Don Perlis, Visiting Artist Lecture 1971

Donald Perlis gives a lecture at Skowhegan where he shows a series of his works over the last six years: 1965-1971, while reflecting on his time as a participant at Skowhegan in the 1960s. Perlis is interested in working constantly from memory which leads him to explore the process of elimination and thinking about eliminating formal structures in his paintings. Perlis tells the participants that the more he learns from his anatomy, the more he is able to work from memory. Perlis tells the participants how he continues to shift back and forth between painting and charcoal and the process of painting portraits of loved ones. Perlis doesn’t like painting that disrespects the picture plane, and where the forms of the painting are not contained evenly.