VI SU
S U AL ART S
BY RICK LE V IN
A MASTER
IN OUR MI(D)ST?
Kyle Lind, process artist and
Salvador Dalí contemporary,
to show at First Friday ArtWalk
KYLE LIND
P H OTO BY TOD D COOP E R
T
he 16th-century Dominican philosopher Giordano Lind’s new book, GodArtMeFun, a gorgeous, 350-page
Bruno suggested that God was a living essence retrospective put together by the artist.
Lind accepts the thornier commercial side of art, albeit
that flowed through and permeated the universe
— i.e., God is not remote but dwells within us. reluctantly, though he obviously thrives on meaningful
You may scoff at such hippie-dippy huggermug- contact with new people; his eyes light up when he starts
ger, but the Holy Roman Empire was so freaked talking openly about his work and his life. And what a life:
by Bruno’s ideas about cosmic interconnectedness that they Despite his long years of solitude, Lind’s bio sounds like an
intimate tour of 20th-century counterculture — he knew or
burned him at the stake.
Nobody’s accusing Oregon artist Kyle Lind of heresy, worked with the likes of Salvador Dalí, Jim Morrison,
though this hardly diminishes the revolutionary implications Krishnamurti, Frank Zappa, Francis Ford Coppola and
of his ideas about art and the creative process.
That process — called, sure enough, process art
— is not an identifiable quantity; for instance,
you can’t point to a Lind painting and say, “Ah,
yes, that’s process art,” at least not in the same
way you can peg a canvas from, say, Picasso’s
Blue Period. In fact, the very idea of categorizing
art, of pinning it down like a butterfly, is
antithetical to what Lind’s process is all about.
Process art says: Be the butterfly, not the net.
Nor the pin. Not even the display case.
Lind has spent the past four decades living
and working in seclusion on an island near the
Oregon Coast in Florence. “I don’t want to
leave the cabin,” Lind says of his feelings
about coming ashore. “I love it. When I work I
feel like I’m about 30.” For Lind, there is
nothing better than waking up on an islet
where there are “no other human beings and
I’m outside and I’m nude and I love it. And I
“WHO IS THIS INDWELLER OF THE SACRED GROUND” BY KYLE LIND
leave and it’s hell.”
But at last, in truly mythic, celebratory and, for Lind, Timothy Leary. And once you set eyes upon the exquisite
daunting fashion, the 72-year-old artist is coming down artistry of Lind’s work, you come to realize that, if his name
from the proverbial mountain (OK, island) in order to is less recognizable than some of his peers, it’s not for lack
reacquaint himself with so-called civilization. More of raw genius. Lind is the real deal. In person, he radiates a
importantly, Lind is re-emerging as the visionary artist he is, charisma that is equal parts sage and childlike.
Many of the works in Lind’s upcoming show — including
presenting to the world a selection of his work culled from
infinitesimally detailed pen-and-ink drawings, impressionistic
a half-century of nearly continuous artistic activity.
Eugene will get a rare opportunity Dec. 7 to meet Lind self-portraits, haunting wood sculptures and dizzyingly
and view an exhibit of his work at the First Friday ArtWalk diverse paintings on canvases of all types and sizes, including
when Eugene Magazine hosts a reception for the release of one on a plastic tablecloth — were literally decades in the
26
December 6, 2012 • eugeneweekly.com
making. Each one captivates. One doesn’t eyeball a Lind
painting; rather, you tumble into it, become enveloped in a
melodic universe of styles and meanings.
According to Lind, the goal of process art is to demolish all
goals — to invert ends and means, relocating the joy of art in
its creation. It’s not about the destination; it’s the journey. Lind
is to art what Giordano Bruno was to Catholic orthodoxy, and
the implications are just as profound and unsettling: The pro-
cess gently upends the framing of art as mere commodity,
substituting the marketplace hunger for end products (movies,
books, etc.) with an expansive spiritual journey that
never ends. This echoes the teachings of Eastern
mysticism, Lind says. The process artist seeks to
enter and express the infinite flux of existence — to
express the existential buzz and howl of objects at
both their grandest and most minute level, the
churning of atoms, the sweep of season, the circle of
life and death. Art and life are drawn together to the
point of merging: Art is life is art.
“It’s instructive; it’s important,” Lind says of
process art, which he describes as a form of con-
tinual self-teaching. “The real goal of education is
to learn about love. It’s important that art is real.”
Lind’s work is grand, magnificent and
completely unfettered by any orthodoxy of form.
No two pieces look alike, and a single canvas,
upon close perusal, can contain several styles: the
precise representations of the Middle Ages, the
mythic figurations of Etruscan urns, the paint
splatters of Pollock, the intense pointillism of
Chuck Close and the mad surreal fancy of Dalí.
When asked if it’s difficult to move among so many
styles and media, Lind responds with a smile: “No, because
it’s all the same.” This is neither coy nor smug; it’s of a
piece with process art, and Lind is perhaps its seminal, and
certainly its most enduring, practitioner. “It’s the artistic
process of becoming,” he explains. “I want to describe the
process of life, the process of becoming. Like when heaven
comes to earth and creates spring.” ■
Kyle Lind shows 6pm to 10pm Friday, Dec. 7, at Eugene Magazine, 1255
Railroad Blvd.