George Sakkal Courtesy of George Sakkal

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George Sakkal’s collages, including his “Polarized Society,” are composed entirely from tiny bits of photos torn from National Geographic magazines. By George Sakkal

Columbia artist George Sakkal, known for making dynamic collages out of little bits of torn paper, is now concentrating on what he considers the biggest of pictures — how seeing and the subconscious interconnect in the creation of art.

Sakkal, 76, said in a recent interview that he has laid aside his paper-on-canvas work to explore through written words the true nature of great art through the ages.

He is writing a book, he noted, that will prove that the art movement he calls CUVISM — with a V, not a B — is the way to go for all artists.

CUVISM, which stands for Cognitive Unconscious Visualism, interweaves the latest discoveries in neuroscience and cognitive psychology with the retina, said Sakkal. In other words, the eyes and the psyche work together in the finest of art.

So how does his theorizing affect Sakkal’s production of collages, which have appeared in art galleries in and around Howard County, Baltimore, Washington and New York?

Well, he said, his self-imposed collage-making hiatus has been painful, and he is “ferociously desiring to get back” to creating. “But,” he added, “in order to do my best, I only do one project at a time, and right now my purpose is to write this book.

“I’m an artist, but I’m also an art theorist, a teacher [at Howard Community College] and a lecturer. Right now, I’ve put aside my art creation for my art manifesto. I believe it is just as important to write about the truth of what art is; how we create it.”

Sakkal, who was born and bred in Brooklyn, N.Y., said his life in art started in 1962 when he made his first collage. He also spent many years (1973-2001) working for the Maryland state government as a planner and budget analyst.

He studied city planning at Harvard, where one of the course subjects was how Columbia came into being. “I was knocked off my feet” learning about the community, he said.

So after other studies and endeavors, such as serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran before the hostage crisis there, he decided to check out Columbia and found it a great place to live.

Creating collages

Sakkal noted that while he started doing art with acrylics, he eventually chose collage as his medium “because I found I could achieve a visual dynamism working with paper on canvas, which can’t be achieved with paint. You have to wait for paint to dry. It’s not the same with paper.”

His 300 to 400 collages have all been created out of pages from National Geographic magazines. He has some 7,000 copies of the magazine, acquired over the years, stored in his workshop.

“National Geographic,” he said, uses “the highest quality paper with low acidity, and has some of the world’s best photographs,” which, nevertheless, he tears into bits for his collages.

Ironically, some years ago, the magazine’s legal department, upon learning of Sakkal’s collage material, warned him it would get a cease and desist order for violating copyright laws. But when the lawyers learned that the photos he used were torn into tiny pieces, he was given the go-ahead and wished the best, the artist said.

His collages look uncannily like abstract paintings, with the bits of paper appearing as brush strokes. They have somewhat abstract titles, too, such as: “Ghost Warriors of Afghanistan,” “Who Am I: Where Am I Going,” and ”From Lies and Deceit to Shock and Awe.”

Let the unconscious decide

He comes up with the titles not at the start, but rather some three-quarters of the way in. “I begin the work,” he said, “with no idea what the visual end result will be. By the time I realize what the work appears to want itself to be, I begin to enhance it along that presumed subject area.”

He added: “I am against conceptualizing. CUVISM is about the unconscious mind doing the deciding.”

According to Sakkal, his theory gives the lie to the post-modernist movement, which now prevails in art education circles, and among many contemporary artists.

Since 1980, neuroscience has “amassed a great volume of new knowledge about the workings of the unconscious mind,” he noted. Neuroscientists, who study the nerves, have expanded their research from the molecular and cellular levels of individual neurons to looking into the workings of the brain as a whole.

Sakkal pointed to French-American artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) as the prime post-modernism culprit. Duchamp championed what he called “anti-retinol” art. He claimed that “retinol” art was intended only to please the eye, when art should primarily serve the mind.

For instance, one of Duchamp’s so called “ready-mades” — defined as ordinary objects that become works of art because the artist chooses to exhibit them — was a urinal mounted on the wall and called “Fountain.” His post-modern theory led to, among other things, “conceptual art,” where the idea of the work became the raison d’etre of the creation — as, say, in Pop Art.

“This theory of ‘concept art” is substantially without substance,” said Sakkal. He noted that it is being taught for advanced degrees in art, which is “like teaching advanced students of evolution the theory of intelligent design.”

Sakkal said painter Paul Cezanne was closer to the truth of “understanding the brain’s process involved with human visual creativity.” The great French post-impressionist espoused the modern art theory that “creativity in art stems from subconscious brain activity.” he said.