I call the process I have of creating a painting as having a conversation with the canvas, a conversation in the visual language.
It’s a fascinating process. And can be a frustrating, though a compulsive, process. A process of making a mark, consider it in the context of the whole and make the next mark.
At all stages of the process it is the pressnt mark upon the multitude of previous marks that informs the next stage.
Do I make another mark? What colours? What direction the stroke of the brush? What of the balance in the composition? Does it improve how it was? Does it delight or thwart in moving the eye around the composition? At each stage the consideration is how the eye remains involved on the work. Is it bored? Does it easily slip out of the painting not to bother to continue, bored by the journey or too confused to stay? Is the painting so obvious in design that it doesn’t hold the attention? Does it enthrall or tempt the eye to stay awhile longer? Or not?
The idea of entertaining the eye. Keeping ‘the eye’ engaged and held in an abstract work, is the aim for this artist.
Many people when viewing an abstract work can feel intimidated. This needn’t be. The idea is to give the painting enough time so it has the opportunity to ‘speak’ to you. If the work holds it’s own and the viewer gives it time then the viewer is in a way continuing the conversation, as the artist had, with the painting.
Time allows the eye to travel around, through and into the work and the viewer gives the painting the time to converse with it, and that is when the magic happens for the viewer. The viewer, like the artist creating it, has their own conversation with the painting. And the more they spend time with the painting the more they can see and engage in the visual language of the painting. And that’s wonderful.
