Not 'Picture Marking'

Today I read a review by Barry Schwabsky of a new book by the legendary Rosalind Krauss on the even more legendary Willem de Kooning. Having read this insightful article, I have found myself thinking about the making and viewing of paintings.

Looking at my recent work, I feel I have been focused more on the making and less on the effect the painting has on the viewer. In earlier works I liked the idea of activating some kind of movement on the part of the viewer, to move them forwards or backwards, to the left or to the right, to change their perspective in order to find new areas of interest in the picture.

But recently I've been thinking about what it is the viewer is actually looking at. How does this affect him or her? What I want to avoid is what I might call 'picture marking', making images that are just on the surface because they seem right or correct on a whim of the artist, not because they really need to be there. I am interested in abstract images that have a deep structure, that is to say a history to their composition that suggests the solution they present has been worked out, not simply done.