In Coleman's compositions one can discover a development of Deleuze's "logic of sensation". [17] Coleman paints configurations of bodies and objects in complex relations, the multiple vibrations of many forms interacting with one another and creating diverse patterns of resonance. In the multi-layered structure of Coleman's picture the individual vibrations and patterns of resonance undergo a compulsory movement that disengages rhythm from specific figures and give it an autonomous form. Through this separation of figures the rhythms of the composition cease to be tied to particular bodies and themselves becomes figures, relational movements in a field of "universal light" and "universal colour". The unifying and separating forces of light and colour emerge as autonomous principles and the disengaged rhythms generated by the various forms become figures of a floating, non-pulsed time of pure becoming.

The sensation in Coleman's work is not that of a lived body, but a body without organs, and the forces of systole and diastole, of colour and light and the process of change, not simply the germinal/organic forces of the auto-genesis of forms but the mutating and deforming forces of a chaotic dimension of affective becoming. Affective forces immanent within the real, forces which in Coleman's compositions are disclosed through pure vectors of light and the rhythms of an ametrical time.

For Deleuze art concerns harnessing forces. Coleman's effort to "make visible invisible forces" [18] is not simply a reproduction or inventing of forms but a harnessing of forces. Visual images are not tied to rational co-ordinates of narrative space and time but juxaposed in non-rational sequences that function as direct images of time, while the visual space of the image becomes an anonymous, empty, disconnected space whose pictorial qualities depend on power/"puissance" an "oceanographic" power that discloses a world of primary liquidity. In Coleman's painting forces of isolation/deformation/dissipation connect field and figure, forces of coupling bring figures and objects together, and forces of separation convert the compositions into expanses of light infused with the rhythms of an ametrical time.

Endnotes:

[1] Coleman, Joe. The Man of Sorrows. New York: Gates of Heck, Inc, 1992.

[2] H.P. Lovecraft. "The Colour of Space." H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus, Volume 2: "Dagon" and Other Macabre Tales. New York: Voyager/Harper Collins, 1985.

[3] Patricia Rosoff. "Joe Coleman: Crazy Like a Saint" (interview). Hartford Advocate (1999).

[4] Katherine Gates. "Joe Coleman interview". The Comic Journal (1994).

[5] The Marquis de Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom. New York: Arrow Press, 1992.

[6] In adopting a series of ideas that may be termed the "Poe definition of perversity" (see: Timo Airkaksinen's The Philosophy of the Marquis de Sade, New York: Routledge, 1996). Sade inverts to optimistic Pious Principle so that everything leads to an evil conclusion. In his fiction Sade utilizes the relativity of values to an extreme point and maintains the world is conditioned so that vice is rewarded. The Poe-definition of perversity, formulated by Edgar Allen Poe in the essay "The Imp of the Perverse", can be stated as follows – the perverse individual does/acts as he/she should not, just because he/she should not do it. Sade aims to avoid the Pious Principle and promote value-relativity. He presents a non-Epicurean view of aggressive and submissive pleasures and by denying the conclusion to the effect that viciousness is in fact a valve. He embrases confusion, nilihism and anihilation.

[7] Patricia Rosoff. "Joe Coleman: Crazy Like a Saint" (interview). Hartford Advocate (1999).

[8] The Marquis de Sade. Justine or the Misfortune of Virtue. New York: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1996.

[9] Patricia Rosoff. "Joe Coleman: Crazy Like a Saint" (interview). Hartford Advocate (1999).

[10] Jim Jarmusch. "Essay". Original Sin: The Visionary Art of Joe Coleman. New York: Gates of Heck, Inc, 1997.

[11] Gilles Deleuze. Trans. Jean McNeil. Masochism (Coldness and Cruelty). New York: Zone Books, 1991.

[12] Gilles Deleuze. Ibid, 1991.

[13] Joe Coleman. Op. cit., 1992.

[14] Joe Coleman. Ibid, 1992.

[15] Joe Coleman. Ibid, 1992.

[16] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Brian Massumi trans. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Volume 2). New York: Zone Books, 1987.

[17] Gilles Deleuze. Francis Bacon: Logique de la Sensation. Paris: Editions de la Difference, 1981.