Interview with Self

Q1. When you begin a painting what are you hoping to achieve or create?

The act of painting for me isn’t so much about a finished product. It’s very much about being in that creative space, where you can dismantle systems and restrictions you’ve set up within yourself and start to trust in one’s own creativity and its possibility.

So really painting is about advancing, if you like, one’s creative domain, ones sense of possibility…and what happens when you finish with a work is that a sense of new expansion remains in the conscious mind.

So, the painting needs to create a sense of space that can facilitate this sense of expansion and that’s really what I’m looking for…a sense of clarity that creates conscious space within the viewer.

Q2. Do you need to be inspired for this process and if so what inspires you?

Many creative people function on that idea of inspiration. They either come up with an idea that inspires them or they get inspired by something and then come up with an idea. They then develop the idea and hopefully resolve it. It’s a logical process of resolve that makes sense…to artist and viewer. By that I mean you can create a story, a narrative about this sort of process…put a timeline to it and it appeals and registers with our sense of wanting to know and understand. One feels satiated as though something has been digested properly. For example, with this blog post I was finding it difficult to expand on certain aspects of my practise and then I thought “Well, I’ll interview myself and make that the blog”. That was the idea and then I could think up questions and the answers were then much more direct and honest in that they came naturally.

With my painting it’s a different mechanism. It’s not about ideas or inspiration. I am always in a state to paint…it’s about turning up and committing to it. It’s not a sense of excitement that many associate with being inspired…rather there’s just no resistance to doing it and there’s this continual desire to remain in the process of creating. It becomes the world you are most comfortable in. It’s not a comfort zone as you are always challenging yourself, pushing the work but there is no sense of anxiety, dread or fear about doing that.

I liken it to those dreams/nightmares where you find yourself walking out onto a stage to a full house thinking to yourself “but I can’t play the piano” or “I know nothing about String Theory”. I feel being comfortable with the idea of not knowing is so important and so not in keeping with our notion of being and acting. The audience in these dreams are really parts of ourselves, but we see them as objects of judgement and criticism…en masse. The thing is it’s fine to walk out onto that stage and say or do nothing or even lie down. When I start work on a painting it’s really like opening a factory. You metaphorically open all the doors and windows to let the light in, you switch everything on, so everything is ready and waiting. Of course, you need to have a fealty for what you are about, a sensitivity and faith in yourself that often comes with years of pursuit.

When you can switch off the perceived challenges of that audience, that chatter then you generate a sense of space to act and unique individual action, as in painting, requires a lot of space. Space to act and space to trust.

So, in many ways my work is about creating space and clarity of space and hopefully that acts as a catalyst to open a newfound but oddly known space within the viewer so they can act or think differently. I know that sounds a grandiose assumption, but I make it because that’s what art I respond to does for me. It’s freedom.

Q3. With that in mind do you naturally respond to art that seeks the same outcome as you?

Well, I dare say subconsciously my practise will have a huge impact on my response to others artwork. As you develop your sensitivity to the language of paint or the language of a particular artform then you begin to respond to the honesty of the work. It’s about how fully the artist has surrendered to themselves. It’s not a mental thing. I mean because someone feels strongly about something and feels they have invested all their heart into it, it doesn’t mean its going to be honest on that creative level. It just means it’s going to be an illustration of what you feel. On a creative level, honesty doesn’t need the story. It doesn’t need justifying. It simply needs space to exist.

For me that honesty is about leaving an honest imprint of one’s total gravity…of who they are as individuals and as one moves through life that gravity changes as the person develops and matures and you can see this, or absence of it, in a single mark, application or nuance of colour. It’s a resonance thing.

I mean that’s my approach but in the end it’s the chemistry between the artwork and the viewer. I do feel though that an artwork does need that extra layer to it. Its something that can’t be explained in words. It’s a realm of mystery and wonder and really it’s what makes it all worthwhile. It’s like discovering something new and real that part of you feels as already known. It’s not a reunion but rather a realization. It’s a sense of feeling the enormity of silence and the fullness of seeming emptiness. It’s the magic of it all.

Q4. In so much of your writing, you talk about the image, narrative, ideas and illustration. Can you elaborate of this a bit?

I feel the whole point of art is about the transformative process of taking something personal and communicating it as a universal truth. If you are a storyteller then the art isn’t in the story but in the way you tell it. If you’ve painted a still life the art isn’t in the objects themselves but in their portrayal. So, the artist must develop a means to keep the vitality of consciousness alive. I think the word art comes with so many traditional guidelines that are almost obsolete today in many ways. I mean you can make an image as realistic as you like and as a technique that is a skill, but it doesn’t mean its going to deliver as a work of art.

I do believe though that art is a catalyst to experience life and one’s place in it from a different perspective and that it is an important and vital pursuit however you go about it.

Thanks for your time John.

My pleasure John.