Howard Altmann / Dominik Lejman

For the past two decades much of my work has animated the painting, the canvas, so that it is the screen for a performative projection. The haptic, painted surface, has provided generous space for light that 'soaks' in the canvas, becoming its integral part, occupying the stage, narrowing the dimensions of the painting. The projected figure, devoid of his/her physical presence, by the means of light interacting with the porous surface, has thus created the representation of absence, crucial to my work. But what if the text becomes the performer itself? Instead of using a figure, why not the use of text? Of poetry. When the text is 'the performer,’ one reads the text appearing on canvas but its pace is governed by the dynamics of the piece. It allows the viewer to engage with a poem in a completely novel way. One can read a poem. And one can listen to a poem. In the former, the reader is the ‘performer.’ In the latter, the text is being ‘performed’ by the speaker. When text is the performer, the poem and the painting support each other, with the distance respectful to both forms of art. They overlap formally, creating an inseparable time-based hybrid. The encounter creates a new entity, where the distance/proximity creates the meaning. It allows poetry to be suspended and exposed in the poem as much as painting is suspended and exposed in the painting (Agamben). Each exposes the missing other. I discovered the poetry of Howard Altmann in Lisbon. In 2019. His original bilingual collection in Portuguese and English – Enquanto Uma Fina Neve Cai/As a Light Snow Keeps Falling (Guerra & Paz 2019) – moved me. So much so that a hybrid between painted picture and performing text was born.. Rather than the visual artist employing text in his/her work, I thought to and have since staged the poem of the other artist. And chose Howard Altmann’s “Words” as the first in a series of his poems, here the last stanza of that poem: We miss what we miss. And in all the missing, a life. And in the life, a mourning. And in the mourning, a story. And in the story, words. The on-going series has been so far completed in 12 paintings