Three Critical Components to my Practice

Within my practice I explore numerous things, a select few being words, colour, and imagery which I will discuss in this order.

My interest in using words in paintings originated from reading poetry, psychology, and philosophy. Language has been very important in the evolution of humankind, originating from deciphering which foods and herbs were poisonous and good to eat, and what remedies different herbs could be used for. Therefore, language, at its roots, is a synthesis of nature into understandable data, expounding nature’s inherent meaning into comprehensible dialect. Art, to me, is a synthesis of the spirit into the material world, so a combination of words and art seemed fitting, as they are both catalysts of transmutation. This idea developed through my understanding of what words I should or shouldn’t use. Art should elevate the viewer from the weight of being, thus, the words I use should be weightless in caliber. This is difficult to do in order to keep them relevant to the context of the painting, however it is a challenge I am starting to overcome. I realized that my choice of words should arise spontaneously within the process of creation, and not worrying about it is best.

Colour is not colour without form, and different colours express different moods or emotions in different forms. The form has, whether it be translucent, opaque, matt, glossy, big, small, etc. a huge part to play in terms of the colours expression. The three things I bare in mind with colour now are its form, relationships, and essence. Relationships between different colours are key because they express things beyond your scope of expression. Essence is the mood, or personality of a colour. There is a lot of joy in colour. The infinite possibilities of colour are exactly where the spirit of painting lies, and it is exploiting, harnessing, and utilizing this infinity that is the key to my approach. Every stroke has an element of risk, therefore no stroke is a risk, due to the fact that it is a prerequisite to the entire process, it is more of an inherent factor than a moment to moment problem. Risk is simply just the nature of painting. I still have a lot of learning to do in terms of colour but my excitement is uncontainable.

Finally, imagery. To make a painting I use three things, a place where the thoughts get scrambled (scrambler), the message, and the sustenance. The scrambler effectively objectifies the viewer in that it is a point on the canvas of an intense conglomeration of colour and brushstroke. I don’t mean it totally scrambles all thought, but it should, if only for a millisecond, suspend the viewer in an arrested state, like when a fuse blows and you are suddenly surrounded in blackness. The message, or meaning, should be of minimal concern in that it is an inherent factor of the piece already therefore it needs minimal impartation from the artist. So long as one is aware of this it doesn’t matter, and you can use it to whatever degree you choose. The sustenance depends on the way in which the paint is applied, and, I have learnt, that imparting as much joy as possible works best. Also using a lot of paint is good, but that depends as well.