Lately I have been thinking about intention: is the intention of my work mine or the painting’s intention. I cannot impose my intention on my work but it is there as a background colour or rather flavour, always. Even when I like something I have done but it doesn’t work with my intention, I have to keep going. Demand the painting to my will. But not bend it. The painting will not inevitably bend. It has its own will. So we collaborate.
What I am looking for, need, in my work, is solidity and something that is more than its parts. A merging of marks, forms, colour into a world beyond the one I know. Therefore, I never know before how this will end, what the work will look like, be, when complete. So the completeness is the answer here. It’s not about finishing it. What completes the painting: is it me or what the painting demands. Some of each? So in truth, we collaborate.
On that thought of solidity and completeness, I have been layering the paint until I get it “right”. Because I am using paint with wax in it, it never really dries and can therefore peel if not stored properly. I need the density. So for now I am trying to make the illusion of density by mixing a lot of colours into the surface colour of the painting rather than layering the colours.
Of course, I can always ask myself why I need the density. My only honest answer is because I do.
