ARTIST’S
STATEMENT
THESE PAINTINGS COME OUT OF 20th CENTURY TRADITION
My way of painting relates to both Pollock and Rothco. I appreciate
their clear explanation of their way of working as my approach
is similar. I tend to start with a thought or feeling that
I am going to express, but not illustrate, with paint on a
surface.
I paint in a direct way without any pre-planning I try not
to consciously think or plan while I am painting as it interrupts
the flow of the subconscious creativity. Liquid acrylic’s
gorgeous colours mixed with water are brushed or poured and
moved about on a surface. I begin with a gesture and then
shapes evolve as the subconscious moves me.
It is only when I am done that I see the picture as a whole
and know what has come out of my adventure with the paint.
When I am finished I am as curious as any other spectator
about how these things came to be while I was creating.
Jackson Pollock said, “When I am in my painting I’m
not aware of what I am doing. It is only after a sort of get
‘acquainted period’ that I see what I have been
about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the
image etc. because the painting has a life of its own I try
to let it come through …..
I don’t work from drawings or colour sketches. My painting
is direct…. I want to express my feelings rather than
illustrate them. …
When I am painting I have a general notion of what I am about.
I can control the flow of the paint.:there is no accident,
just as there is no beginning and no end.”
Theories of Modern Art by Herschel B. Chipp p.326
Mark Rothco says, “I think of my pictures as dramas.
The shapes in the pictures are the performers, the actors.
Neither the actors or the actions they perform can be anticipated
or described in advance. They begin as an unknown adventure
in an unknown space. It is at completion that in a flash of
recognition they are seen to have the quality and function
which was intended. Ideas and plans that existed in the mind
are simply an open door through which one left the world in
which they occur. ……… The instant the picture
is completed, the intimacy between the picture and the painter
is ended. He is an outsider. The picture must be for him as
for anyone else experiencing it later, a revelation, an unexpected
and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need………”
“The most important tool the artist fashions through
constant practice is faith in his ability to produce miracles
when they are needed. Pictures must be miraculous.”
Theories of Modern Art by Herschel B. Chipp p.548 and 549 |
