“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get
what you’ve always got” This infallible gem of wisdom was imparted to me many
years ago by a multi-millionaire. Such sage advice from anyone successful in
life might well prove noteworthy so I return to it whenever things aren’t going
to plan.
Having been unable to paint since the end of July I have had
plenty of time to reflect on the changes that I have wanted to make to my work
for some time. Eight years ago I painted like this:
Greengages
Oil on Linen
Around this time I sold my work through Quantum Contemporary
Art in London and
felt caught in a commercial trap. Each piece like the one would take a
week to paint and sell through the gallery (who took 60% commission) for around
£2400. “What’s wrong with that?” you may well ask. Well it was “Soulless”. I
was producing a commodity rather than a work of art. I felt like a copyist,
there was no personality in the work, no ‘Nick’
in it. I would shudder when anyone said “Oh it’s just like a photo!” Well there
you are, I don’t want to be a camera. I want to be an Artist – and that’s the
really difficult bit - you need to stick with me here.
In 1948 The Philadelphia Museum of Art held a retrospective
show of Matisse’s work. In the Exhibition Catalogue he wrote an essay “l’exactitude n’est pa la verite” –
Exactitude is not truth. Of his four self portraits in the show, which were
simple contour drawings with great liberty of line and strong in character, he
said ‘ These drawings seem to me to sum up observations that I have been making
for many years on the characteristics of a drawing, characteristics that do not
depend on the exact copying of natural forms, nor on the patient assembling of
exact details, but the profound feeling of the artist before the objects which
he has chosen, on which his attention is focussed, and the spirit of which he
has penetrated’
In that paragraph Matisse nails it. That is the difference.
Some people will ‘get it’ and some people won’t.
Four years ago, when I was living in France , I
managed to get closer with my work to where I wanted to be with this piece:
Apple Blossom
Oil on Panel
There is undoubtedly
some ‘Nick’ in it and there is spontaneity and a freedom
in the impasto brushstrokes. Unfortunately I got seriously ill shortly after
painting this had to return to the UK for major surgery and lost a lot
of confidence specifically in ability to paint and in myself generally.
Consequently when I got back to painting again I tightened up and reverted a
bit toward how I used to paint.
However, after another prolonged period on the sidelines
thanks once again to illness and the financial implications associated with my
inactivity I have acquired an attitude of “In
for a penny in for a pound”. Surely now is just the time to give painting
how I would really like to my best shot. In a bizarre way it’s all quite
liberating – there is nothing much left to loose.
Managing to get back into the studio over the past couple of
weeks I have begun a new journey with my work. Going back to basics in some
areas and experimenting with the new in others. It’s not easy, it’s very
difficult and at times it seems that there is only frustration. Goodness knows
when I will produce anything that will see the light of day. But for
inspiration on one of my walls I have the words of someone whose work I admire
and who continued to change and adapt successfully throughout his career:
“It’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people’s
expectations. If you feel safe in the area that you are working in you are not
working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you
feel you are capable of being in. Go a little further out of your depth and
when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom you are just
about in the right place to do something exciting” David Bowie
Daffs in a Bottle
Oil on Linen
11" x 8.5"
Framed
£190
And framed it looks like this and measures 17" x 14"
pretty then . . .
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