ARTIST STATEMENT / CREATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS ESSAY
Peter Scaturro – Artist Statement – 2019
I am a Napa Valley, California artist who is spiritually empowered to paint and sculpt. This intimate personal experience passionately inspires me from within to create. It is an inner need. Directions of what to paint/sculpt rise from an inner quiet and aide me in executing the work. I share in the lineage of abstract artists such as Kandinsky, Mondrian and lately Hilma af Klint. I have as well long been attracted to the Mystic Way ( Eckhart, Merton, Underhill and Eastern influences) which requires deepening inner silence in order to hear beyond the senses and the intellect. I am at the top of my talent when by seasoned intuition and grace I experience unity with the creative process. The creation of colorful, heartfelt and truthfully expressive paintings/sculptures source from this experience. The artistic wisdom I gain is to keep emptying my willful self trustfully into the larger experience of creation where unimagined artworks are born. I am driven to push the mediums past traditional boundary's of abstract expressionism to a visual language of my own. It is a rich paradox of freedom and inner struggle. I marvel when I have finished a work at who/what really created it. This is a distinctive trans-personal experience. I believe my artwork is a detailed visual record of my transformative path towards universal wholeness. Color and line are the primary vehicles that express my emotional states which range from the powerfully exhausting to sublimely liberating. Compositions of the paintings are formed by shapes that support the expression of this inner life. Juxtaposition of foreground, middleground and background areas create engaging spacial tension on a flat surface because they interact causing a suspension of feeling grounded. Awe might rise upon experiencing this. Then on the other hand some paintings lean towards being more solid with large areas of flat color expressing a more stable state at the time of painting. The traditional transparency of watercolor next to an opaque use of acrylic further enhances the variety of spacial atmosphere in the paintings. Like a visual parable I hope my art will raise the viewers interest to pause long in wonder of what they are seeing, open their heart and realize the excitement of the unknown...of our shared mystery. Abstraction is for me the perfect genre to express this. I am told by collector's of my work they are called back to continue a deepening relationship with the abstract presence of the artwork over time. I have worked at the discipline of daily meditation for years. I have had moments of experiencing the expansive inner freedom of no thought. My awareness of being present while I work has grown considerably because of this practice. Yes I have a noisy mind too but not as much as it used to be. This practice of quiet mindfulness can refresh the otherwise repetitive cycle of stale painting/sculpture imagery. Conversely the diversity of imagery in my paintings/sculptures is due to this open awareness while creating. Besides color, many who connect to my work are intuitively drawn to it by the essential magnetism of the creative force found deep in life's common core. Ultimately the visual experience for the viewer can be an emotionally heightened and lasting union with a unique kind of abstract beauty. My work invites you to experience it beyond thought.
Please feel free to contact me via e-mail: [email protected] or via my web site: www.peterscaturro.com or by cell 707-299-8652 during business hours.
Thank You.
The Creative Consciousness
The creative consciousness--the more you explore it the more awake your mind becomes. It is the very consciousness of the process of creation. It is the living of it while executing a work in progress that takes practice. This is my aim as I paint and sculpt with clay. One of my key experiences while in the process of creation is the gradual disempowerment of self. Its' seemingly once all powerful intellect, its' emotional joy's and conflict's and its' five senses begin to lose the omnipotence they once enjoyed during the creation of a work of art. It feels like the rug is slowly being pulled out from under it's illusion of control. Self's limited faculties cloud the creative consciousness for it is already full of infinite potential and unimaginable probilities in it's clear, unified and original state. In the absence of the once domineering thoughts of what degree of transparency the paint should be, will I achieve the right luminous purple by using a carmine red with a base of thalo blue, what thickness of line, what shapes and where they will be juxtaposed to other's, what speed, direction, and size of brush stroke, how much delicate intimacy or brash explosive boldness should be used, whether to have sharply focused edges or a softly muted swathe of spacious color, how much expressed motion or stillness and how will the microstreams of water and color flood, blend or repel one another on the surface of a paper that has a pebbled texture are just some of the former considerations. The technical as well as the aesthetic considerations while painting or sculpting can be overwhelming to the Self and it's limited ego's intellect. As I master the medium of watercolor or clay by letting it master me and then forget who is mastering who, over time, a time not of my choosing, a security in a state of unknowing and uncertainty is found and these endless considerations dwindle. After more time what seemed to once be uncertainty becomes a certainty in faith and trust in the truer creative process. This intuitive/spiritual sensitivity leads the way through the creation of a work of art that hopefully touches a universal ground of communication to those that see it and experience it.