AL LIPTON
ARTIST STATEMENT
I think the function of the artist is to bear witness to his times.
The cruelty of the times in which we live (famine, disease, the opioid crisis, civilian war casualties) makes the artist react by creating a counter-measure of sensitivity.
As this feeling of sensitivity is attenuated it reacts to the cruelty by saying, “No! You can ‘t do that.”
The example of the Guernica by Picasso is a case in point. A German officer showed a copy of the painting Guernica to Picasso and asked, “Did you do that?” “No, you did,” Picasso replied. The town had been bombed with numerous civilian casualties.
It is my objective to express sensitivity as a counter-measure by means of an expressionistic spontaneous emotionality which is built upon a drawn image transferred to the canvas.
This base drawing is the structure upon which a freer play of emotion operates.
The areas of the dripping paint are the tears of the world.