After my minor rant about my dislike of Artspeak, I was talking to my daughter and her words have offered me a solution and cheered me up. I was getting quite depressed about my painting. I couldn’t think of a worthy subject which would comply with the final module of my MA study. I felt it needed to be highly original, intellectual, groundbreaking, high-minded or important in some way, and I just couldn’t think of anything which hasn’t been done a million times before. As I said in my last post….everyone seems to be painting about a sense of place, memories or the physicality rather than the representational. I don’t feel I have the mental stamina to cope with such aloof and difficult ideas.
She said to me, after I had agonised and poured out my doubts to her, “Just paint what you see. It was good enough for Monet so it’s good enough for you. Paint Alec (husband) pottering in his workshop. It’s an Aladdins cave in there….loads of things to paint”. What a Eureka moment.
It instantly reminded me of the Hockney guide at the RA Portrait Exhibition I saw recently.‘Hockney says he paints ‘what he sees’, acknowledging that we all see differently as our view is shaped by our many experiences. When a sitter asked if Hockney had captured a likeness, he said ‘ I have got an aspect of you’ adding that if he were to do a second portrait he would capture a different aspect and each subsequent portrait would capture a different aspect.
So…. with wise words from Hockney and my daughter I will endeavour to stop agonising about subjects and just ….paint what I see. Each time I will capture a new element of what I see. And that’s enough I hope.
