I spent a number of years painting primarily in front of nature, using watercolour and oil. Painting from life involves a responsive situation in which decisions are made instinctively, and with the effort to record. However, studio work was also a large part of my creative effort, starting with a very controlled medium, egg tempera, and eventually transitioning to the more flexible use of oil. I find a close relationship between a la prima techniques and studio work in the use of gesture, brushwork and surface.
The act of painting cannot help but be a subjective experience in which emotions and cognition become encoded in the types of marks, texture and surface, choice of colour and compositional device, let alone formal and narrative content. This is the power of the artist’s personal signature.
The studio is the transitional space for the exploration of expressive means allowing contemplation, the surfacing of dynamic association and technical and formal departure from representational limitations. It’s a space which allows sustained development of an image.
Progress.
