"Empty Gestures" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)

[Various pens on reclaimed cardboard with digital embellishments and color.] With a piece like this, I enjoy practicing a technique that the Surrealists often used: "automatic writing." Their belief was that through trances or self-hypnosis, one could learn to penetrate the hard "civilized" varnish that has calcified on folks who grew up under the rigid strictures of modern society, digging down into the layers of creamy UNCONSCIOUS nougat that lay dormant deep in the psyche. Thus, while creating (both visual and textual works) I try to turn OFF the censor mechanism that tries to make things proper and logical and "nice," and reach for the primal, unpredictable, deep-down and dirty... It doesn't always work... But sometimes things turn out interesting!!! (I'll let you decide which THIS piece represents...) ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)