As an artist, you tend to accumulate a large record of past endeavours of expression - especially if you paint. These ones were painted between 2011 and 2014 and I would like to share them with you today.
These works are about sitting and thinking. Meditation. Contemplation. Turning an image around and around in your mind, looking at it from different sides. Looking at what is doing the looking. Building on an idea. Sitting and waiting, for something to arise.
These three paintings arose sequentially. The first was an outline, a basis, loose, free and dandyish. The second is heavier - darker, melancholic, romantic and nocturnal. The third is light and cerebral, abstract and modern, the protagonist looking like a rusty spectre - less permanent than the space he occupies.
I was searching for something when I painted these. Often I do not know what or why I am painting at the time, but it all becomes clear post event, sometimes years (or decades!) after. What I was partaking in here was the search for stillness and silence - two things that are rapidly dropping away from modern Man.
The ancient Chinese masters considered ‘just sitting’ one of the highest virtues and important activities an individual could action. Perhaps we are losing this in our nonstop attention seeking culture, and something we should seek to restore, to slow down our lives, and give them a little consideration.
I plan to post many more pictures from my back catalogue.
This is a somewhat cathartic process - as an artist my process had evolved and my skill refined, so exposing old embarrassments can be a little daunting. But I have realised a creator must be proud of his children no matter what, remember their names, and encourage them. And how else to ‘encourage’ by showing them off to the world and accepting whatever reaction or response comes - it won’t change the way I love them.
Thanks for viewing these works, and let me know what they evoke in the comments…
Much love,