Jonathan Lasker (b. 1948, USA)
The Quotidian and The Question, 2007

For the time being I list this one provisionally, “just in case”. I’ve been doing some “live drawing” from TV lately that resulted in somewhat similar doodley drawing that I am considering to deploy in future paintings. But that is just one of hundreds projects on my list, so I am not sure if and when it may be realised. In the meanwhile I saw some affinity with Lasker’s painting, so thought I’d rather make a note of it before I forget.

It is also a painting from that weird category I have “things that annoy me, but that could also be mine”. I have not grasped that category myself yet, but some works manifest for me a kind of tension field where on one side they seem very simple, boring, quotidian, incomplete or otherwise disturbing – but at the same time they have some evasive quality that makes them feel very familiar, very dear, kind of “mine”. Reminding me of some vision I had, an attempt of something I’ve made or something that I actually quite enjoy doing but do not deem to be worthy of anybody else’s attention.

So here I recognise the doodles, I recognise the “zoom” onto one of them highlighting its aesthetic quality that gets lost in multiplicity, a contrast with something solid – yet similar in its outline. Colours that revel in their complementarity, but then challenge it or assimilate it. A kind of hermeneutic circle of zooming into a detail, opposing it, zooming out again, picking on another detail, opposing it, zooming out again – following some kind of invisible path that leads to unknown destination but nevertheless seems very “natural”… And it does not matter that Lasker’s process and thinking may be totally different – the work as it is does something for me, sends me to that tension field where I feel slightly embarrassed for feeling attracted to it even if I don’t know what I am embarrassed about or what it is that attracts me.