Death of Socrates Text
The Death of Socrates
(Neo-classical painting)
Poison vials ☠️
Poison symbol
Hemlock
X over the body
Healing
Flame emoji
Burning library at Alexandria
Oracle of Delphi vs Philosopher king - which is AI?
The Clouds
Aristophenes
Distorted Chess
The Death of Socrates (Ego Death)
The Death of Socrates (Purple Hemlock)
The negative dialectic
Doxa vs episteme (opinion vs knowledge)
Birth of Venus
Artifact
Dictionary of the history of ideas
Head of Plato
Reaction against Heraclitus- Socrates values absolute definitions as opposed to a world in constant flux
Meletus- poet who gave the summons to Socrates
Royal Stoa - where Socrates had to appear
Stoa of Zeus - where Socrates was known to hang out
A cityless man - like a solitary piece in checkers
Axiom
Dominoes
Eleutheros- free
ASKLEPIOS
Apology
exousia- license (negative), as in license to speak
Virtue
Virtu/ Fortuna
(Machiavelli)
Logos
Impietas
Corruptio
Demos - common people
Nomos- custom or law
Vox populi- the voice of the people
Peitho- persuasion- democracy- logos- reasoned speech
Atheos
Automata
Free will
4-d evolving block universe
cryptodualism
Marcus Aurelius - meditations
The Death of the Death of Painting
Abstractions and Skulls
Multiplicities
Recollection
User Error
Entropy
Information Paintings
Expanded Field
Objects and Images
Anti-classic
ARTIST STATEMENT VERSION 1
Alex Markwith’s paintings expressionistically combine abstraction, collage and street art aesthetics with an intuitive and visceral sensibility toward color and material. Layers of gestural spray paint and acrylic brushwork are structured by roughly drawn grids, which divide the canvas into different zones while creating rhythm and order. Found objects such as wood and construction supplies reference the process of repairing or building. The work is playful, energetic and tactile, balancing natural and unnatural, architectural and organic, logic and improvisation.
Recent paintings such as his Death of Socrates series merge abstraction and figuration, incorporating representational images. One canvas becomes a multiplicity, containing many interrelated or seemingly unrelated visuals; a Cézanne or Raphael master copy, a NASA photo of a distant galaxy, a dripping skull, a gestural abstraction, Pythagorean geometry.
ARTIST STATEMENT VERSION 2 / ABOUT MY PAINTINGS
My chosen medium is painting, one of the oldest and most traditional art forms, though my conceptual references include the philosophical implications of contemporary neuroscience, astrophysics and artificial intelligence. I am interested in the emotional and intellectual processing of the ever-increasing amount of information at our fingertips. What is the subject? Where is the object (of interest)?
The past few decades have seen technology develop at a pace that is impossible to grasp. Today artificial intelligence encroaches on the role of artists - territory once thought exclusive to human intellect and expression. The algorithm is the new philosopher-king.
Blending abstraction and figuration, my recent paintings include representational images pulled from Google searches, sketchbooks, iPhone photos and screenshots divided into albums. One canvas becomes a multiplicity, containing many interrelated or seemingly unrelated visuals; a Cézanne master copy, a NASA photo of a distant galaxy, a dripping skull, a gestural abstraction, Pythagorean geometry.
I begin by drawing a grid. The grids reflect the inherent geometry of the rectangle, while also referencing digital screens with multiple tabs open, or large pixels, zoomed in so close their singularities become multiplicities.
I work between the canvas and the computer. I take a photo of the gridded canvas, upload it to Photoshop and create a digital collage which becomes my reference. Returning to the canvas, I paint while looking at the computer screen, after which I take another photo and upload it again for further revision. In this way the painting progresses in a back and forth between manual and digital, much in the way we live our lives.
Later in my process, each section of the grid may be further divided, down to components as small as the weave of the canvas itself, or the individual hair of a brush worn sparse. You can choose whether to look at the big picture, or to focus on the constituent parts with their varying levels of detail. Visual relationships between objects and symbols create a sense of order, the feeling of meaning.