paint some work for the worship space. Douglas Purnell, March 1999 Curator's Statement Doug Purnell first came to Wesley Theological Seminary as Artist-in-Residens in the late summer of 1994. During that time, he became known not only for his large, evocative, non-objective canvasses but also for his intelligent, thoughtful contribution to the ongoing discussion of the place of art in theological education. Toward the end of 1998, Purnell was invited again, this time as a Scholar-in-Residence, to share his ideas and experiences as scholar and teacher of Pastoral Theology, as well as to paint. The six triptychs in this exhibition were created during this more recent visit. In the years since his first encounter with WTS, much has stayed the same in his work, and much has changed. Now, as then, Purnell's method of painting is very direct and unpremeditated, with each brush stroke reacting to whatever is on the canvas as an ecstatic dancer might react to music. At that time, however, he worked mainly on large, single canvasses, each an independent flow of light and color and possibility that seemed as though they could extend in every direction. These, more recent, paintings continue to be equally boundless, but by confining himself to a triptych format in which each canvas is the same size as the others, and must related to one another, Purnell has propelled the sense of the infinite into a different dimension. Instead of pushing outward beyond the physical confine of their four edges, these paintings draw the viewer inward towards infinite depths beyond the edges of perception. Purnell is primarily a self-taught artist, having worked in the studio of David Mercy in Melbourne for two years in teh mid 1970's and learned drawing form Tom George during a time as scholar in residence at Princeton Seminary in 1986, and has exhibited widely in Australia. His doctoral disseratation at San Francisco Theological Seminary was entitled Doing Theology Through Expressive Art: A Series of Paintings Informed by the Theology of Paul Tillich. Purnell is an ordained minister of the Uniting Church in Australia, and currently head of the Pastoral Theology Department at United Theological College, Sydney, Australia. Deborah Sokolove |
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The artists who created the works of art shown here own the
copyrights to them. send comments or questions about the gallery to
the curator at: |
Questions
often take a long time to answer in paint. When I was an
artist-in-residence at the Center for the Arts and Religion/WTS
in 1994 I was challenged to paint some work for the chapel. Even
though I had painted a series of works for a worship space as
part of my doctoral studies, I didn't seem to see a way to
respond to the question. It stayed in the back of my mind for
four years. I continued to paint non-objective paintings. I knw
that my paintings were about the mystery that is beyond easy
apprehension in life; I knew that in some ways they were speaking
a language that was just beyond where words could reach; every so
often I would be delightfully surprised by someone speaking a
truth that I had wanted to say but not been able to voice in
words. One person wrote after six pain-filled weeks with
pancreatitis of the joy he found in a particular painting; the
artist, he said, "has made possible a meeting with light and
sometimes Light and joy."
The question
remained about creating works for a worship space. Then in a
wonderfully serendipitous moment I met Friedhelm Mennekes.
Actually I met Rosemary Crumlin who had created a major
exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne,
Austrlia): "Beyond Belief: Religious Art and the Twentieth
Century Imagination" and she introduced me to Friedhelm.
Friedhelm Mennekes is a German Jesuit pastoral theologian whom
Rosemary described as "Mr. God of Art and Theology in
Europe." I listened with awe to his lecture. In the bookshop
I found a book he had written (Triptychon) documenting
how he had taken all religious artifacts from his church in
Cologne, painted the interior white, and asked world-quality
artists to create triptychs for the worship space. I was
fascinated by photographs of the work and their power to add
depth and dimension to worship. In the book he recounted the
history of the triptych.
As I journeyed
back to the Center for the Arts and Religion and Wesley in
Washington, I decided that the triptych would be an appropriate
vehicle by which I could paint some work specifically for the
worship space. They are not painted with any particular
liturgical seasons in mind. That is not the way I paint. I put
paint on the canvas almost at random to begin with, then listen
to the paint, to my inner voices, to life and I attempt to create
something aesthetically pleasing. The paintings don't come to
life easitly. I leave the studio one day thinking I have created
something of value, but the next day it has withered. Again I
listen to what is happening in the painting and I refine what is
there (I am guided by the words of Picasso "Destroy one's
picture. Recreate it many times. On each destruction of a
beautiful find, the artist does not suppress it to tell the
truth, rather he [sic] transforms it, condenses it, makes it more
substantial. The issue is the result of rejected discoveries.
Otehrwise one becomes one's own admirere. " sell myself
nothing!" [Brewster Ghiselen, ed. The Creative Process,
Mentor Books, 1952, New York, p 55-60]. In my work there are many
such refinements. Peculiarly as I get older, paintings take much
longer to emerge. Perhaps I am become aware that life is less
obvious, less straight-forward, more elusive and demands a more
thorough searching in order to express/name it. The answers I had
no longer seem to work, life is too complex, there are many
subtleties, may nuances. I keep overpainting until the painting
has a life that satisfies me, then tentatively, I release it.