THE SELF-ISOLATION RESIDENCY 23rd FEBRUARY 2021: DAY 331

New work in progress. Working title: "Sudden Lightness."
Oil paint on canvas, 610 x 610 mm.

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 23rd February 2021.
Part 35: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion.
An Unsettling Appeal: Insearch of the Sublime.

Sculpture, as it might be traditionally considered, is a medium which concentrates the attention like no other, but for a rather peculiar reason. As a piece of work a sculpture has no defined background, therefore anything which surrounds it can in theory become a distraction from it. Now, it is true that many renaissance sculptures where created for specific environments, churches, great houses or gardens where their surrounds or backgrounds might be known, considered or, in the best circumstances, controlled; this of course makes such works the forerunners of the contemporary idea of the ‘site-specific’. But even in such settings as these the artist does not have total control over how the subject of his portrait is considered; how often have you been studying a sculpture only to be distracted by another observer doing the same on the other side of the work? Therefore, because of this nature of isolation which sculpture embodies, the observer really must learn to concentrate on the work in question out of a sense of necessity.
 
To be continued...