After my crit review of my work Robin gave me a few new artists to study to help progress my own work. One of whom was Callum Innes.
Having never heard of him or seen his work before it was refreshing to finally find an artist who was making work that I would hope to make. His mixture of watercolours, oils and drawings makes for a strong gallery of art that ranges from figurative to informal abstraction.
What I find interesting about his work is the lack of subject yet the intensity of the emotion I get from it. My work mainly features dripping and mass texture…but always trying to show an image of a landscape. My trouble is finding a happy medium between landscape and abstract art. For me there has always been a need for a meaning behind the work, whether that be emotionally or as an apparent subject. This I feel is holding me back from making pure work that is for me. And not for others who are looking at it.
My technique is rather similar including the use of manipualting a medium and setting it free.
Everyone has their ways of working and for me it’s spontaneity that keeps me going. A moment causes a reaction which causes art. Realism is a skill. One I was not gifted with but then again one I find rather dull at times. Art for me is expression and response. A mirror or projection of ones feeling at that time, in a place or from an experience.
I think a lot of my work has become about a balance between cool and warm, and me and the paint, and sometimes it takes that imbalance to create something unique. For example previous works have included me scratching at the surface of wet paper to reveal texture, but this can lead to rips, which in my eyes is the paper fighting back, but leaving a trace, and I aim to frame these traces.
What Callum Innes has helped me realise is that technique and style alone can sometimes be enough. In my case this will help me relax into painting again as the past few weeks have been about quantity as opposed to quality. Someone once told me that quantity turns into quality over time and I think this to be true but one must first have that confidence to go forth and produce the work that is quality. This last month for me especially I have had no problem painting but it’s the connection with my own work that is lost. This is my time to find it once more.
The involvement of water within paint is my biggest passion. It gives paint life, the chance to move in its own and be free. This creates imagery we cannot. Pure spontaneity. Unpredictable.
This image shows a piece that I made after being in the park the previous week. It is from my memories of the wood, the grass and the surrounding feelings I felt. Mainly from the wind and rain but all important in my personal response. I believe that to be very important in making art. It is YOUR response, no one else’s, and each choice is important. Innes resembles these feelings in my work also. His art is about journey and movement captured in paint.
Innes has a very clear palette and style. This is apparent in all his works. Six Identified Forms is a piece that shows the contrast of light and dark. This is another element of my work I want to highlight as well as looking at the natural world and the weather, two elements I touched on in my project proposal presentation. This is a time when I can really home in on the focus of this work. Are these the subjects I really want to study?
