[Oil, wall paint and yacht varnish on canvas, birch and precast concrete. Lithographs]
What distinguishes painting from any other art form, is the fact that you are trying to shape a liquid medium to create an image. This may be even more the case with detailed figurative painting, than with free flowing gestural approaches. You are continually managing viscosity, thinning or thickening paint, pushing little heaps of paint into shape, reworking them, being guided by drying time and other material properties of various types of paint. Generally, it’s a process of trying to coax and work with a medium that is not easily forced, so I tend to let it flow and do its own thing, applying control only lightly, in a process that is experimental and responsive, as well as guided by an understanding of physical properties of paint and surface types, acquired over the years.
There is a specific form of attention and awareness in this, which for me is the essence of painting.
Next: Flower Patch
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