Had nervous fun participating in my first Q & A last night after the dinner for the award winners of the NEXT Exhibition at the Arts n Letters Club and was totally unprepared for the main focus of interest regarding my piece, ‘iris pond’, namely that no one could understand, work out how it was done, which is curious to say the least, because for me, my interest, my emphasis is not on any telltale giveaway brush strokes; in fact i want and work the painting to be, have an overall smooth n continuously seemingly seamless look and feel, so that if it ‘works’ as a painting it is not because of visible brushmarks, but does so strictly on the strength of the composition itself. I have a natural, intuitive sense of composition and do not feel that textures and buildups of paint would add anything to my work in any positive manner.

Part of being unable to understand how it is done, included the comment that close up the painting is a bunch of squiggles, but stand back and it all pulls together. What’s wrong with squiggles? Stand me in front of anything and i immediately not only break everything down into simple shapes and forms – a reductive form of thinking that is second nature to me by now,  but also at the same time edit out, strip away anything non essential to the central / main idea(s) before me. In composing the work in my head, i am at the same time mentally  ‘painting’ it, a first rough outline in my head which i will continue to work until i have an overall sense of where i want to go with this idea.
The shapes. squiggles, lines are in large part based on colour, as i work from light to dark, so i break it down,  organize the idea in terms of how i would go about painting it. By the time i actually start to work on it on gesseod panel or on watercolour paper, i have worked and reworked, thought and rethought the idea in my head many times until i feel i have an overall grasp of what i want to say here. One of the reasons the painting process continues to be fun after all these years is because i get to see how closely i can express what is in my head onto panel. after all, after the painting is sold what i end up with in the end, all i am left with,  is my experience of painting it.

(the photo (above) includes both primary award winners, first on my left  and seccnd award winner on my right)