Lost but found

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 29 March 2018, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

I came across this unusual little picture a few  weeks and was surprised and happy because I had put in a junk pile while trying free up some space. There are so many of these paintings, many of which I fear are pretty awful, so I have been culling them periodically. They come from the very being of the series when I felt half blind. This one was about to be thrown into the bonfire when I took a double-take and put it aside. 

So, what is it about this small thing that appealed to me six years after painting it? First of all, not only does one need distance away from a picture, but the picture needs time away from the painter. Somewhat like a long break with a friend or lover, each party requires a sufficient time and space to see reality more clearly. Because faults abound in every separation, apologies and forgiveness naturally ensue, and in Art it's no different because works of art are like wine which will either improve in time or turn to vinegar. But if one is lucky enough to understand this fickle language of Art they may have an uncanny advantage over the rest of us. 

So, what does this small picture say to me that I saved it from a bonfire? It speaks of an intimacy that I really appreciate in paintings, and only now do I see why I didn't get at the time. It's too simple, and it says nothing. 

As the painter years ago, I must have been ruthlessly critical of this. But to be frank, it's also a particular sort of image that I get it now but not then. It means that I've grown, and that my sensibilities have been enlarged in every direction. I suppose this is good thing to know about oneself because it means that I am still evolving. 

I think for some, as we age, the more one's mind opens up and out, as if spreading wide like the horizon on a desert. 

Conversely, I think others, whose creative minds gradually shrink over a lifetime, are reduced like the aperture on a camera lens to receive less light. So unlike those who open to the wide angle of nuance and uncertainty in life, others become more brittle and fixated, it seems to me.

This is an inconclusive image, not anything of importance but a fragment of an idea of little substance. If I didn't know what it was, I might never understand it, something I actually like as I get older. And yet, it resonated with me, and that's the point of Art. I see in it a question not an answer.