I believe that one of the most important properties of a work of art is an attempt to reconcile opposites, and in their fusion to achieve a 'wholeness' or 'oneness,' the experiencing of which should be revelatory - both for the artist and the spectator - something akin to the experience of enlightenment in terms of religion.
Douglas PortwayIdeally there is a type of continuum which flows from life through the artist's sensibility and his materials... the concreteness of the object and its own life , through the spectator, with his expectations, interpretations, back into life.
Douglas PortwayThere must be something in oneself which is essential. Therefore I refrain from referring to a landscape or certain objects when speaking of a picture. The hand is cleverer than the mind.
Douglas PortwayArt is precisely that condition which pertains when, after all analysis and reduction to parts has taken place, there remains a 'quality' which is more than the sum of those parts, which could not exist in any other form, and which cannot be caught, or held, or contained.
Douglas Portway