MONOCHRAPHONISM & MINIMALISM: Fragments in Focus

Dear Fragment,

You know, I like to feel the you—the name written after 'Dear' in a letter. It touches my mind, letting me imagine you as I write: pen to paper, or thumb tapping glass. In both acts, I see you before me, sense your presence, and imagine a dialogue. And when that dialogue happens, my synapses ignite with glee, offering a buffet of connections that feel almost magical.

 

The Dialogue of Presence: Engaging with the Fragment

This may not be for everyone. I have studied blog posting, creation and structure, synopses and SEO, and they usually don’t look like letters. This is therefore not a very practical blog in the sense of fixing problems, although I may try to describe how to fix (some of my) puzzles, aspects of my life, work, or of the world, that I am curious to know better. Someone said to me, Good luck with your art and your gardening. That made me laugh. I don’t do gardening. I have one outdoor pot containing an indoor rose, which I struggle to keep alive. And two Elephant ears which thrive marvellously. But let’s call the puzzling gardening, and I am all for it, and delighted for the well wishing! 

 

Camilla Howalt BLUEPRINT 2014

 

And is not really a traditionalist blog although blogs can be about anything. It is a kind of specialist blog in that everything I think about falls under the creative process of which art is the one I know most of. 

This idea of specialism—the love of deeply engaging with one area—has pros and cons and led me to think of several ways to express this through one word consisting of opposing forces, all the elements within the creative process that I love. Terms consisting within Mono- and Poly-, such as monochromatic, polyphony, monogamy, polygraph, polyphonic or polyamory, like seen in the flower, Blue Carmassia or anyone with a love of more than one colour. I could never love only one colour, ne fragrance, yet I always seem to settle for a monogame colour-type of dilemma. Apparently contradictory, but in their oppositional status, I came to love the idea of a word which I decided to call monochraphony.

 A fusion of "monochrome," "monograph," "monogamy," and polyphonic becomes monochraphony and captures the depth and richness that emerge from immersing oneself in a singular pursuit. It’s about committing to one hue, texture, or idea to reveal its infinite complexity, much like a monochrome artwork but through containing the complexity of the many. However, it also can be deceptive, illusionary and lead one astray.

For monochraphony to happen, help from Cupid is needed. Cupid is the mythological figure encompassing love, passion and for two elements to meet in becoming one, why merging above words - to my knowledge, becomes procreation, and is the very essence of desire. Desire, for me all about balancing the real with fantasy, and is a kind of monochromatic endeavour, embodying discernment with persistence. It resists polygraphous temptations, delving deeper into contradiction.

Creativity and romance are to me one and the same. Romanticism, with its celebration of passion, imagination, and individuality, has always resonated with me. They share the longing for connection, for uncovering something essential through desire and commitment. Monochraphony reflects that philosophy, a rejection of scattering in favour of delving deeper, uncovering beauty and devotion  in the texture of contradiction. 

Both are fuelled by desire, by the longing to connect deeply—to discover something wholly unique and yet universal within that singular focus. Monochraphony is my way of describing that commitment to the apparently contradictory and polyamorous creative process, yet resisting the ongoing pull of scattering, and  choosing instead to delve into the texture of what is fragmented, liminal and unknown.

 

Minimalism and the Power of Subtraction

 Eva Hesse ENNEAD 1966

 

Early, the letter alongside the grid became my visual language. I found great solace in letters such as a b C, or x y Z, and the grid. Both gave me a space of purpose and navigation. One is performed in an apparently linear fashion yet fully embodied, totally three Dimensional. The other totally two Dimensional, and unembodied, becomes fully three Dimensional. At the same time, and by that I mean early, I got into reading about fractals and fragments, in nature as in culture, which in my mind seemed to align with the period most emphasised in the Conceptual Studies (CS) when I was doing my BA in Fine Art, at Wimbledon School of Art. CS was the theory part of my art degree and came to stand very much for Minimalism which is most strongly associated with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s, as this was my teacher’s specialist area of Art History.

Minimalism is many more things than I will credit it with here, but one way of understanding this particular artistic perspective, is to think of it as a distinct way of using subtraction of any matter implied in the artwork, to an almost bare minimum.

Sol LeWitt 192 1974

 

The early minimalists and conceptualists and there were quite a few that caught my attention (no feeble thing, I tell you, being ADHDed and multi scatterbrained), were Sol LeWitt  Agnes Martin and Carl Andre, and a contemporary Martin Creed which won the Turner prize that year (2001) with an on/off light installation and if I recall it correctly (although I haven’t been able to find it anywhere) a piece of masking tape on the wall. In my interpretation, Minimalist artists used subtraction and addition to reach an essential expression of the question, which is what is art. Carl Andre, using geometric figures, laid bricks. He either stacked them, placed them orderly, side by side, in rigorous patterns, aesthetically reflected according to the architectural space surrounding the slabs, their colours and the light.

Agnes Martin STARLIGHT 1963

And Sol LeWitt of course, apart from being famous for his art, is famous for his letter to Eva Hesse in 1965, where he famously encouraged her to overcome self-doubt and perfectionism, urging her to embrace creativity without fear of failure. He advised her to stop overthinking and instead act boldly, trusting her instincts and intuition.

Carl Andre EQUIVALENT VIII 1966

 

LeWitt emphasised the importance of simply doing the work, even if it felt uncertain or seemed destined to fail, arguing that the act of creating would generate clarity and energy. His words, like "Just do" - we now know from where Nike got their slogan - and "Learn to say 'F** it,' and then do it,” were his fragment of encouragement to his fellow artists, which still rings true today. A fragment can travel for a long time, if it rings true. Why this has resonated with artists for decades as a powerful call to action against creative (fear of) paralysis. And it is working for me, when paralysed by a heavy inability to act or tempted to go elsewhere, become polyamourous, so to speak, when I seemingly cannot break into or through to that which is of the essence of the monochromatic thing.

Martin Creed WORK NO. 227: The Lights Going On and Off 2001

 

Desire, Fragmentation, and the Creative Process

Often, it is not up to the artist if their work is received and celebrated. That lies with the other. And we are all others to another. Yours, mine and that of others, create the living circumstances for an artist to keep working, paying their bills, staying alive. It is enough for creativity to be acted upon through the basics of two materials and one hand. But it isn’t enough for artists to have the desire and to perform through work that desire, in order to make a living. Here the artist’s work enters another sphere which is that of the marketplace and it does so on equal footing with other objects. By that I mean that in order to be bought (for the artist to have an income), the work has to be desired and wanted by others. The other has to see for themselves, the use of this object and this is a very subjective matter.

A fragment like yourself, will know only parts of desire - kind of lies in the nature of being fragmented, doesn’t it? Desire usually doesn’t stand alone. It comes with a hoard full of reasonings. I would like to add the beautiful word of seasoning, which adds sensual texture to reasoning which is otherwise often thought of as cold and without affection. Sometimes budgets too, are cold, and at other times misogynies show their teeth too. We have for example just had several thousand years of rejecting art made by women. Luckily, I was born into a time where that has started to change.

I will not talk about this today, as I have an agenda which is to speak to and about the fragment, not just as a conceptual entity, but as a state of mind. It has many names, of which all comes with a story. Most of them, excruciatingly painful. Like all good stories, pain and pleasure are present.

Camilla Howalt BLUE FELT 2013

 

Today is not a day of pain, and I will stay strictly to my goal of writing about fragmentation as a basic state of mind and its consequences on my art practice, my ability to sustain relationships, and my career as an creative. These are quite rudimentary elements in any art praxis, each artist finds their own way to juggle, mix, add and subtract, and arrange these elements. They are alongside the materials, the basics of their toolbox.

And so, dear Fragment, you are both a beginning and a continuation. You remind me that what is whole often begins in pieces, that meaning is assembled through connection—between thoughts, between materials, between people.

You, fragment, are not a flaw but a state of potential. Each incomplete thought, each unfinished grid or untold story, holds the power to transform into something larger, something alive. It is through embracing this incompleteness that I find my way—fragmented, yes, but moving toward the potential of coherence, always.

Thank you for holding space for me, for reminding me that being unfinished is not a lack but a promise.

Love,

Camilla