'On my easel' is a series of posts that I am adding to the Self-Isolation Residency Blog which will consider a current painting which is within days or sometimes hours of completion. This isn't quite the same as 'work in progress' as many of the pieces under consideration in this category may actually be complete already. These are generally going to be works which I am reflecting on for one reason or another and it is these needs for reflection which are preventing me from 'accepting' the work as complete.'

I'm not going to give away too much about the title of this painting at present if at all. All I will say is tha as the painting has progressed it has reminded me of another painting and the title of my painting is a reference to that.

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 30th January 2021.
Part 20: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion. Describe what you actually see?

In the past I have deliberately created surreal paintings where the context behind them was very much the same as the my reasoning in my ‘trying to find a reason to paint’ at the moment, in that they were a vehicle on which to hang things on that had no recognisable purpose but that felt familiar at the same time. In producing paintings which are suggestive of ‘things’, very suggestive it might be said, but are suggestive of things that do not exist, how would said paintings be received and interpreted as a spectacle?

These paintings would appear to depict uncannily familiar, although unidentifiable, objects, conditions or environments. These depictions would seem to follow physical principles such as gravity, solidity, liquidity, gaseousness etc. They would also appear to react to external influences in ways which might be expected of physical objects, casting shadows for instance.

Would such paintings open a field of dialogue with spectators which might broaden the discussion into the illusion of painting? “It is a hill, it is a sunset, it is a nose. It looks like a hill, it looks like a sunset, it looks like a nose. It is reminiscent of a hill, it is evocative of a sunset, it has a similar shape to a nose, but it is actually an illusion created by paint”.

To be continued…

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 29th January 2021.
Part 19: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion. Describe what you actually see?.'

As I continue with my current series of paintings, I am struck by a certain surreal feeling which they may be beginning to engender. This developing feeling of the uncanny seems to me to be wholly appropriate within the context of my current work as it echoes similar concerns within the question of painting which I began to explore on previous occasions and for the almost identical reasons.  These concerns are of course to do with the spectator’s perception of what they are actually experiencing during their encounters with paintings.

Sometime ago I began to create paintings which exhibited an even greater feeling of the uncanny as a means to challenge the spectators experience into a greater comprehension of the subject and therefore into a more in depth a better appreciation of the subject of painting by challenging them to analyse their encounter via more analytical methods of perception. In doing so I ask spectators to leave behind their preconceptions of what they believed they were perceiving when encountering a painting and to engage with what it is actually doing to them.

To be continued…

'On my easel' is a series of posts that I am adding to the Self-Isolation Residency Blog which will consider a current painting which is within days or sometimes hours of completion. This isn't quite the same as 'work in progress' as many of the pieces under consideration in this category may actually be complete already. These are generally going to be works which I am reflecting on for one reason or another and it is these needs for reflection which are preventing me from 'accepting' the work as complete.'

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 28th January 2021.
Part 18: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion. Describe what you actually see?.'

Illusions of what? Is all painting surrealism? Have painters always subconsciously been tapping into their subconscious?

Although it can be argued  that many paintings attempt to portray the ‘real’ world as accurately as the artist is skilled to do, it can also be argued that the artist will always attempt to improve upon reality; if painting is just a record of life that a photograph will do just as well. If this desire to improve, be it conscious or subconscious, exists where does it abide? Surely the answer must be in the imagination, for we must imagine something before we can create it.
 
To be continued…

A return to one of my paintings on plywood for a few days, the technique is so different in many ways. I find the plywood to be so unforgiving by comparison to the canvas that it seems to remove the fluidity of the brushstrokes. This may be less of a problem on larger pieces but it feels like in inhibits my flow on something like this.

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 26th January 2021.
Part 17: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion. Describe what you actually see?.'

On returning to this thesis I reread my previous notes and my attention is of course drawn back to that final line and observation; “always remember that your subject is the paint”. As a refrain the words may not as yet run quite as smoothly as I would like which is probably because the sentiment is almost, but not quite concise enough yet . I do wonder if “…your subject is paint”, or “…your subject is painting”, might not be better ways to express what I think that I do.  As it stands the inference is too one dimensional in its elucidation; it is important to me for the implication to be suggestive of both paint as a noun and a verb but I would like for it to be stated in an ambiguous way.

To be continued…

'On my easel' is a series of posts that I am adding to the Self-Isolation Residency Blog which will consider a current painting which is within days or sometimes hours of completion. This isn't quite the same as 'work in progress' as many of the pieces under consideration in this category may actually be complete already. These are generally going to be works which I am reflecting on for one reason or another and it is these needs for reflection which are preventing me from 'accepting' the work as complete.'

Yesterdays review and reconsideration of how I have been approaching my recent painting has really helped, with this piece I think that I am finally back on track.

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 24th January 2021.
Part 16: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion. Describe what you actually see?.'

I’ve been having great difficulty with the latest paintings in the series that I’m currently working on. The first 2 or 3 in the series worked really well but the subsequent ones are really not working so well for me. So far, I’ve identified a couple of potential reasons for this ‘block’, they are perhaps related to size and shape. After my first 3 paintings, which I think are all successful, I started to run out of 2ft square canvases, so I moved down to 16 inch square ones instead. I didn’t think that this would pose so many problems, but it really did. For some reason I just can’t work in the same way on this scale. It may be, and in a way I hope that is, to do with the change in the size of brush marks, if that is the problem then I feel that with time and patience it is something that I should be able to resolve. From here I moved back to larger, but rectangular, canvases and once again I’m experiencing the same problems.

I’ve been back to study my successful paintings in relation to my unsuccessful ones and I’ve concluded that it isn’t about size and shape in the way that I’d expected it to be but about how I’ve been approaching the paintings. Regardless of all the things that I’ve thought and written recently I realise that I have once again become too preoccupied with the idea of creating a painting based within the heritage of the landscape and have forgotten that its really about the paint. I do think that this neglect of painting principal has been influenced by this change in size and shape of my canvases;  the change was making me overthink my subject matter and consequently I was drawn back into the wrong context.  

Perhaps I need a sign over my studio door that says: “always remember that your subject is the paint”.

To be continued…

There are times in a painting when you know there is so much further to go.