Joe Kotas (born Buffalo, NY) invented the pendulum painting, in this form, as we know it.
Having worked for years with acrylic paints, Kotas became especially fond of liquid paint in squirt bottles. His “Rorschach and Awe” series of the early 2000s (http://www.joekotas.com/paintinggallery.htm) is testament to the idea that a painting can be finished with one final “coup-de-grace.” The analogy with bullfighting is accurate for the artist believes a painting is a puzzle to be solved, an adversary to be defeated.
Kotas noticed that his most successful paintings “happened” after finishing with an automatic flurry of activity that transformed the work to another level. If the “finishing flurry” were done in such a manner that it was done in a “state-of-being” and lacked the imperfections of human touch then the odds were good that this might qualify as a work of art.
“A work of art,” according to The Automatic Artist, “is not some step-by-step, organized building of a picture. It has to be touched by the hand of god or visited by the muse of pure creation.” Kotas contends that this “magic touch” cannot be planned in advance or carried out in any organized procedure. It can only happen through a mystical combination of intention and luck.
The pendulum was Kotas’ answer to the question as to how to finish a painting in a perfect, untouched-by-human-hands manner while allowing the muse to show itself in the form of spontaneous creation. Pendulum paintings have already been referred to as “a combination of Jackson Pollock and Damien Hirst,” representing a “first,” one can logically conclude that they are destined for Art History.
Ronald McJagger
Chicago
February 11, 2008
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