the image should be based on something, not just chance
but there should be chance involved
the recognisable should be almost unrecognisable
and the unrecognisable should be familiar
an uncanny resemblance to nothingness
as well as everyone you’ve known at one point
the face means that each picture is not mute
as pictures of places and objects and nothing are
don’t paint likenesses but what the photograph looks like
in its light and dark, grain, blow-outs, stipple and circles of confusion
can you tell if it was shot on colour neg
or lit with a flash
is that the bright light of the morning sun on the side of the subject's face?
you should be able to tell
the drips and splashes must be held to account
interrogate photography with Abstract Expressionism
grain is not ink or paint
brushhair-strokes, spills and drips are not pixels
but photography loves analogue detail, loves what it can't achieve by itself
let paint and ink be paint and ink
and in doing so render the photographic
see the photograph appear on the surface of your painting before you
start with the whites on a non-white ground
no tracing or gridlines
wait a bit
go back in with the darks and the midtones
very soon it will be finished but you might not be sure
until you go too far then you'll see in hindsight that it was finished
and now it's not
it pays to abandon the work just before you think it’s finished
on the up like the Bends not at the zenith like OK Computer
leave space for the Lord to enter the room as Quincy Jones would say
let paint and ink be paint and ink
overwork it and you'll be back on the merry-go-round
until you can smash it new again
should you varnish? canvas?
good questions
oil paint just slows everything down and dulls the edges
these are history paintings
but they are also concerned with ahistorical concepts
like impermanence
reincarnation
history is trying to make sense of the events that shape us
what's going on
tell me brother, what's happening
reincarnation means history is not important
imagine no countries
I am multitudes
I wasn't ready for the psychological impact of these faces
and how they talk back
when we finish a painting that's successful
we look at the painting through the filter of the initial
creation experience and what it meant at that moment
this is the sole preserve of the artist to have this insight into the work
but later, that experience fades and we only see
the artwork as others do
based purely on what it is
not where it came from
this is why the crash after the initial high
the problem
is to use the calligraphic mark
and create an ideogram
but to keep the subtlety of the face
and its expression
to use the brushtroke
the layers of brushstrokes sometimes
to create a sense of the moving, living face
and all its changeability
not an olympic sport logo stick figure of a face
but one that seems about to speak
or perhaps not
any song can sound good pumped through big PA
with loads of effects and a computerised light show
but what does it sound like on an acoustic guitar with just one voice?
I understand now the way those Chinese painters
who are forever entering the Archibald and never, ever win
paint
how they see paint and the mark and realism
differently
like me
the beauty of reincarnation
is that everyone is your family
and every land is your homeland
blood is pretty much in fact water
but say this to someone who has been dispossessed of their land
and taken from their family
beauty is not what they will see
still I am not close to anyone
I should be close to
and I enthuse over people far removed from me
why not these faces as family?
why not kanji as friends?
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