PROJECT 14: THE PAINTER WITH MARY.

THE PAINTER WITH MARY.
19 x 27 inches. Oil on canvas.
PROJECT: THE PAINTER WITH MARY ( A STUDY OF OBSESSIONAL BEHAVIOUR ).
Painter's Collection.

This project involved an unusually intense relationship between the painter and 'another person'. More accurately, this project involved an unusually intense relationship between the painter and himself. More accurately still, this project involved an unusually intense relationship between the painter and some aspect of 'aesthetic fascism'.
Lenkiewicz would meet Mary like clockwork at the Co-op cafe. He would run back to the studio and immediately record with eccentric subjectivity a series of notes, written and visual, attempting to illustrate as incisively as he could the precise sensation, physiologically, of what had characterised the meeting. A sense of distance, an erotic innuendo or was it? A twinge of jealousy, the closeness of the wall to the left of his head contrasting with the great space to his right. The sound of her voice, the way he felt he could balance on one leg on the end part of her laugh, the movements of her mouth, the flow of blouse against the curve of breast. Her running down the stairs with a black flapping coat, the rain outside, the fatigue of the waitress .... and on and on it went. Every transitory trivia, page after page, attempting to trap moments with the old familiar visceral smile.
All this led to a decision to present a complete project on The Painter with Mary. What became clear to Lenkiewicz was that it had nothing to do with Mary; she was to remain a mystery, as all 'others' are mysteries. What did become clear was that the painters' relationship with his own aesthetic vulnerability - known as Mary - was more likely to be a pot pourri of earlier memories kicked into touch by the sighting of 'a person'; with full mouth, blond hair, tall, slender, long-waisted, and entirely indifferent to him. An unrequited energy is the life-blood of creativity. Transcribing these impulses became a sacrificial act, a clear crisp methodology for imposing himself upon him-self. It was like a 'scientific discovery', it could haunt the mind for its own sake, nothing to do with the 'other'. The notes were not shown or shared, at least, rarely so. Lenkiewicz found an 'idea' like a 'person' cannot be fixed, he could record only the passing by of things, and that rather poorly. The situation indicated that absorption, fanaticism, obsessive behaviour, lead to the same futility as ideological convictions. Indeed the project became a crossroad in Lenkiewicz's work, with the understanding that relationships do not solve the problem of existence.