Why paint nudes?
The glib answer is that it is easier than painting clothing. I guess by stripping things back to their base parts I’m attempting to pare back the image. Recently I’ve definitely been attempting to paint less . By that, I mean look more and apply the pigment only where it is required. Self- control has never been my strong point so I do find this challenging.
I started out attending life drawing classes as a teenager, these then became my images from which I began to paint and basically the well has yet to run dry. Recently I’ve been embracing my version of self-portraits. Obviously self-portraits are a well established subject matter throughout history. Selfies are just the modern incarnation. I understand that I'm following in a long held tradition of artists painting self-portraits. I've benefited from the more tech savvy youth to recently embrace the selfie and this has helped launch my new direction. When I blog, I’m exposing other slices of myself through words. These paintings are yet another side of me.
Some of these works expose literal pieces of me, others more metaphorical pieces of me. I certainly feel there is a bit of me in every work – whether it be a portrait of a friend or an abstract play of a brush along the canvas. They convey my love of strong colour, bold strokes of the knife, brush or my fingers. I enjoy the sensuality (and the downright mess) of the physical application of paint. The curves are the place I like to get into. I like to flow with them, using my imagination to let my fingers dance along the skin.
No comments:
Post a Comment