Remarks from “Secret Keeper”—part of a longstanding music and art program curated and hosted by Alain Kirili.  

I got a kick out of title for the performance tonight: The Secretkeeper. I've never been comfortable titling my work. I use the date that the work is completed as an identifying title. A complete cop-out but it works for me. But thinking about the Secretkeeper I thought about the idea of opacity. About the impenetrable opacity of the Secretkeeper. There’s another possibility: that with the layered complexity, the shift in rhythm, the unexpected turns, it’s a transparent labyrinth, one that draws us in, invites us into its web. With Mary’s music, what might at first seem opaque, impenetrable, reveals itself to be in fact quite transparent. Where if we’re paying attention, we may discover all kinds of secrets.           

There is a possibly apocryphal notion that the ancient Polynesian mariners were capable of looking at the surface of the ocean—completely out of sight of land—and locate their position by reading the surface of the water. By distinguishing the large groundswells from the small whitecaps to other minor ripples that all indicated variables well known to them, they could essentially read what to all other observers would appear as disorganization, dissonance.  In other words, right there on the surface available information completely visible. Presenting itself transparently but only revealing itself to those capable of deciphering the secrets—those who were in touch with the secret keeper.

One of the most significant threads that has existed in my work for a long time is the use of patterns—of layering and weaving patterns together to create ambiguous space. In recent years I have focused more and more on the grid, utilizing what is essentially the most ordered and uniform way of dividing up space, but subjecting it to a degree of decay, erosion and layering and overlapping, which undermine its inherent stability. 

In thinking about Mary's music and her instrument, I was struck with the idea that the guitar is essentially ordered around the grid: the strings that cross over the frets, creating the grid. When listening to her play I've often thought damn, where did you find those notes hidden in that simple grid? How did you make those connections? How did you find those nooks and crannies and uncover those hidden secrets?

Thinking about the possible connections between what I do in the studio and the music that we’ll be hearing tonight: The most obvious would be the improvisational impulse. In recent years improvisation or the controlled accident and allowing for the process of making to lead to unexpected outcomes has been more and more an operating principle. 

The idea that by creating a situation or actions that produce a problem that then needs to be addressed has become a rich source for me. As an artist who has always taken tremendous pleasure in the material making, in the craft and invention that is required to make my paintings I'm also struck by the phenomenal craft, which is exhibited in the musicianship of all of the performers who have appeared in this loft. And what that craft unlocks in terms of expensive freedom when unleashed in the service of improvisational exploration. 

One fairly recent development that’s popped up in my paintings recently is the introduction of a figurative component. It's the closest I've come in a while to working with a strong representational element. It's an image that started appearing on its own, kind of sneaking into my paintings until I had to finally usher it in. This featureless head still retains a high degree of abstraction through its generalized appearance, but provides a kind of armature for my investigation into pattern, space and a newly robust physicality. My thought is that its initial impact as a familiar, recognizable element will give way to the pleasures found in the physicality and visuality of the painting. but provide a sort of landing strip to enter into the painting.

I wonder if this figurative device, which provides the viewer with a familiar or recognizable entrance point, is at all equivalent to another of Mary’s musical projects, her rock band, People, where she, in fact, sings lyrics. And where the music is built around a somewhat more familiar structure.

Another thought I had was that in my own work I don't avoid the possibility of beauty happening. If I haven't misread Dave Hickey I believe he argues that the experience of encountering beauty is at first unsettling, to be knocked off your axis, to be disturbed. Our brains are essentially pattern seeking. We are wired to find patterns. Our brains strain to locate patterns when faced with unfamiliar stimulation. We may become irritated when that impulse is frustrated. But finally, as new, unfamiliar patterns begin to reveal themselves, a great satisfaction-pleasure follows. In the music that we heard tonight we’re often confronted with unexpected shifts or dissonant elements that feel uncomfortable. That feels wrong. And yet that freshness, that unfamiliarity is extremely exciting.  It focuses our attention. It demands our concentration and it excites our sense of possibilities. 

And that's how the beauty happens. 

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Bill Komoski

Born in New York City, NY, 1954.

Lives and works in NYC. 

B.F.A. Rhode Island School of Design. 

• Solo exhibitions include: Feature Inc., NYC; Crush Curatorial, NYC: Angstrom Gallery, LA; Postmasters, NYC; Feigen Inc., Chicago; Ealan Wingate Gallery, NYC; Koury Wingate Gallery, NYC; Galleri Nordanstadt-Skarstedt, Stockholm; Galerie Barbara Farber, Amsterdam; Barbara Gladstone Gallery, NYC; Baskerville Watson, NYC; Galerie Ludwig, Krefeld, Germany. 

• Group exhibitions include: MoMA PS 1, NYC; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT; Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC; Friedrich Petzel Gallery, NYC; Daniel Weinberg Gallery, LA; Las Cienegas Projects, LA; Martos Gallery, East Marion, NY Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Crush Curatorial, Amagansett, NY; White Columns, NYC.

• Collections include: Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation, LA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum & Art Museum, NY; Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC.