Willy Nilly

31 December 2022

Willy Nilly

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 28 August 2020 oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

This morning I was looking at a catalogue for an old Cezanne watercolour show and I was reminded of something I've often felt when looking back on my early years in Aix as a student. 

When just starting out as a young painter I found it difficult to spend time learning from the late work of Cezanne, his watercolours in particular. They are sparse and they can even appear unfinished, and I felt that trying to understand them was akin to stumbling upon a set of notations written by Albert Einstein while at Princeton. 

So looking back now from my perspective today, I see more clearly the difficulty of learning from a painter’s later work. It can be done, and maybe many have succeeded, but I found it confusing. The problem I had with trying to learn from him was that he had already painted most of his whole life before arriving at these late watercolours, and there just wasn’t enough information in them for me to grab ahold of for myself. 

Though it took a while I finally realised that copying these things as a student would only lead me to something that 'resembled late Cezanne watercolours’ and they wouldn’t advance me onto a path where my intuition was already trying to steer me. I couldn't get there from his work but I know others who did. I guess it's a question of temperament.

I understood later on that Cezanne's austere pencil drawings done throughout his working life actually prefigured these spare watercolours at the end of his life. Not only that, but his very early work was not only thick with paint but of darkness too because to find his own ‘light’ later on, he had to pass through his own tenebrous past.

I suspect now, that many of these ‘unfinished’ drawings and watercolours were simply left in their abbreviated state for a reason known only to Cezanne. He certainly could have gone further but he stopped, why? Only he knew, but maybe he cited reasons for it somewhere in his letters. I'm not an expert on Cezanne, could it be that he stopped just because he liked what he had achieved? Did he not want to ruin something that he wished to retain as an idea or a study? Maybe he thought he had arrived in heaven?  

But beneath all this, the real problem with working from his late watercolours is that it didn’t allow a young painter (like me) to dig deep enough into my own backyard to find a light of my own. No matter how much one adores or admires Cezanne (or any painter of consequence) he doesn’t just give his light away willy-nilly. I learned that ‘light’ had to be earned the hard way by making lots of dark, lugubrious failures before I would find a way into it. I know this now because I struggled like everyone else trying to figure it out. 'Light' in a painting, is never given away, but it will appear freely when a generous drawing allows it.

Of course, all artists are different and they all evolve (and devolve) in a myriad of surprising ways. I sense that most really grand painters have to dip down into their own personal muck before rising up again to meet fate because many do pass successfully through darkness to get there in the end. A painter like Vincent Van Gogh, certainly went through hell, painting all the way through it and out again in his last luminous paintings from Auvers right before he died. 

Unlike most painters, I think one could learn from any chapter of his life’s oeuvre, from the earliest drawings and paintings around Etten and Drenthe, and finally to Auvers where he died. The early work revealed his scrabble to grapple with learning how to draw, but also his discovery of the surface of a picture plane. A few years later on when he landed in Provence it was as if he had been rocketed into the fourth dimension. The work he made there is so infused with light that any painter, young or established, could learn everything about colour and drawing from just studying him alone. He was a singular figure in art history and remarkable both as an artist and teacher. I have an obvious bias towards him for many reasons, but mostly because I also learned about light and colour in the South of France. 

But alas, all this comes late to a painter like me. Looking back at my own twists and turns, I see that I was looking for solutions to Painting like a worm burrowing blindly through the long dark corridors of great museums. Ignoring my own nagging intuition, I erroneously imagined that I still needed something from the past, like maybe a magic ring or such, a thing that I didn’t realise I already held in my possession. 

So, back to the present here in Australia, this painting was one of two that came out of the other evening. It was a confusing sky full of different kinds of clouds that indicated a front moving in from the South. Not often, but when the sky is all higgledy-piggledly just before dusk, the last bit of the setting sun can shine high in the East lighting up several layers of clouds simultaneously overhead. Like from this picture from the other evening, there can appear small cotton ball clouds at low altitude that will turn bright pink, orange, or gold, usually in succesion.

I love these evenings when colour is working on several different layers all at once. They free me up and yank me out of my habits. Skies like these are chaotic and they’re the best teachers but the fail rate can be high. These are evenings as close to heaven as I’ll ever get I fear. And these jewel-like clouds on this night, some would buy them if they could find the right currency. 

Sophie’s choice

 

29 June 2020 

Sophie’s choice

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 25 June 2020, oil on canvas board,

 30 X 25 cm

So winter nights are here again, and this evening especially, the cold wind feels like a Dr Zeus character with long green arms and legs that slide into my bed each night wrapping its frigid limbs around me. This is one consequence of bachelorhood, but hey!

On the other hand, there is beauty in these inky black skies when one sees the Milky Way full of diamonds haphazardly scattered about overhead. I am still lost in this Southern Sky and although I regret the shorter days, I love these crispy mornings when the birds seem happy under the clement sun.

This week a shy new moon hangs overhead and the ‘blooms’, although brief, have allowed me to work longer. By the third or fourth study it’s been just enough light that a faint trace of pink lingers in the evening air like perfume after a woman has passed by. It’s also been clear this week so most afternoons I get to the beach with high hopes. 

This is a painting I really like from a few nights ago. One of two that evening. Although a viewer would not see it from its warm harmony, I was chilled to the bone when I finished because I’d foolishly forgotten to wear socks or long trousers. Out there when it blows from the South it can be fresh indeed.

When I arrived to set up, the sea looked creamy, and stretching across the sky were wide ribbons of colour. I jumped in and had a ball with it. Although it looks a little scruffy around the edges, the overall effect feels complete to me. But then, like all painters will tell you: “I swear, it looked just like that!” 

It came so easily, I think because I had initially connected so emotionally with all of it, not just the sea and the sky, but the joy of just being out there under such beauty. At times, its just like that. This might be a funny way to put it, but it made me happy, all of it. 

And that I walked away with a study that really pleases me still after several day of looking at it, this feeling has only amplified in me. It’s hard to describe why, out of so many other pictures that one of them comes along every so often and it becomes a favourite over so many others. Why is that? Was it the look of the sky or was it the session that was so pleasurable? Maybe both because I’m partial to sassy big ribbons that one finds in deluxe linen shops in Lyon. Regardless, sometimes painters just has a thing for certain pictures for whatever reason. Might this be akin to what it’s like for a parent to prefer one child over another as awful as that sounds? Is it like Sophie’s choice? 

Because these pictures are done so regularly, I’ve come to see them as paragraphs in a long book, a diary of sorts. And like a diary it’s also a dialogue with oneself, and I’m still finding out all these things about myself that surprise me, shock me, but please me too.

Isn’t this why people keep diaries in the first place? These pictures that come up every few days or so are also certainly like a diary of course. There are snapshots of things I’ve learned over time, but because they're encrypted  I don’t always understand them immediately myself. I think I'm someone who has always gotten life in drips and drabs as they say, but also a little late.

 

So like I said, I really love this painting for reasons I cannot fully describe. But it’s certainly an emotional thing for sure. And why not? It’s Art after all. But also, I like it for its discretion. It was painted quickly, maybe in 10 minutes, and that gives it an air of carelessness that I think disguises all the elements that make it function rather easily. 

There are always loads of problems involved with making a painting, sure, but the painting itself, at the end of the session, is the outcome of fixing all those problems unconsciously. The placement of brushstrokes in these quick paintings create the drawing. In French they call these ‘Ébauches’ or as referring to quick messy and unfinished studies. It was a common slur thrown at the Impressionist Movement as a whole at the time. Today, of course, I think anything goes because we live in wild new world and it’s a GO-GO period for Art, writ large. Besides, since Jackson Pollack, nobody has complained about making it messy.

But in my case, there is no preparation for the pictures, no pencil indications, no outline, just anything can happen and it does, but just in case, I always say a little evening prayer beforehand to make it come right.

That said, where does the foreground begin in this picture? Where is the upper limit of the sky? (and of the picture itself?) Do the foregrounds in both the sea and the sky directly overhead sync up to create the illusion of distance to the horizon line? There are always so many questions but I never ask them unless I have problems. Like a surfer here in Australia, doesn’t one just jump in and hope for the best? There is an art to almost everything concerning the sea after all and mostly it just requires jumping in.  

Ongoingness

 

6 September 2020

Ongoingness

Evening Prayer Brunswick heads, 28 August 2020 oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

I picked up a small book the other day by the writer Sarah Manguso entitled Ongoingness and zipped through quickly. I had seen a review of it in the NYT and it looked very interesting because it concerns her diary-keeping. Being a diarist myself, I was immediately sucked into it. It's tiny book of short entries on each page in which she reflects upon her feelings about keeping a diary. For anyone interested in this microscopic form of inquiry, I highly recommend it.

But I mention it because I fell on two entries in her book wherein she remarkably articulates exactly what I have trying to do with my own pictures in this period of my life. 

"I often prefer writer's diaries to their work written intentionally for publication. It’s as if I want the information without obstacles of style or form. But of course all writing possesses style and form, and in good writing they aren’t obstacles....

.... I want to write sentences that seem as if no one wrote them.... the goal being the creation of a pure delivery system, without the distraction of a style. The goal being a form no one notices, the creation of what seems like pure feeling, not of what seems like a vehicle for a feeling. Language as pure experience, pure memory. I too wanted to achieve that impossible effect."

This is most interesting for me and I immediately thought of the Japanese Haiku for some reason. 

As improbable as it sounds, it’s as if there might be some mystical way of achieving a painting that reveals no trace of the creator’s hand, actually, no proof of the creator even. In fact, many artists today bypass the entire process by simply exhibiting found objects rather dryly in an exhibition space. No more need of hands! 

Today, it's actually a generally accepted method of working (and exhibiting). It’s the new intersection where the Natural History museum and the Art Gallery are grafted together to make something new. 

I'm almost always up for change but the danger I sense from the viewpoint of the artist as craftsman, is that it also tilts the work of art away from the comfort of craft and into an i-cloud of ideation. And who knows where this evolution will take art into the future? 

The problem for me is that it risks to bypass the long and painful training that is the grunt work of education. I'm old-fashioned, no doubt,  and I like pianos and guitars, not buttons on a console. I also like mixing paints and making a mess more than I like making a few quick clicks on a keyboard laptop to make a painting. Because I'm an analogue kind of guy, I think it's through learning a craft that an artist's vision is formed of the long haul. But hey!

So though I kind of liked the idea of this miraculous conception in art, it would never work for me even though it's a sexy idea. It would feel to me like cutting corners somehow, sort of like letting ChatGPT write love letters for me.

Painting is a singular art form, distinct and yes, still noble. It's basically all about the clever and cogent organisation of a colourful mess. Why would anyone wish to deprive themselves of this incredible journey? 

But Sarah Manguso speaks in tongue and cheek, for that I really like both her mind and her writing.

But anyway, here on the Pacific Coast is an example from last week of an extremely unruly image that exudes a purely emotional response to the sea and sky. Although, it falls terribly short, it’s an example of a failure that I’ve decided to keep as a souvenir. Sometimes it’s interesting to reveal all the warts of the panting process, especially when they speak to me. In this image, it’s as if my id took over from my ego that afternoon. 

I never want to imitate Nature even though it might appear that I do in some paintings. I would say that I desire to mimic it by building up an image with pigments, only to then tear it down a little here and there until I get what I want. This might even resemble the way I remember using oil based clay to make sculptures. In this way  I hope to get to the truth of what’s inside of me. It is a process of editing, but also layering, until that secret intuitive pool of meaning is drudged up from deep inside me. A writer might describe it as playing with the unconscious, manipulating it, and with discipline shaping it into something of form, a story perhaps. I imagine that crime writers need to find themselves crawling around the edges of their own reason and sanity to discover the hideous nature of certain people and all they do to one another. 

This is the journey, all this. It's the messiness of work that any craft demands of the creator and honestly, who wouldn't want to to be part of this long tradition of art?

Lastly, perhaps like the crime writer, the choices involved in the painting process can create the idea of the work in question quite unbeknownst to the creator themselves.

Dogfight, part two

4 May 2024

Dogfight, part two

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 29 April 2024, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

This is the second picture from the other evening and it appears far more formal than the previous one. It's amazing how just a mellowing out of the clouds can change everything. It also feels relatively calm compared with the first one, and it actually makes more sense which I hate to admit, means more to me in the end. I wish I didn’t feel this way, but I do. If I were a poet or composer, wouldn’t I also wish to be understood? Being understood, is just about communication, and isn't it about how well a painting communicates to the viewer? 

In all these paintings I simply hope to convey a visual idea through an image, one which might trigger a feeling in a viewer. There isn't much more to it than just that. I'm always interested in reaching out to others, so therefore I work on my language skills which in this case is the craft of painting. Are my skills nuanced enough to engage others without me sounding like a simpleton or a two year old? Naturally, the more subtle the language in an image, the better but I'm not a snob, nor am I presumptuous. But at the same time, I try not to be mysterious or unnecessarily abstruse. In fact, I don't really try to be anything other authentic when I go out to paint the sky at dusk. In my studio work too, I also feel that I'm like that too. 

I mean, art doesn’t have to be arcane, does it? Sometimes it is, but that’s because it’s usually from another age or it has cultural references outside of my own, and that use a different contextual language like that of Aboriginal Art here in Australia.  

And this doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate what is incomprehensible to me personally in painting. Naturally, I apply my western education, so generally as a painter, I just look for visually coherent images whatever its form or style. When looking at riches from other cultures I approach them with cautious discernment. 

But that said, I always still secretly long for pictures which are born with light. What I mean by that is a light that can be illustrated by the term 'chiaroscuro', a kind of description codified by Italian painters somewhere in the 15th century. 

People might often understand this concept as a drawing that's constructed out of 'bright light' from 'dark shadows'. This is crude but somewhat accurate. It makes me think of Caravaggio or Georges de la Tour where the 'lighting' is extreme. But for me, chiaroscuro encompasses an entire spectrum between any measure of light to any measure of shade. 

The Italians also use the term 'Sfumato' to describe an even more subtle gradation of light to shade. It's cool isn't it? It sounds to me like it could be a swear word hurled at someone on a street in Napoli.

But importantly, when I use this term chiaroscuro, I'm referring to also a most compressed version of it like in a late Matisse pencil drawing. For me, chiaroscuro simply illustrates an instance of making any kind of mark on a light surface. No doubt, many art academics might take issue with this degree of extreme simplicity, but hey! 

An interesting comparison that might give a better example of what I mean would be to look at a Matisse pencil drawing next to one of a Cezanne's. For me, and speaking only as a painter, not an academic, I think all of Cezanne's pencil drawings refer back to the Renaissance, and they are a great example of chiaroscuro, when his delicate drawings appear to rise up out of the surface of the paper like moonlight. 

On the other hand, I think of the pencil line drawings by Matisse done in the 1950's, as both very modern in their abbreviation but also archaic like the simple line drawings found in the caves of Lascaux, France. 

Boy! Just any mention of 'light' will take me down too many rabbit holes... Whew..., But this is because, being a painter, I'm not too different than that of a geeky nerd obsessing about computers and the internet when I talk about art. 

 

But getting back to this second picture, the placid nature of it is in direct contrast to the first image so chaotically descriptive from the earlier page. Done not fifteen minutes apart, yet that sky gives up two divergent aspects of Nature and provoked in me such different visual responses. 

Though twilight imposes this perpetual change, these uniquely disparate images are the result of both my own spontaneous spirit, but also the natural flattening of the motif as it approaches  nightfall.

Flat, yes, this second painting does also answer my great affection for all that is flat, but it also speaks of that precious moment on certain evenings when the sea and sky come together with the ease of two young lovers. None of the three pictorial elements of it feel compromised in the slightest way. They repose together like the hands of a young couple in a moment of interlaced affection. If God is an abstract form of intelligence, then painting must surely mimic it everywhere on earth. I think the only thing needed to either make a painting or view one, is an imagination, because this is the realm of Art where magic and mystery are twins.

In the end, all these pictures desire to be reduced to a state when the sea and sky are coupled together in a flat cozy manner. But that’s on a good day, of course. Speaking of this picture, I think if an oil painting could channel a sponge cake it might actually look like this. 

Sartorial something

Because I love colour, both when it clashes and comes together, I have a secret fascination for street fashion, and I'm certainly not alone. So here are some wonderful ideas for everyone who loves both colour and people. 

Disclaimer: I dress badly. i feel uncomfortable in nice clothes, like I don't deserve them. I don't have to admit this because to see me on any street you would make the same assessment in a flash. I don't know exactly when it happened that I gave up trying to look 'great' in clothes but it happened nonetheless. I shouldn't be surprised that I ended up in rural Australia where cargo pants, tee shirts and flip-flops rule. But mind you, some clever sartorial spirits (usually from France, Italy or Japan) look glamorous even here near the sea.

I think that great clothes make me uncomfortable because no matter what I wear, it makes no improvement upon my appearance. So, I guess I gave up. Maybe the truth is that I've never wanted to be visibly present. I'd be happier invisible I think. 

But there's another thing and that's because when I was young I was around a lot of very well-dressed people and I discovered that too many of them were really awful on the inside, underneath the expensive surface. It formed my opinion about human beings at a young age. Of course, this observation was only partly true, partly false, and somewhat erroneous. 

But being a voyeur, I really admire people who get out and hit the street looking great without a great expense. So thank you Simbarashe Cha, the photographer who took these portraits.  

And my fave!