Sui generis

 

18 May 2018

Sui generis

       Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 12 May 2018, oil on canvas board 30 X 25 cm

These mornings are clear and dry, full of bird calls and chatter, the light buzz of the crickets mark the last warm mornings before winter will arrive definitively.

This is the last of three small studies from a crazy and chaotic sky last week. The first two had bordered on the kitsch due to the sea that raged orange beneath a mass of pink clouds overhead, but I think I lost them in the shuffle. This one came along like the caboose at the end of the line.

It’s a sensuous image which I really like, the kind that wants me to blow it up to a much larger size using big brushes and gobs of thick paint, maybe say, 150 X 150 cm. It’s at least nice for me to dream about these kinds of things because sometimes they may actually get done. It’s a picture for painters, that’s for sure. Without context that links it to the sea and sky, the public might just imagine it to be another abstract painting from a dark studio somewhere. But that’s OK too. We painters take whatever scraps are left out out on the table.

But at least, as the painter, I do get to witness this last gasp of light that defies the slow incursion of nightfall which like death, submits to no one else. At this very instant, the painter in me struggles for a chance at glory in this mythic moment, when in almost biblical terms, I try to capture this transfiguration from light into darkness. Maybe it’s like a spiritual conversion but in reverse, where radiance turns tenebrous, for this is the holy space between heaven and hell, and I like it there.  

At the end, when the fireworks that painted the sky have shut down, I often feel deflated like the kid at the end of a roller-coaster ride. All the colours that so enchanted me just prior, have been siphoned off and twilight has eaten up the remaining light. Only then can this painter again feel mortal. 

As with so many others, this study was made quickly and without much thought. My only critique is that it’s a small idea, indeed, too small to really develop. It’s made up of just two planes of colour, and unfortunately it just looks like a detail cut out from a larger picture that a painter might have really loved.

In the trade, they're called cut-outs. But, cut-outs almost never, ever succeed unless they were already crumby paintings to begin with. They will only appear interesting to people who know nothing about Painting. And yet, painters of every stripe do it from time to time, always out of desperation. Sadly though, unless you’re Dr Frankenstein, the amputation of an arm will always just leave a dead arm. Full disclamier; I’ve been guilty of this too before I wised up.

After spending a few days with it I started liking it, so maybe I’ll keep it for the future.