Monday 10 November 2014

Yellow, Black and White Painting (Mixed media on canvas 40cmx40cm) Oct, 2014

The act of painting, to add paint to the surface according to an idea or notion becomes more interesting to me the more I see of other artist's work. Always highly critical of what I encounter "out there", I find that this critical eye follows me into my own studio once it's my turn to paint.
Beside the individual stance a work takes, which I wrote about in an earlier post, the individual motivation driving the artist is of consuming interest to me. I never let the impossibility of verbalizing what essentially is a visual practice stop me from asking myself questions such as;

1. Why did they paint that?
2. What feeling/stance/message/presence did they aim for?
3. What did they want to achieve, generally and specifically?
4. Who did they paint it for?
5. Where did they see their painting in the future?
6. What does the artist feel their work consists of?
7. How much is created for visual effect?
8. How much is formal investigation?
9. If they feel they 'investigate' anything, then what is this 'something'?
10. And if they are of investigative nature, why indeed are they investigating?
11. Why is this person painting at all?
12. Is the artist trying to show something and if this case what and also if so, why?
13. To which of the dizzying array of  historical traditions do the artist link their work, and why?
14. Where do they want their painting to lead them?
15. How has previous success or failure informed their painting in the present?
16. Are they available for comment, are they comfortable talking about their work?
17. Are they up for critical discussion on the merit of their work, their chosen process and indeed constructive criticism?
18. What have they included on the surface, what have they omitted and why?
19. What material are they using and why?
20. Is their work planned or improvised?
21. What is 'planning' or 'improvisation' for the artist in question?
22. To how high degree does the individual artist opt for the recurring response pertaining to 'intuition', 'inspiration' or 'feeling'?
23. Do they find themselves in a dark room where they frantically wave canvas, brushes and cloths around them in a continuous attempt to find the light switch?
24. Or do they calmly deposit another piece to neatly fit into a larger mosaic to illuminate their idea on the particular topic of their choice?
25. How much of their work is about Themself/The World/The Material?
26. Or indeed, is it all of the above combined into one, unassailable melting pot of idea/memory/material?
27. To which percentage does each individual artist think their work can be talked about, described or discussed?
28. Does the artist work closely together with other artists or mainly solitarily?
29. Has the artist's practice/style/general outlook gone through significant development?
30. What type of criticism does the artist most often encounter regarding their painting?

As much as I enjoy the visual impression any painting gives me, I feel knowing something about the artist behind it helps me in my appreciation of said work. The artist uses his individual character to inform his work. If I see a work without knowing anything of its creator I will unfailingly fill in the 'blanks' with previously acquired knowledge or simply my own intuition. What I then see and how I interpret this work will be still be informed, just not from anything its creator has offered apart from the work itself, and in my opinion this is a less satisfying state of affairs.

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