I felt very invigorated this week, obviously because I'd been inspired by stuff seen on Instagram. I worked on two old paintings which I'd been very dissatisfied with for a while and determined to liven them up and take some chances with them. I'm aware that in the past my paintings have somehow reflected an uptight attitude, even when I'd converted to abstraction, where tight edges, carefully drawn contours and solid colour fields dominated, and all felt a bit 'filled in'. This was despite my efforts to work more loosely and without anxiety, as in my drawings of the last year or two.
The first painting, in oils, began life as a still life months ago, but soon transformed into this very plain and minimal image (on left), and so it unhappily remained until a few days ago when after several hours work, over a few days, it looked like this (on the right).
I don't know whether it's better now, or whether what has been lost was superior to what was found - a quite disturbing thought! I don't even want to think about it. I've given up worrying about what makes good art and bad art, especially in my case as it was always an anxiety and a worry, holding me up, as if it was important! However I'm often judgemental about the work of others now I'm experiencing painting in the wide Instagram world. What I do know, and sense, is that the painting feels complete as a statement now, is more satisfactory, and doesn't need anything more. I have no idea what it is about though, if anything! Perhaps if I work on it further, and make more changes, all will be revealed. Watch this space.
The second painting is more recent, and was done in acrylic paint. After many hours of hard but useless work, it was transformed inch by inch over the previous couple of months to the very pink and black image on the right, and I thought it was done. Eventually though, it became the second target for renovation and work began again over the past week. In the fourth image below it is whiter, greyer and less pink, and finished.
The whole process is mysterious, but in this case it is clearly without preconceptions, as new motifs, shapes and colours develop, then, over time, recede again to nothing as part of a creative process. It seems that an image has developed from a previous one, and that the painter, myself, responded somehow instinctively in the centre of the process, immersed in it, rather than planning it out beforehand with a careful drawing, which is then filled in, like a painting by numbers. In fact there is hardly a line or brushstroke in evidence as most of the colour was applied with small pieces of card or palette knife, dabbed, dragged and scraped across the surface. I find this final image very satisfactory, but without quite knowing why, beyond some successful reduction, and some harmony and balance of the elements.
I'm pretty sure that it was Roger Bissière, the French painter, who said:
"We are like an apple tree, we grow apples but don't know why."
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