Painting as research into imagination

Painting processes

For me, painting is research into imagination, interpretation and the human condition, though it unfolds unselfconsciously out of inquisitiveness and delight in the process.

Starting Point

I start a painting through a combination of being in-touch with painting materials; feeling an affinity to colour and texture of whatever the product is that I’m using; paint, pastel etc. Plus the sensation I get in connection with the environment.

Trial and error

The familiarity with painting materials primarily comes from experiments. I like to test different paints, surfaces and mark making. I’m not interested in settling on one way of painting; I try different approaches because that feels alive and relevant to me. The use of different styles and techniques is like having another tool of expression; this isn’t an original approach;  David Hockney is a master of the many styles approach; check-out examples of his work from the 1970s and ’80s. It feels natural to me to investigate materials and styles as part of my process, and I realise I have an instinct towards the inseparability of form and content.

Sensory experience

The sensory experience from the environment expands my awareness of myself. It’s a bit like meditation and managing to get to an observational space of watching the mind, though in this case, I’m recording mind, body and my environment where the boundaries between these mental and physical spaces are blurred.

Painting in the now

Above, I have outlined the starting point of making a picture; then because the initial experience is a momentary event in my brain, the painting becomes another different, continuous event. At the core is the initial experience, and then the artwork documents my attempt to capture and crystallise something impossible to hold onto while becoming something new within the process.