Journey of Discovery
Keith Morant
There cannot be a verbal appraisal of my paintings as, in the final analysis, each is its own self-referential statement, and if it could be written down then the work becomes immediately superfluous. Over the years I have been influenced by many schools of artistic thought and have worked in seclusion (and often great frustration) in an effort to improve on this or that theory or aesthetic. Sometimes it seemed that I destroyed more paintings than I had actually painted and I learnt well the truth of old Picasso’s words: "You do a thousand to get half of one." However, the continued pressures experienced through projecting mind into matter has finally begun to pay off and I find that I can now more frequently produce a pictorial statement that is to my satisfaction. I have now attained a deeper understanding of my compulsion and it seems that a greater part of the answer lay in allowing the unconscious and intuitional more ‘headroom’ in the area of reasoned and intellectual creative effort.
By running my unconscious alongside of my intellectuality in the act of painting there are moments of peak experience where my metaphysical truth emerges as a (for want of a better word) language. This language has been termed "highly idiosyncratic," and quite rightly so. It is the signatorial truth of my existence as a human being–a truth that I hope, because of its intensity of original mentation, will communicate to future minds.
Rather than have any ulterior purpose in the form of religious, political or social messages, my art is always a journey of discovery into the essence of being. It is an attempt to externalize the truth of my own existence on as many levels as possible, always in an effort to communicate a greater awareness of the exuberance and quality of life. It is my hope that the work will stimulate future enquiry into the greater spheres of understanding that still lie beyond contemporary intellection, and that while initially seen only by the eye, may eventually be perceived by mind. It is my view that if a creator has the power to communicate his existential truth, then because of his very humanity, his statement may become a valid addition to the grammar of mans evolutionary language. The feelings of today are the thoughts of tomorrow.
Creative Impetus
When I begin a painting I know that, apart from a strong urge to create and a highly developed instinctual direction with tools and materials, there can be no specific design or plan for the picture as a finished product. Following a period of psychological and emotional incubation there emerges an overwhelming physical compulsion to project thought and emotion into material existence. This compulsion is, and always has been, the greatest and most essential force of my personality. It is a force that I have become fully reconciled with as that of nature creating through my being. In trying to analyze this phenomenon objectively I have come to believe that it really has very little to do with the ego entity known as "me."
In my work I try to emulate the power of music and evoke the universal through the specific. It seems that this is only achieved when certain synchronizations of conscious and unconscious mentalities are attained. I often seem to be working at the very edges of my mind where I become deeply involved with the great dichotomy of the known and the unknown. It is like treading a fine tightrope across the abyss between meaning and futility, and the further I move out the more I leave logic and conscious reasoning behind. It is through this mental and emotional balancing act that I may encounter a new order, which I would term the logic of chaos–Nature itself. Here is where my search begins, where the battles are lost or won. I fight to capture a fresh and vital sensibility; a new state which, while it may initially emerge as totally alien in its self-referentiality, still project the potential for a higher order, an order that remains absolute until, through time, it may prove relative in its stimulation of greater conscious awareness.
I see art as the ultimate exertion of the communicative energy we regard as nature, and as with any newly discovered phenomena, it will always initially defy analysis by human intelligence. It is an inspirational precursor to human intellectualization and therefore functions as an inbuilt reflective generator of human progress.
All existence is creative impetus and, on that premise, I see no point to life other than creativity. I am very aware of the possible indifference of the Universe, and in coming to terms with this, I realize that the most obvious and greatest truth to mankind is the Creative Principle. I believe that if my little life is to hold any sense of purpose at all then it must be in the effort towards alignment with that principle.
