THE SELF-ISOLATION RESIDENCY 2ND DECEMBER 2020: DAY 248

'Finding a reason to paint, continued'.
Work in progress 3: 'Forest' (detail 3), oil on canvas.

So yesterday I started to talk a bit about how I think as a painter and how my choice of 'subject matter', assuming that the painting has a subject, is made. Generally, speaking, in what might be thought of as figurative painting, the are 3 subject choices to be considered, portrait, still-life, landscape. As part of the S-IR I am considering all three of these potential areas and how they relate to being isolated by myself for such long periods of time.

One of the first pieces I worked during this period was 'Desiderata' which of course was a self-portrait, which felt like a very important place to start when one thinks of oneself being alone. One becomes insular, or at least that was my original thought, a thought that merits more reflection.

As an offshoot from my self-portrait I began to think about the things that one chooses to surround oneself with if one’s own space, this naturally lead me to consider still-life work, often domestic objects, And so I began to think of myself as a person in a 'space' surrounded by things; the desiderata.

But what about the bigger space that surrounds my small private space? What about the bigger, public space of the landscape? Even this can be considered as desiderata as I very much chose to come and live in this place, this landscape.

And so, I now find myself asking questions about these 3 aspects of painting as I choose to use them to hang my paint upon. There are much more definite links between them all forming in my mind; from the interior private space of the (self) portrait through the more public presentation of my private space of the still-life (desiderata)to the very public space of the landscape that I once again choose to surround myself with.  More time to think and reflect, I think.