Untitled
Georges Matthieu
GEORGES MATTHIEU, 1954. OIL ON CANVAS.
One must create fast. This was a tenet that Georges Matthieu stood by, believing in the primacy of speed to avoid any interference from the conscious mind. He worked with the goal to remove the context of existence, the knowledge gained and ideas informed by a life lived within a system from artworks. Nothing in the process of creation should be premeditated, no shapes should be painted that can be conceived of in memory nor should any visuals within the work have pre-existing references and ultimately, the artist must find a way to create in total, ecstatic isolation. If one could follow these principles, they could participate in the movement that Matthieu created known as lyrical abstraction and, in doing so, participate in the final transition away from a style of art that has been fermenting since the ancient times. Every movement, Matthieu believed, was simply an extension or interpolation of that ancient art of our ancestors, and it was only by breaking free from this context that we as a society could begin to think anew.