06 August 2021

Potpourri from last week, à la Carte de Jour, S.V.P! Form and Fear!

                                                                                   LRP

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 25 July 2021, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

                                                                                   LNA
Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 22 July 2021, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

These are from a little over a week ago. The top two both have a more formal sensibility compared to the other two below which seem to be more concerned with a kind of verisimilitude to the motif. As I always say, I am never quite sure what kind of mood I will find myself in at the start of each session. Just as one arrives at a restaurant, so much of what interests me will be included on the menu 'de jour' each new evening. It's always then just a matter of choice. 

The top two present a clear horizon so it lends itself to a clean, and more formal structure. Increasingly, I like this, I mean, I like what it brings out in me. Sometimes the motif feels like a simple design of broad bands lined up ready to be painted. (this is especially true in the picture just above, in warm pale pinks and blue violets. It's as if I want to reduce Nature down to simple patterns like one might see in a French shop specialising in exotic linens designs (tissu en lin). I have been to such shops in Paris, in a quarter below Montmartre around Pigalle, where one is transported to another world of refined sensuality. 

But, the studies below, done within days of the top two, reveal a surface of uncertainty, a hesitation, more risk perhaps, but certainly more scratched and scribbled, for one feels both the search for Form, and the Fear of failure. And yet, one can see in each of these that they are born of the same hand, from the same loyalty to a graphic unity which might lead to real volume one day.

                                                                              TDB
Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 22 July 2021, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

                                                                           NAL
Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 22 July 2021, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm




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