“Grace digs sin up by the roots, for it questions the validity of our present existence and status. It takes our breath, ignores us as we are, and treats us as what we are not—as new men.” (Barth; Epistle to the Romans)
Aaron Gosser, MFA
acgosser@gmail.com
937.875.0545
acgosser@gmail.com
937.875.0545
CONCEPT
(1)
This work is a confession. My heart is wormed-through with lust and greed, pride and piety, an unstable alloy of flesh and spirit wherein even my best efforts ring hollow, a clanging cymbal. But, not so fast: don’t be fooled by the seeming sincerity of my disclosure. This work may also be a justification. In truth it’s both.
(2)
You’re not looking at 100 paintings, but rather a single portrait, the entirety of a man’s life. The prominent 20th century theologian Karl Barth exists in my work as a singularity — an icon — simultaneously the writer struggling to pen man’s relationship to the ineffable otherness of God, as well as the husband arranging his domestic life around an ongoing extramarital relationship with his secretary. It’s unintelligible and inexcusable. It’s also utterly unexceptional. A Christian hypocrite? Move along; nothing new to see here. What I find unique in Barth however is that his theology — which had an impact on me long before I learned of the incongruity of his life — is an expression of just such a tension. Man is truly unjustifiable! And therefore the Grace of God must remain wholly incomprehensible. “Though I, in my visible existence and knowledge and will, cannot possibly, as I am, escape the guilt of sin; yet, in my relation to the new man which I am not, I cannot even for one moment reckon with the possibility of guilt.” (Barth; Epistle to the Romans) You’re not looking at 100 paintings. You’re looking at a single portrait, the entirety of mankind.
(3)
I stumbled upon Karl Barth and his Epistle to the Romans over a decade ago while preparing to teach an adult Sunday School class on the new testament letter. It wasn’t intentional; the book was purchased on a whim. Barth was a name I had head of, never read, and I thought his might be a fun addition to the more standard fare of commentaries already in my Amazon basket. I remember the day, several weeks into the study, when I finally opened the book to compare notes. Expecting another dry, technical breakdown of biblical language and culture, I was met instead by something rather like a manifesto, a text as radically alive as the letter to which it responded. I was smitten almost immediately.
There is nothing so beautiful, so inexhaustible or unassailable that given time, the human heart won’t simply digest it into the stuff of ordinary existence. The language of Barth’s dialectical theology has the effect of breathing new life into familiar concepts, allowing the reader to glimpse with fresh eyes the all encompassing ‘otherness’ of the transcendent God, the utter hopelessness of man, and the scandalous, outrageous Grace of God revealed in Christ.
Can we be shocked by the Gospel once again? Can we be stripped of our rational religion built of human sensibilities? “There are no human avenues of approach, no ‘way of salvation’; to faith there is no ladder which must first be scaled. … For all faith is both simple and difficult; for all alike it is a scandal, a hazard, a ’Nevertheless’; to all it presents the same embarrassment and the same promise: for all it is a leap into the void. And it is possible for all only because for all it is equally impossible.” (Barth; Epistle to the Romans)
(1)
This work is a confession. My heart is wormed-through with lust and greed, pride and piety, an unstable alloy of flesh and spirit wherein even my best efforts ring hollow, a clanging cymbal. But, not so fast: don’t be fooled by the seeming sincerity of my disclosure. This work may also be a justification. In truth it’s both.
(2)
You’re not looking at 100 paintings, but rather a single portrait, the entirety of a man’s life. The prominent 20th century theologian Karl Barth exists in my work as a singularity — an icon — simultaneously the writer struggling to pen man’s relationship to the ineffable otherness of God, as well as the husband arranging his domestic life around an ongoing extramarital relationship with his secretary. It’s unintelligible and inexcusable. It’s also utterly unexceptional. A Christian hypocrite? Move along; nothing new to see here. What I find unique in Barth however is that his theology — which had an impact on me long before I learned of the incongruity of his life — is an expression of just such a tension. Man is truly unjustifiable! And therefore the Grace of God must remain wholly incomprehensible. “Though I, in my visible existence and knowledge and will, cannot possibly, as I am, escape the guilt of sin; yet, in my relation to the new man which I am not, I cannot even for one moment reckon with the possibility of guilt.” (Barth; Epistle to the Romans) You’re not looking at 100 paintings. You’re looking at a single portrait, the entirety of mankind.
(3)
I stumbled upon Karl Barth and his Epistle to the Romans over a decade ago while preparing to teach an adult Sunday School class on the new testament letter. It wasn’t intentional; the book was purchased on a whim. Barth was a name I had head of, never read, and I thought his might be a fun addition to the more standard fare of commentaries already in my Amazon basket. I remember the day, several weeks into the study, when I finally opened the book to compare notes. Expecting another dry, technical breakdown of biblical language and culture, I was met instead by something rather like a manifesto, a text as radically alive as the letter to which it responded. I was smitten almost immediately.
There is nothing so beautiful, so inexhaustible or unassailable that given time, the human heart won’t simply digest it into the stuff of ordinary existence. The language of Barth’s dialectical theology has the effect of breathing new life into familiar concepts, allowing the reader to glimpse with fresh eyes the all encompassing ‘otherness’ of the transcendent God, the utter hopelessness of man, and the scandalous, outrageous Grace of God revealed in Christ.
Can we be shocked by the Gospel once again? Can we be stripped of our rational religion built of human sensibilities? “There are no human avenues of approach, no ‘way of salvation’; to faith there is no ladder which must first be scaled. … For all faith is both simple and difficult; for all alike it is a scandal, a hazard, a ’Nevertheless’; to all it presents the same embarrassment and the same promise: for all it is a leap into the void. And it is possible for all only because for all it is equally impossible.” (Barth; Epistle to the Romans)
PROCESS
100 Portraits began as intentionally quick oil sketches on old surfaces, mostly small canvas panels from years past. As a professor of art teaching painting, I usually have a surplus of abandoned student studies at the semester’s end to discard or recycle. This would become one of the hallmarks of the project, with every surface either similarly painted over or appropriated from another intended work. While obviously jump-starting the individual work’s tonality and texture, I also feel the process relates to the “layers” within Barth. Some of my favorites strongly leverage the underlying painting, an adapted collaboration with students often long graduated, many of whose names still grace the verso. Often however, the process isn’t so straightforward; when sketches fail to materialize, they have become subsequent layers beneath the final work — Barth on Barth… on Barths. In this way, the multiplicity of personas the body of work represents is also addressed in the individual panel.
These are mostly quick paintings, representing my favorite part of the process, what’s usually regarded as underpainting. An underpainting can be explosive, quickly covering surface with punchy, thin color as a means to block in composition, providing a foundation on which future resolution can be made. Knowing this initial layer will eventually be painted over gives the artist license to play without fear of damaging a work in progress. I have attempted to keep this sense of spontaneity and play present, even as my Barth’s are decidedly “over” and not under.
Each work is culled from online photos of the theologian and his family — with care given to their substantial and sufficient adaptation into a unique form apart from the original resource — but without wholesale manipulation or alteration. While exploring color, mark, stylization and expression, I haven’t made Barth “do” things or placed him in foreign environments. As a limiting device, the process focuses the work thematically and compositionally.
It seems strange to me — and strange to my previous work — that small paintings of one man could continue to engage my creative interest now four+ years on. It is, I confess, somewhat obsessive. I can only respond that the work came to me (I remember the Tuesday morning) in a way that was unique to my usual practice, and I wish to serve it as best I can until it moves on. I’m uncertain if I fully discern the “why’s” associated with my Barths; art making is complicated and best understood from a distance. I only know the work continues to represent for me a challenge, both formally and conceptually. My hope is that it could provide something similar for you.
100 Portraits began as intentionally quick oil sketches on old surfaces, mostly small canvas panels from years past. As a professor of art teaching painting, I usually have a surplus of abandoned student studies at the semester’s end to discard or recycle. This would become one of the hallmarks of the project, with every surface either similarly painted over or appropriated from another intended work. While obviously jump-starting the individual work’s tonality and texture, I also feel the process relates to the “layers” within Barth. Some of my favorites strongly leverage the underlying painting, an adapted collaboration with students often long graduated, many of whose names still grace the verso. Often however, the process isn’t so straightforward; when sketches fail to materialize, they have become subsequent layers beneath the final work — Barth on Barth… on Barths. In this way, the multiplicity of personas the body of work represents is also addressed in the individual panel.
These are mostly quick paintings, representing my favorite part of the process, what’s usually regarded as underpainting. An underpainting can be explosive, quickly covering surface with punchy, thin color as a means to block in composition, providing a foundation on which future resolution can be made. Knowing this initial layer will eventually be painted over gives the artist license to play without fear of damaging a work in progress. I have attempted to keep this sense of spontaneity and play present, even as my Barth’s are decidedly “over” and not under.
Each work is culled from online photos of the theologian and his family — with care given to their substantial and sufficient adaptation into a unique form apart from the original resource — but without wholesale manipulation or alteration. While exploring color, mark, stylization and expression, I haven’t made Barth “do” things or placed him in foreign environments. As a limiting device, the process focuses the work thematically and compositionally.
It seems strange to me — and strange to my previous work — that small paintings of one man could continue to engage my creative interest now four+ years on. It is, I confess, somewhat obsessive. I can only respond that the work came to me (I remember the Tuesday morning) in a way that was unique to my usual practice, and I wish to serve it as best I can until it moves on. I’m uncertain if I fully discern the “why’s” associated with my Barths; art making is complicated and best understood from a distance. I only know the work continues to represent for me a challenge, both formally and conceptually. My hope is that it could provide something similar for you.
THE GIFT SHOP
My interest in this project has been from the beginning how all human activity must invariably “fall short.” All our best intentions, all our institutions, all our religious enterprises miss the mark, and Art gets no free pass here. Inserting a gift shop into the midst of a “serious” exhibition attempts to subvert the seemingly sacred space of the gallery, undermining contemplation with commodity. That art remains both, is for me, the work’s content.
My interest in this project has been from the beginning how all human activity must invariably “fall short.” All our best intentions, all our institutions, all our religious enterprises miss the mark, and Art gets no free pass here. Inserting a gift shop into the midst of a “serious” exhibition attempts to subvert the seemingly sacred space of the gallery, undermining contemplation with commodity. That art remains both, is for me, the work’s content.