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The paintings I make are charts
of wanderings; what I mean by that is: you can wander around a painting
and have, at least sometimes, a feeling of recognition of the place
where you are. But the place can shift into a new location, you
lose your bearings and then find yourself by intuition. You don't
know how you got there, but you know where you are. There are well-beaten
tracks and waymarkings that appear familiar.
When I set off on a new canvas, white, pristine, in the morning, I often think why should I want to mess this up? It's like an empty mirror, but when the first few marks are made, it changes. It has direction, it begins to beckon you. Making the decision to start is the important thing, it doesn't seem to matter what you do. Disparate things can be united, related somehow. Dialogue begins. You're conscious of what is going on in one direction, but a lot is happening along the wayside. Contrasts are important: for example, organic versus geometric. Organic forms arise from memory. There is the energy of the life form against the rectangle of geometric space. Color is used emotionally. One is pulled into it or set upon by it. My major concern is to face this "wall" and apply paint so as to both respect the wall and create recesses in it. I feel I would like to sculpt the painting, to cut caves into the wall and thus create a certain presence of emergent life. John Tierney |