Continuing with the experiment. I think patience is useful. I look at these in-progress paintings and am mostly bored. I don’t know what direction to go in and this isn’t surprising since the zest for engagement in the general ‘style’ of the experiment over the last six years has (for now) run dry.
I’m amused (sometimes) and annoyed (often) at my presumptuousness in thinking I could show up at the next painting session and suddenly expect a fantastic new expression to emerge. That might happen, but more likely it will be a slow process.
It’s therefore not surprising that when I currently see work by other painters that I find interesting, I immediately want to paint like them (for there’s something in the work I lack and want to have). I must then confess further presumptuousness: The work from each painter emerged out of countless hours of practice, pondering, experimentation, failure and success, inspiration and hope. I will not be getting to that either, without said work. So note to self: Remember this!
Which reminds me of one of the common irks I have about my own paintings: “I’ve got nothing to say so why bother?” Yet the urge to paint persists.
Also, there’s this: My relationship to painting has been on-and-off over the years. It’s been more like a ‘hobby’* which I dabble with from time to time. Reviewing the definition of ‘hobby’: “persued for pleasure but not main occupation” – that’s partially true, but recently I thought a better description would be ‘therapy’ (since it involves work and is not always pleasurable).
As for the “But what does it mean?” aspect, my experiment in abstraction over the last two decades has certainly loosened the “grip of meaning” regarding my work. I must admit, though, that the ‘meaning’ factor still persists (in relation to my proclaimed lofty intent to “paint the mystery”). A noble persuit, so by that definition the criteria for evaluating my own paintings would be: How much ‘mystery’ has been communicated?
In the absence of content, the ‘glue’ that holds a painting together (for me) seems to be a combo of clear-enough feeling-intent and a strong-enough style (visual language) to conduct-express the feeling.
So the connundrum is: I’m sort of back to grappling with ‘style’ (which I don’t want to focus on), in the absense of content.
And before I forget (another note to self), one aspect that can be useful in looking at other’s paintings is that it can INSPIRE something different in one’s own work. This is different than merely copying the work of other artists (though that’s good too).
I may get to commenting on the above images (Fig. 1–5), but then again it may be too boring.