Painting process

Working method for 'A shadow of itself by tomorrow.'

I have been rather busy this year however I was surprised to realise that my last entry on this blog was around April. Be that as it may I been have plugging away painting and drawing and want to take the opportunity now to share the working process I went through with a recent piece which I was unusually diligent in documenting.

 Some thoughts:

Forgive the forthcoming self indulgence but I would like to offer some the reasoning behind the choices I've made in my paintings. A well known Australian modernist Artist Donald Friend once said 'Australians always mistake big for important.' Whilst I don't think this a misapprehension is peculiar to Australians nevertheless when I read that remark I was quite struck. I have worked in various art galleries but particularly in indigenous art and have found it was not always the enormous statement pieces which were the best examples of an artist abilities both in technique, composition but all so in conveying the motivating concept, rather it was often the smaller human scaled work. 

So against the advice I remember from one of my college's teachers 'Big is best' I have decided for now to make small but concentrated work.

 One of the great insights of working in commercial art galleries has been how personal is the insight that different viewers will bring to the same work. What isn't surprising is how often they understand the central idea or narrative without reading a word or being told, what is really interesting is what they will add to it as if they were having a conversation. I have come to conclusion the power of a painting lies in considering the work before you as visual conversation which an individual engages. The small scale which most of the works I have done lately thus demand an intimate engagement if one is going to appreciate the various qualities as well as the image as an image. I heard a great quote the other day (I wish I could remember who originally said it!) which was 'Great art is like a swimming pool, it has a shallow and a deep end.' So I think painters can be more ambitious about their role in a society as the guides to a more civilised world. I am perhaps revealing a touch of naive idealism in this regard but I believe people, individuals, can be bettered by sincere contemplation of an art work. Painting and other traditional mediums thanks to there accessibility with in mainstream audience have an advantage in this regard.

   Below:  The paintings ground

 I prepared a small panel about 12.5 x 25cm primed and then grounded it with lovely buttery yellow. I have been exploring combining a number of different textures in to paintings in this case starting with a sort cracklely ground. I love layers of different techniques and textures to emphasis the painting as something which is not just an image but a physical thing, hopefully a precious thing. I all so love the notion that artists bringing together materials which in themselves have little value to create something of 'value' such as a painting. There has been (and still is in some sections of the art world) periods particularly in the 20th century where because a painting has a potential as a commodity it is not as true an expression of art as something which is ephemeral or inherently un-tradable. (It might all so be added there is still a regrettable suspicion of the traditional skill set that was in days of yore expected of an artist in these same sections, a hangover from the general mood of modernism in the 20th century. Actually one the delightful things about the pluralistic spirit of our time is that the notion that contemporary painting has certain look is now starting to look rather old fashioned.) But certainly it is true something like a painting which can be traded and thus can be viewed as a commodity, this makes the need for a sound conceptual motivation all the more urgent. Besides which in this day and age where 'sustainability' is an important personal value does this not demand a change in our relationship with commodities? My paintings I feel should feel special, valuable, be a symbolic reflection of my feelings about sustainability. Besides which in blunt language, if the materialist are correct about the nature of the universe and this is it, isn't it a shame to waste our existent surrounded by so much crap!        

Outline of the process:

Above: A sketch taken form life of a species hibiscus, is transferred in oil on to the panel and shaded.  

Below: After the paint has dried and I've planned my attack I apply a thin wash of colour.  

Above: Steadily I paint the leaves with in an impasto. I paster the pigment on thick with a knife and then work in to it with a brush but when needs must scrape back to reveal the underpainting.

Below: I left the flower itself till last.

Above: I try to work from life as much as possible.

Below: The almost finished painting.

 Having now finished the actual painting part I still can't consider the work properly finished until I have varnished it and framed it which will probably happen in six months time because oils take time to cure fully. It has become something of a convention not to varnish paintings or to do so in a matte varnish, but I love the beautiful enamel-like qualities created by the high gloss varnish and gorgeous lusciousness of varnished colour. I all so want to have time to think carefully about the framing. I was recently in Tokyo at Ueno and we saw a brilliant exhibition from the Uffizi, Florence mostly early renaissance paintings, it was truly inspirational. I learnt so much, something I all so noticed was the role the frame. As you can imagine it was mostly Madonna's and other religious subjects and many of the works were all so very elaborately framed. At first I thought of the frames as an unnecessary distraction from the painting until I was looking at this very charming Madonna painted by Neri di Bicci around 1480-1490, I started to think about the context and role this painting was originally created for in a world were there was nowhere near the material abundance of our own time. This object wasn't just a beautiful picture, it all so introduced the sacred in to domestic sphere and with it's gilding and brilliant colours it must have been the most welcome burst of colour it fire lit room filled with natural materials, timbers, tiled/stone floor and whatnot. In this context the frame didn't at all detract from the painting rather it must have emphasised that this was one of the most precious things these people were in possession of. So the present attitude to framing you can encounter in some galleries is just a convention which has arisen and a frame can play an important conceptual role.        

Lastly I am interested too in disconcerting beauty, this is a point I will have to elaborate on another time, but in essence beauty that temporarily distracts the viewer so that as the observer comes to understand the painting the feeling slowly arises that things are not all as it seems. From cues within the painting, such the subject, emphasis within the composition and the title the deeper conceptual narrative will emerge. Just because something is outwardly beautiful does not render it intellectually shallow, one does not have to look very hard to find intellectually shallow ugliness in contemporary art!

Well dear reader I must be frank and tell you I have never been much of a writer so it has been a difficult exercise to articulate thoughts that I have only ever tried to convey visually and I crave your patience and kind indulgence for the clumsiness of the above. Thank you.