I have always had a battle with myself as a painter. What is more important and where does the balance lie between paint and the subject? Last year I looked at the actual act of painting and paints physical qualities being my subject.
I believe paint can be so much more than an illustrative tool. I’ve experienced the feeling of viewing a painting and it blowing me away because of the paints physicality and the way it just feels alive. It is something that is so enigmatic I can barely put my finger on it. It is this belief in the power of paint that lead to me thinking about the active role of paint.
I believe that certain renderings of paint particularly in portraying flesh (as my dissertation explored) can communicate an emotion and content to the viewer that adds to the dynamism of the painting.
The idea that an artists own psychological nature can be read by the viewer through their paints language is at the heart of my project and is mentioned in this video on the Paint Made Flesh exhibition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxjjFDEkpDQ
In preparation for this project and also for my dissertation research, I visited the Bacon & Moore exhibition in Oxford. Francis Bacon is one these painters whose paintings have an indescribable effect on me. To me, Bacon’s paintings don’t just look like what they describe – they go past this- they feel like it. THIS IS FUNDIMENTAL TO WHAT I WANT TO ACHIEVE IN MY WORK. I want my painting to feel like what I depict – I want my paint to have an extra sensory quality that speaks directly to the viewer.
In my research for my dissertation, I listened to a talk on the Tate website between Maggi Hambling, Jenny Saville and Nigel Cooke on Francis Bacon. Hambling commented that it is Bacon’s relationship with his subject and experience of life that makes his paint do what it does.
Bacon experienced the effects of war on the human body, and this enters his paint in terms of both how he choose to portray his flesh – distorted and deformed- and the way his paint speaks to the viewer of this. I have been considering, like Hambling suggests that it may be the artists relationship with their subjects that allows the paint to act like it does when active paint is present!
This is why I chose my own flesh as a subject – my flesh is personal to me which, I hope will create an immediate relationship between me and my paint.
