One of the things that I (think I) genuinely do have when it comes to painting, is courage. I am always prepared to sacrifice a decent painting in order to make a better one. I will leave a painting bereft of detail and even content if I think it can survive in the wild as a statement of “good choices vs over-workedness.” As you might imagine, this leads to despair more often than not, but I believe in this approach, so I soldier on through the carnage.
Recently however, I had veered from this path. I was painting larger than usual, which is something I try to do often so as not to be pigeon-holed as a “small” painter. Although, being pigeon-holed as anything in the art world would be great for me as it would mean that someone knows that I exist and actually gives a shit. But I digress. I worked for many months on these larger paintings; a total of 7 canvases, imagining them as set of 10 displayed together as an installation.
After a few long winter months, trying to remember why I was making paintings and for whom, I thought I’d cracked it. Utilising sketches made in-situ of rock pools, while embracing memories of landscape ‘events’, I had given myself licence to play with colour, form and line to create fairly complex paintings that create a sense of being there – at least, to convey the sense of my being there. All sounds great, no?
I always felt uneasy, even while the painting was going well. there was something off; not quite right. I didn’t like them, but hoped that by throwing more paint at the problem it might be fixed.
It was around this time that the artist Peter Shear had a solo show at Cheim and Read in New York and as I browsed (as best I could on their could-be-better website: https://www.cheimread.com/exhibitions/peter-shear-following-sea) This was a slap-to-the-head moment for me. What have I been doing? No wonder I don’t like these paintings, they are completely removed from my own philosophy of painting. In pursuit of impressing some imaginary audience, I had lost sight of what’s important to me, and Peter Shear had reminded me of that. I remember having the occasional ‘chat’ (if you can call them that – those brief interactions typical to social media exchanges that became substitutes for chats) with Peter on twitter/Facebook or something, back in the day. We would compliment each other on our paintings as we clearly shared a similar philosophy in how a painting should be made. A philosophy shared by disciples of a Raul De Keyser aesthetic. Seeing Peter’s show I thought, ‘My God! He stuck with it! He held true to his beliefs while I veered from the path (rolled down into a ditch, dusted myself off and got a plane as far away from the path as you can get.) What have I been doing all of these months, nay, years!
So… 7 large canvases abandoned, ready to be whitewashed (or colour-washed, which is more likely) and I’m back on my philosophical painting track! Such a weight lifted.
This isn’t the first time I’ve fallen from faith and it probably won’t be the last, but I’ll remember that Peter held on and so can I.
Thanks Peter!
