Inspiration and Reflections

You need to be able to return to the painting and see it as though it is not your work otherwise the likely outcome will be to follow the same dead-ends as before. 

This particular painting has been through a process where the main theme and composition was established in a small oil sketch. From there it was developed...

"Perhaps it is partly this that drives us to be creative: the sense that what could be made is more than we can make, and more than we can think of."

 

Once in my studio, the question was ‘what kind of brush strokes will admit to guilt and regret’...

Painting is about thinking and being. It is part of that process whereby we re-form our experiences into significant images. 

A painting that is getting stuck and winding down, becoming sluggish and hopeless, is all too familiar.  The final result, if it survives the painter’s disappointment at all, is a contrived embarrassment.

"I believe that in all the arts, meaning that is found is not just the discovery of meaning that has been put in by the artist..."

 

I can’t remember when it occurred to me to use Psalm 22 for imagery in a painting of the crucifixion, but the extraordinary nature of this psalm comes as it were, from within the suffering, confronting us with naked humanity rather than processed tradition.

The book of Job is found in the Jewish scriptures; the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It is written in the form of a drama that is set in Heaven and on earth.  Job is a good man, wealthy and happy with a large family, but then disaster strikes. The suffering that Job endures raises questions about his life and faith.

A painting by Tintoretto on the subject of the presentation of Christ in the Temple, hangs in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. I have often contemplated the image with its strong composition and unusual viewpoint.