The period of his work that I find the most inspirational was his work beginning in 1953 with his use of mixed media. He was extremely prolific and has an entire museum in Barcelona for his work and enough left over to be housed throughout Spain. His work is so innovative, imaginative, and beautiful. He is among my Top 10 most inspirational artist. More information about his life and work is available at: Antoni Tapies
"Tàpies started as a surrealist painter, his early works were influenced by Paul Klee and Joan Miró; but soon become an informal artist, working in a style known as pintura matèrica, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into the paintings. In 1953 he began working in mixed media; this is considered his most original contribution to art. One of the first to create serious art in this way, he added clay and marble dust to his paint and used waste paper, string, and rags (Grey and Green Painting, Tate Gallery, London, 1957)."
"The paintings produced by Tàpies, later in the 1970s and in the 1980s, reveal his application of this aesthetic of meditative emptiness, for example in spray-painted canvases with linear elements suggestive of Oriental calligraphy, in mixed-media paintings that extended the vocabulary of Art informel, and in his oblique allusions to imagery within a fundamentally abstract idiom, as in Imprint of a Basket on Cloth (1980).[6] Among the artists' work linked in style to that of Tàpies is that of the American painter Julian Schnabel as both have been connected to the art term "Matter".[7]"
Transformation of Materials
I am interested both personally and in my artwork in the transformation of materials. It seems the entire universe as well as our local subpart, the earth, are in constant transformation of the form and substance of materials. In my artwork I have focused largely on oxidation, the combining of oxygen with materials, either rapidly through fire, or slowly through rust and corrosion. (With a relevant tangent into the transformation of clay to ceramics through heat.)
But recently, the practice of Sokushinbutsu has been in the news and it is so intriguing! In short, it is the act of self mummification. Transforming your own body as you slowly fast and add chemicals to your self-decimated body to mummify.
Here's the reward: Apparently 100's of monks attempted the process. If successful their mummified remains were worshiped. 28 were successful. The others were given a "nice try" reward and their remains preserved.
Here's the process:
"The steps involved in mummifying one’s own body were extremely rigorous and painful. For the first 1,000 days, the monks ceased all food except nuts, seeds, fruits and berries and they engaged in extensive physical activity to strip themselves of all body fat. For the next 1,000 days, their diet was restricted to bark and roots. Near the end of this period, they would drink poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, which caused vomiting and a rapid loss of body fluids. It also acted as a preservative and killed off maggots and bacteria that would cause the body to decay after death.
In the final stage, after more than six years of torturous preparation, the monk would lock himself in a stone tomb barely larger than his body, where he would go into a state of meditation. He was seated in the lotus position, a position he would not move from until he died. A small air tube provided oxygen to the tomb. Each day, the monk rang a bell to let the outside world know he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the tube was removed and the tomb sealed for the final thousand day period of the ritual.
At the end of this period, the tomb would be opened to see if the monk was successful in mummifying himself. If the body was found in a preserved state, the monk was raised to the status of Buddha, his body was removed from the tomb and he was placed in a temple where he was worshiped and revered. If the body had decomposed, the monk was resealed in his tomb and respected for his endurance, but not worshiped."
