My blogging has all but disappeared. I have a strange feeling of losing all energy and motivation, in and out of a painter’s limbo. This painting is a reflection of that state. Whenever I don’t know what to do, I tend to MAKE DOTS. (I just hit the caps button by mistake and ‘make dots’ emerged as ‘MAKE DOTS.’ And it seemed appropriate.) That’s what I do when I am painting. I do something unintentionally that acts as a suggestion. Dots seem to have a life, they buzz and colour comes alive. Repetition is the essence of limbo. It leads to weariness and then a kind of becalmed exhaustion. I think I might be a Modernist. It worries me. This picture will be/is titled, ‘Who’s a Pretty Boy Then?’ But the dead creature doesn’t speak, rather, ‘Who Was a Pretty Boy Then?’ I have the feeling that the dots and colour are somehow restorative of the life of the bird, as painting hopefully restores life to the painter. I have a self-destruct switch which drifts into sight sometimes. I can see it now. It controls my feelings of ambivalence to what I am doing – on-off-on-off. I place a colour, love it immediately and then recoil from its shallow prettiness. What I do is what I am. The painting looks at me, is an accusation. If it can somehow ‘work’ the accusation is refuted, one truth deflected by another. But what nonsense it all seems as the switch flicks on and off.
