Dunes, grasses, bushes

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Dunes, grasses, bushes, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm - available

 

 

 

 

 

Dunes, grasses, bushes - detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very nice painting day. 

 

I work much better after an interval of a couple of days than when working on consecutive days. I paint with immense efficiency after a break. But the next day I'm more hesitant, uneasy. And the third will be quite impossible, with false starts, endless fussing and a cross mood.

 

 

 

 

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Trees in winter, Mocambique, July 2021

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Trees in winter, Mocambique, July 2021, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

 

 

Simple tonal painting. 

It's funny how painting on consecutive days produces less successful results than painting on alternate days, or having intervals of several days. 

I believe this is not simply a question of how one percieves results but that the difference in quality is objectively determinable. 

Perhaps having time off allows the mind to relax and "take stock"?

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Sapling on a riverbank; David Sylvian; tourist pictures; getting into my stride

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Sapling on a riverbank, oil on card, 7 x 9.4 cm  - available

 

 

 

The creek cuts through from bridge to bridge at the back of Itacorubi, and I've found a little path, much overgrown. I went along it, passing a couple of fishermen. 

It`s a great place to work- tranquil. I might think of myself there working as John Crome, great Norfolk painter of discreet places. A thread connects all the artwork I've done, regardless of style or medium: the revealing of secrets. Finding and depicting obscure or hidden parts of Florianopolis is a way of revealing secrets, showing an intimate and private relationship with a hidden or un-noticed place. 

This is a theme that connects many artists I love- photographers such as Atget and painters such as Utrillo or Morandi. I first became aware of my attraction to this theme through music, specifically songs by John Foxx, or David Sylvian: 

  Once again I'm hiding in backwaters Running this way and that Trying so very hard to please (beware of hidden snares) Rushing to bite the hand that feeds me Running this way and that (there are always other possibilities) This way and that 

Backwaters, David Sylvian, 1984 

 Given the themes of secretness, hidden-ness and exploration so animate my work, I wonder if the idea of making the London Tourist paintings, and, in November, the Italian and Maltese ones is such a good idea? 

Such pictures of monuments and given views are surely against my every instinct. But perhaps it is good to oppose ones known instincts from time to time. 

 

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Above are some pieces of card being prepared for paintings. I'm very happy with this small format, which suits my working speed and also keys nicely into the idea of "revealing secrets", as outlined above. It took me a couple of years, however, of fairly steady work to get into my stride- to locate myself in the aesthetic- the first little pictures were generally underworked and to my eyes now, sloppily crafted, sometimes painted on badly primed supports. 

As I have worked steadily, I've managed to develop critical axioms, and raise the general level of my work. I'd say of every five pictures (a usual week), one is an outright failure, two are mediocre, and two good. Usually in twenty there is one which I love.

 But I have good patches and bad: now is a good one, though I scarely dare admit that for fear of jinxing it. 

 

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Balcony/ Sacada, Florianopolis; daily painting

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Balcony/ Sacada, Florianopolis, oil on card, 10.6 x 13.4     -   available

Today's picture is a very Bonnard-ish.

They are supposedly constructing or planting a botanical gardens there, where my view depicts though, apart from a large sign, I have seen nothing to indicate any work taking place there over the last year. These things take forever here. This can be most de-spiriting.

Now I think of it, the theme of the garden is really central to Bonnard- the oasis or haven, and this theme finds its domestic internal analogy in his pictures of bathrooms and bathing.

I previously commented ironically on daily painting, as if there were something excessively worthy or laboured about the idea, but I find that I have myself begun to paint daily. Some people might think this takes discipline, but the opposite is true: in daily painting, painting becomes a sort of anchor, and the day feels incomplete or strange if I haven't worked on any pictures. Painting comes to assume some of the ritualistic qualities of church on Sunday- it solves the problem of what to do, thus making one impregnable.

I think now if I were living in the UK, I'd consider attending church on Sundays just for the amusement of it, though it would have to be a church where the sermons were extremely brief, as I find them irritating. Actually, I find most aspects of religion, apart from the songs and the architecture, annoy me so I am not sure whether I'd really manage to sustain the habit of churchgoing (even in the Anglican church which is famously- magnificently- open to all-comers; even those who are quite openly just there for the aesthetics).

Bad art, "Daily Painters", discussion.

What precisely is wrong with these artists' works? They call themselves “daily painters”, and they produce, like me, a work of art most days. http: //www.dailypainters.com/

There are the usual suspects- some porn-kitsch, a clown (not weeping!), sunny fruit, pets, sunsets.

The world of daily painting has some connection both with the "traditional" gallery art of 19th century genres (still life, nudes, moody portraits) and links to the family photo album, with paintings (copied mainly from snaps, I suspect) of people on holiday. http://www.dailypainters.com/index.php?date=2010-01-19

The notion of artistic purpose shown is very conservative and in both groups of pictures (traditional / holiday snap) a stern editing of reality is taking place serving to exclude any possible offence or unpleasantness (ironical that the net affect of this censorship is actually the opposite intended- revulsion!). They also sometimes have a delightful quality of edging very close to being reasonably good art, then turning away into the abyss of Readers Digest coyness. This is comical but ultimately dispiriting: looking at Daily Painters is a bad thing to do for your mental health because it's an imaginatively reductive experience.

As regards drawing and technical qualities Daily Painters are often awkward- but then so is the work of many wonderful painters. Lack of technincal ability does hamper the the Daily Painters, however: they are camera-dependent in ways that good figuarive artists are not: there are few imaginative flights and little inventiveness when it comes to using the medium of paint itself. Their world is pedestrian.

Their more serious failing usually is "spiritual". That is, there is a lack of examination as to the nature of reality- they present too sunny a vision of life, they are sentimental. An imposition is taking place, they feel "dishonest". But these are not self-consciously subjective pieces either: they reek of propaganda, a banal propaganda for the beauty of places, people or dogs(!). Yet some might argue that they are not sentimental enough, they lack the verve of a Landseer stag.

They do not succeed as classicizing, idealising art in the tradition of say, David, or Piero della Francesca. Quite why this is is hard to say, but I'd suggest that the reason lies beneath the painting, in the individual artist's lack of awareness of the falseness, or banality of their own world view. The artists lack either the skill to propagandise successfully, or the self-consciousness that might lead to greater ambition.

Is it mistaken to discuss art in terms of "honesty"? All art is artifice, surely? That makes sense, but there has to be a correspondence between the art work and something inside us or the world for it to have meaning. A painting of a smiling Stalin kissing a small girl is unpleasant because it offends our sense of the truth, not necessarily because it need be badly made.

I don’t have anything expressly against Obama (indeed, given the nature of his work, he seems about as nice as these people can be) but such images as these make me cringe http://www.dailypainters.com/paintings?search=obama