BABYLONIAS E R I E S

T H E

ROTHcoffeegraph®

...the wonder-filled journey of coffeegraph

By Marina Belozerskaya

“Coffee is an organic miracle with extraordinary characteristicand is transcending the quality of ordinary pigments. Its bodyhas the ability to flow and create expressive distortions of formand space through a variety of movements. Layering coffeeamalgam creates three-dimensional depth, thus making it theperfect pigment to depict paintings of mythological, allegorical,or anthropomorphic subjects.” - Avi Roth

Coffee - the primary medium of Avi Roth’s artwork - has along, dense, and layered history that mixes politics and eco-nomics, culture and magic. Its origins go back many cen-turies. As Mark Pendergrast writes in his UncommonGrounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed

Our World, “Possibly the cradle of mankind, the ancient landof Abyssinia, now called Ethiopia, is the birthplace of cof-fee… Across the nearby Red Sea, further to the north, Mosesled his people to freedom.” This history echoes in Avi Roth’s

Coffeegraphs and especially in his new series Babylonia,(Los Angeles, 2014)

Roth has developed a new and unique art form as layered as itscomponents – coffee, artistry, history, philosophy, emotion, andintellectual curiosity. Each Coffeegraph is a journey of imagi-nation, reflection,and discovery.Roth begins with acoffee-pigmentdistilled fromroasted coffee anduses a tiltflowprocess to gener-ate patterns andtextures on a non-porous surface. The fine residuesin the coffee-pig-ment scatter tofashion unpre-dictable but con-trollable patterns and communicate identifiable forms that aremost evident in Roth’s Sacred Semblance, Waterways andEstuaries, (Los Angeles, 2007)

Although he manipulates his canvas through feelings andinsights as he tilts the surface, spreads the medium, water-burnsits density, scrapes away or adds further layers, he sees eachimage as predestined. The emerged patterns stimulate theartist’s awareness and its implied meaning is imbedded in theart’s title - all part of his moment of unveiling. Once the art iscomplete, Roth transforms the painting that very in sizes from5” to 10”, into a high-resolution digital file by ways of a custombuild section-scanner. When the “all important spark of inner life” as Kandinskycalled it, presents the necessity for color, Roth applies transpar-ent layers of color in Photoshop, like fine oil glazes of old mas-ters. In his Elegance of Fear, (Los Angeles, 2006), for example,a purple leaf wells up out of the forehead of a face grimacingwith a crooked smile and uneven, unseeing, glowing turquoiseeyes. The three touches of color emerging out of the sepia tones

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of the head convey themagnetic and terriblepower of our most primalfeelings.

The genesis of Coffeegraphtook place during theMiddle East conflict in thesummer of 2006. Roth’semotional turmoil foundexpression in his firstCoffegraph, Inferno diTerra Santa, (Los Angeles,

2006), a kind of circular image recalling the biblical prophecyin Deuteronomy 29:23: “the whole land will be a burning wasteof salt and sulfur” - an image of the beginning and end of time,of past creation and present distraction.

Although Roth’s art is not influenced directly by other artists, itcalls to mind distinctive precedents; for this unique art form,contains within it layers of historical resonance.

Leonardo da Vinci, for example, saw in natural stains a vitalsource of inspiration: “If you look upon an old wall coveredwith dirt, or the odd appearance of some streaked stones, youmay discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds,uncommon attitudes, humorous faces, draperies, etc. Out of thisconfused mass of objects, the mind will be furnished with anabundance of designs and subjects perfectly new.”

Enlightenment and modern era artists took further the marriageof chance natural inspiration and artistic imagination. The

French novelist VictorHugo used blottingtechnique to generatesophisticated andphantasmagoric pen-and-ink drawings. Hisfriend Philippe Burtyrecorded that, “Anymeans would do forhim – the dregs of acup of coffee tossed

on old laid paper, the dregs of an inkwell tossed on notepaper,spread with his fingers, sponged up, dried, then taken up with athick brush or a fine one…”

In the 20th century Surrealists like André Breton praisedHugo’s art for its “unequalled power of suggestion.” “Chance art, as expressive of modernity, is … uniquely and nec-essarily modern,” declared Hans Arp. Francis Bacon told David Sylvester that,

“My ideal would really be just to pick upa handful of paint and throw it at the can-vas and hope that the portrait was there.”

Abstraction is another artistic current withwhich Roth’s Coffeegraphs have strongaffinity. As Kurt Varnedoe wrote in hisPictures of Nothing: Abstract Artsince Pollock: “Abstract art has beenwith us in one form or another foralmost a century now, and has provedto be not only a long-standing crux ofcultural debate, but a self-renewing,vital tradition of creativity… This isone of abstraction’s singular quali-ties, the form of enrichment andalteration of experience denied tothe fixed mimesis of knownthings.”

Abstraction Lyrique - a Post-warEuropean movement whose practi-tioners employed a loose gesturalstyle to create sensuous compositionsthat conveyed a larger spiritual out-look and a more mystical sensibilitythan the “action painting” of AmericanAbstractionism- is closest to Roth’s work.Elevating the Faithless, (Los Angeles,2014), from the Babylonia seriesexemplifies this form of expres-sion.

Abstract painting reveals itselfthrough deep contemplation. It invites the viewer to bringhis or her own experiences to the encounter and through themerging of memories, feelings, and relationships of both thecreator and the beholder gives rise to new responses and inter-pretations. Roth Coffeegraphs foster this kind of exploration

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and accrual of meanings. For example, Hades and Persephone,(Los Angeles, 2012) the story of the king and queen of theUnderworld united in the seething darkness of their realm canbe seen as a rape, a tender union, an emergence out of the realmof death or a dissolution into it — depending on the viewer’shistory and perception.

For decades Roth has worked as a photojournalist and an artphotographer, and his black and white images captured thecomplex landscapes of faces and cities, experiences andencounters. Always keenly interested in textures, he harnessedshifting focus, highly sensitive film, and eventually digital colormanipulation to explore textural effects and their emotionalcapabilities. Photography has honed Roth’s visual acuity andtechnical mastery. The sophistication and precision of hisexpertise enabled him to bring Coffeegraph – in all its complex-ity – to full fruition, and to render texture in newly powerful,evocative, and profound ways.

Roth’s sense of historical resonance was also first developed inhis photographic works: he portrayed major historical figures-including Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan – and settings, fromJerusalem to Paris to New York. His personal journey fromTransylvania to Israel to England to America, with other desti-nations in-between, gave him a nuanced understanding of bothcultural specificity and universality. “It is not to originality thatphotographs owe their excellence,” he asserted, “but to theirhigh degree of universality in what they delineate.” The histor-ical and cultural depth of his imagination and references is clearin his Coffeegraphs.

Roth the artist has been shaped by his professional and person-al experience, by his historical knowledge and his imagination.His combination of expertise and excitement drove him to usherin this new vision. The Coffeegraph is both an emotionalenfolding and a distillation of five decades of work and thought.Yet his work also stems from his unconscious mind and par-takes of the collective unconscious. He sees Coffeegraph as ris-ing out of the changing conditions of our times, particularly thedisruptions of communication and relationships- hamperedrather than enhanced by social media.

His Babylonia series is, in part, an allegorical evocation of the dis-persal of humankind for its sin of overreaching. Yet while they hintat existential grief, Roth’s Coffeegraphs are also highly poetic.

Thing with Emotion, (Los Angeles, 2013), for example, cap-tures through the literal separation of the head from body thewarring duality of our existence, the remove of our rationalmind from our sensual body.

A vital component of Roth’s Coffeegraphs is wonder, which isboth personal to the artist – he talks about his “childlike trait ofreceptiveness that makes me feel I am looking at the world forthe first time”- and found at the intersection of nature and art inearlier epochs. One of the greatest ages of wonder were the 16thand 17th centuries, when Europeans embarked on ever morefrequent voyages of exploration to new and strange lands andbrought back a variety of man-made and natural specimens thatdramatically expanded their understanding of science, art, phi-losophy, and religion. Curiosity cabinets, in which human craftsmingled with nature’s creations and with strange things thatdefied categorization, became de rigueur for rulers and intellec-tuals. They stimulated inquiry and enlightenment. They werealso seen as a miracle of infinite divine creativity. Roth’sCoffeegraphs are a kind of cabinets of wonder where the organ-ic miracle of coffee takes new shapes and significance by pass-ing through the artist’s fingers, eyes, and mind.

As did the Europeans in the Age of Exploration, Roth, at oncea curious child and a mature artist, undertakes a voyage of dis-covery with each Coffeegraph, and his sense of marvel commu-nicates to the viewer. As one looks at his pictures, they open upmore and more to the eye and the imagination, moving fromharmonies of shapes and colors to stories conjured up by them.This magnetic enfolding reminds us of our ability to create andfind wonder with a spark of divine inspiration.

In the end, though, “Like life, art refuses to be categorized,summarized, solved, and closed. It remains difficult to ade-quately describe and to evaluate. Relative merits may beargued, but finally meaning and value are tied to the particularindividual,” wrote Gary Garrels in his introduction to Orangesand Sardines exhibition at the Hammer Museum in 2008.

Roth’s Coffeegraphs are a journey into the artist’s mind andinto human history, an invitation to moral contemplation andan emotional experience, a glimpse into a private realm and ashared passage. The Coffeegraph contains the wonder of thenew and a profound sense of time that stretches back to thestories of our origins and illuminates our present.

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The Babylonia SeriesThe story of Babylonia is monumental and of great historical signifi-cance. In the 7th century BC Babylon’s citizens lived in great wealthand luxury. The “Golden City” was the center of education, arts, andreligion. It housed the famous “Hanging Gardens,” and massive tem-ples and ziggurats honoring the gods Marduk and Ishtar. Then themighty metropolis perished and was wiped out from the face of theearth.

Roth’s Babylonia, composed of seven artworks, was not conceptual-ized as a series but became such when its second piece, “Elevating TheFaithless,” came into being. Aside from some direct comparisons andidentifications with the lifestyle of ancient Babylon, Roth sees thisproject as “an ambitious and highly personal expression through cof-feegraph abstraction initiated perhaps by the spirits of my antediluvianancestors. Babylonia has not been conceived as a rebellious act againstthe ‘materialism’ of modern society, or as an ideological opposition toa political or social movement. Rather, it is a historical journey of asystem that began in Babylon long ago, survived, flourished, and cur-rently manipulates and influences our world.”

Plate 1. Land of Shinar, 2014 [36” x 52”]“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech... theyfound a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there...” (Genesis11:1-4). The land of Shinar became the site of the Tower of Babel afterthe Great Flood. Roth’s vision condenses this history into a powerfulimage of a throbbing eye-like center in the middle of theMesopotamian plain, framed by the rising flames, or towers, ormirages below and the gathering storm above.

Plate 2. Elevating The Faithless, 2014 [40” x 96”] The ghostly clay-colored shapes wondering over a dark plane recallthe Shadows of the Greek Underworld, the Limbo of Christianity, andthe rising of the dead for Last Judgment. The painting’s crowded com-position and Hellish coloration pulsates with the spirit of Jewish ances-tors imprisoned in the dark limbo of Babylonian captivity.

Plate 3. Ziggurat of Babylon, 2014 [35” x 42”] The ziggurat that once symbolized the religious power and civic prideof Babylon is now a mirage. Its ruined staircase still climbs heaven-ward, but the monumental structure is sinking back into sand and time,its powerful walls disintegrating before our eyes, their bricks turninginto clay as the orange tones permeate the painting, merging sky, struc-ture, and earth into one.

Plate 4. Hanging Gardens, 2014 [30” x 43”] Luxurious green stalks shoot out of the desert soil. “From a distanceone has the impression of woods overhanging their native mountains,”was how Quintus Curtius Rufus described this marvel of Babylon. Thesupple greens of plants and bursts of orange flowers against themarshy background convey the willful and virile miracle created byking Nebuchadnezzar II for his queen.

Plate 5. Lustnotes of Ravishment, 2014 [44” x 48”] Branches shedding white blossoms with bursting yellow centers hintat deflowering, the disheveled flowers echoing the dissipation of sen-sual pleasure, flickers of purple here and there sounding the last notesof passion. The enclosing frame encapsulates the experience, makingit a private, discreet moment in time. The sensual lifestyle ofBabylonia has ended.

Plate 6. The Lost Tribes, 2014 [35” x 46”] The erstwhile unity of the Jews before they were deported from theKingdom of Israel by the Assyrians ca. 723 BC and irretrievably scat-tered is communicated by the repletion of the head encircled by aframe; the shades of difference between them conveyed by the slight-ly distinct color of each, though they share a common tonal range. Thepainting speaks nostalgically of the Jewish Diaspora and the continualdispersal of the Jews over the centuries.

Plate 7. New Babylon, 2014 [58” x 65”] Pylons of weathered stone and pillars of books rise out of the groundlittered with more books. “And the LORD said, I will destroy manwhom I have created from the face of the earth...” (Genesis 6:5). Is ourpresent world, as permeated by power, wealth, and cruelty as was oldBabylon, poised on the precipice of destruction? Have we created ourown Tower of Babel that is crumbling around us? As with all hisCoffegraphs, Roth provides openings but never endings. His storiesreward the viewer with continued discoveries, experiences and person-al delight of their own.

References1.Wassily Kandinsky, M. T Sadler (Translator). Concerning theSpiritual in Art. Dover Publ.

2.http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/deliberate-acci-dent-art

3.Kirk Varnedoe, Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock,Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006, 7, 29, 34.

4.http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2008/oranges-and-sardines/

Land of Shinar, 2014 36” x 52” Archival Inkjet Print

Elevating The Faithless, 2014 40” x 96” Archival Inkjet Print

Ziggurat of Babylon, 2014 35” x 42” Archival Inkjet Print

Hanging Gardens, 2014 30” x 43” Archival Inkjet Print

Lustnotes of Ravishment, 2014 44” x 48” Archival Inkjet Print

The Lost Tribes, 2014 35” x 46” Archival Inkjet Print

New Babylon, 2014 58” x 65” Archival Inkjet Print