Last time I wrote, I thought I’d made a breakthrough, but I was wrong. Well, not entirely wrong - it was a shift, but not necessarily in the right direction. So it was still part of the journey, and as artists we are always on a journey, there is no magical destination we reach where we say ‘right! That’s it! I’m here!’ After another period of flux and uncertainty, which I forget the details of now, I had a ‘real’ breakthrough and this one led me to where I am now, which is a much more settled place where I’m happy with the work I’m doing and the direction it’s going in.
The turning point, regrettably perhaps, involved inebriation. As per my previous post, I was feeling frustrated and like I’d boxed myself in. I was exhorting myself to ‘paint the fucking plant’. Well, it turns out that painting fucking plants wasn’t where it was at. And I discovered this one (drunken) night when I was in my studio, annoyed with all the faces staring at me from the walls - and in a fit of irritation I painted out the features in all those faces. And hey presto! Just like that it all felt so much better. I’d been subconsciously scrapping with those features, and I didn’t realise it. I’m still not entirely clear on why they were bothering me so much. Somehow they made my heart sink. I think partly they reminded me too much of work I’d done in the past and I wanted to move on from that (not that there was anything wrong with it, it just belonged to then, not now. And partly they were, I think, too - obvious? Too directive? Something like that. I enjoyed the enigma, the ambiguity that resulted from obliterating the features.
I feel now like I’ve opened up a channel of exploration which fits me better than any I’ve pursued for some time - in fact, actually, I’ve returned to my core interest in human psychology, to give it its widest definition. I’m not sure why I veered from this path - I think in part it was to do with learning how to express myself in paint, because even though I’ve always painted, on and off, I’ve never worked solely in paint and I’ve had a lot to learn. I remember when I was (briefly) a European Studies student at the University of Hull, I was studying Dutch (they made me, I wanted to do German!) - and we went on a month long trip to a language school in Ghent. We were supposed to speak Dutch all the time. I felt very keenly that I couldn’t express myself properly, I couldn’t be my true self, because I didn’t know the language well enough. I wonder if it’s been a bit like that with the painting?
At the moment I’m nearing the conclusion of a new body of work which I’m going to be taking to Manchester Art Fair (17th - 19th November). It’s been very satisfying, especially now I’ve got a lot of the work framed and can see how it’s all going to look together. I’m really looking forward to sharing this new work with a new audience. If you want to come to the art fair, I’ve free tickets up for grabs! Just drop me an email and I can send you a link.
Until next time!