Curtains

Curtains, oil on card, 12.5 x 14 cm

It`s great to be working with high fast colour. I love laying out the colours and mixing them just seeing what happens when they meet.

Do we really need an obvious subject for a painting to be enjoyable?

View across the bay from João Paulo

View across the bay from João Paulo , oil on card, 8.6 x 6 cm

This picture is about the size of a credid card. To the left on the far shore can be see the Policia Federal.

Kim's Game - Work in Progress

A few changes were made to the painting, removing fussier details, making the dhapes simpler, often more egg-like. See previous version - http://tadeuszderegowski.blogspot.com/2009/08/work-in-progress.html

Kim's Game is played at children's parties. A series of objects are displayed to the children on a tray for a limited time period and they have to record what these objects were. The winner is he who recalls the objects most accurately.

According to Wikipedia, "The name is derived from Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel Kim, in which the hero, Kim, plays the game during his training as a spy."

I played the game at Malcolm Smith's birthday party in 1975 or 1976. I remember the objects being brought to us on a tray, then being removied exactly two minutes later, after which we each wrote down the names of the objects we could remember on pieces of paper.

I remember how poorly I recalled the objects despite forcing my concentration. I had a feeling of frustration when writing down the names of the objects, fearing that the process of writing them down was so laborious that in the time it took the other objects would fade from my memory.

My host's mother returned the tray to us for comparasion with the lists- I do not recall who won- it was not me! How mysterious it was that I had simply forgotten some objects so prominent they were: they had indeed disappeared from my consciousness, as if their presence had been a mirage. But they had surely been there as much as those whose names I had recorded.

We have nothing to fear - painting

The pinkish tone of this picture makes me thing of toothpaste. Is that a bad thing?

My idea is to produce unfussy paintings, paintings that have a freshness and lightness about them.

Fast painting

I used to believe that the more slowly and deliberately a thing was done- specifically a work of art- the better. I thought that because I saw slowness as proof of deliberation, thoughtfulness, and care.

These concerns were fundamentally moral. They don't necessarily need to be present in the aesthetic sphere- a work of art can equally well be spontaneous, thoughtless and careless. It just depends on your terms.

There's no proving that one set of values is better than the other because in the end the artwork is just a thing: it has no moral life and - though part of me rages against this- it doesn't really matter very much in the scheme of things anyway.

Personally, I've always been a much better fast artist than a slow one. If the pace is too slow I get bored- I don't concentrate more. On the contrary, if I have too much time to make corrections then I over-edit. I fuss, changing things that don't need changing, blunting my original message with compromise.

This is partly why monotype is such an appealing medium for me, it's "time-limited", you have to get the image right in an hour or two or the ink dries. But I have attempted to discover the same midset in painting, here.

Painting

Art critics have often declared the "death of painting", much as literary critics have declared "the death of the novel".

As a vehicle for innovative thought painting is clearly a reduced force. It simply isn't easy to respond spontaneously to a medium which has such a long, distinguished pedigree. Even artistic trends which were once perceived as wayward, and radical are now weighed down with academic discourse. Abstract expressionism, for instance is now a considered tradition, with "masters" and "schools", as is Surrealism. And images and information about individual works is much more readily available. This means that when you're working on a piece it's hard to avoid making comparisons with the work of other artists- comparisons which "cramp your style".

And personally, I feel when I am working in other media, such as wire, or playing with paper a lightness and creative energy that can be hard to find when mixing paints.

However, in the right frame of mind, there really is nothing comparable to the expressive wit of painting. I mean, the delightful process of applying pressing a paint laden brush to a canvas, of mixing colours- the physicality of this is delicious. Although the painting I worked on yesterday (above) falls into the Kupka -Klee - Nicolas de Staël - Franz Kline school of geometric abstraction the physical pleasure of handling paint is enough to make it worthwhile, and its possible failure to explore new creative territory pales in significance.

For such sensory reasons alone- the pleasure of handling paint- I think that even if painting declines in importance, and ceases to be taught in art schools, it'll never totally disappear.

The painting above is a tribute to Paul Celan, and is titled, "Where did the road lead when it led nowhere?"

There was earth inside them, and they dug.

They dug and they dug, so their day
went by for them, their night. And they did not praise God,
who, so they heard, wanted all this,
who, so they heard, knew all this.

They dug and heard nothing more;
they did not grow wise, invented no song,
thought up for themselves no language.
They dug.

There came a stillness, and there came a storm,
and all the oceans came.
I dig, you dig, and the worm digs too,
and that singing out there says: They dig.

O one, o none, o no one, o you:
Where did the way lead then it led nowhere?
O you dig and I dig , and I dig towards you,
and on our finger the ring awakes.

by Paul Celan, from the 1963 collection, "Die Niemandsrose"
Translated by Martin Hamburger.