making a painting - (part 4)

More and more paint.
Mark and mark again.
What else?

Always, especially when I feel there is a resolution approaching, I will turn the piece I’m working on round - 90 degrees, then another until I’m back where it started.
I’m looking for something better than I’ve got already.

And this is what happened this time.
Suddenly it all made sense.
A quarter turn and I sighed.
More work to do but...yes.


(detail)

A bit more paint.
And a scratch here and there…



It feels a bit odd to sum up what I do in so few words…
“Well I put on the paint with a few tools and mark into it a bit until it is finished”

It can take me days, weeks, (months?)...

Sometimes I experience a freedom and lightness.
Most often it is intense.
It is abstract and I feel like my head is turned outside in trying to reach that itch.
And still I love it.
The newness of every single painting I make.
And then the fighting with it.
And myself.
Chasing whatever it is.

My artistic world is currently dominated by thoughts of sky and air and breath.
In a previous post from a few months back, I spoke about the Scots word “happed”, meaning wrapped up, most likely against the cold wind and rain.

There will be so much more to say about this in the months or even years to come. It drives my work on.
Learn to breathe.
Learn to fly.
Become transformed.
Happed in sky.

This is what scratches at my bones.
Expressing a oneness, a wholeness.
Finding a sense of place, wrapped up, protected.



“happed in sky” - (2019)
40x40cm
oils, cold wax medium
£390

(for sale: first come first served)