Lets
Play Red Indians...
For me it was
simple. My heart was on the line. GoFigure.net.au cuts very deep into
my soul. It was a very private therapy. So I built a teepee in the
middle of the studio. A place of innocence and protection totally
hidden from the grown-ups outside. It was there that the artwork took
shape.
No
one knew who I was painting. It was a big secret. That was not part of
any grand plan. Rather it was that it was personal, revealing, close to
the bone, so I needed that space to be just mine. I apologise to all
those who felt excluded. It had to be that way.
See the teepee in the studio
The
Panel, Ancient Craftsmanship made new...
GoFigure.net.au is
a Panel painting, traditionally heavy oak cut through the heart of the
tree to minimise warping. Canvas replaced panels after the Renaissance
because it was lighter and cheaper.
Modern
wood
products however offer the chance to return to our artistic roots. I
have made a panel that looks a lot like a japanese screen door from the
back. It is cut and mortised together in such a way that only 4
screws are used in its construction, and they could be removed, and the
structure would not fall apart. It is far stronger than, and lighter
than, the same sized stretched canvas
At the beginning I made the panel.
The Frame
The Frame that is not a Frame...
This frame is a
fraud. It is an artwork masquerading as a frame. At the beginning I
wanted a real frame, but it seemed best to have an 18th century frame,
to cut across the ages, and to give the hyper-realist portrait a
connection with its old master roots.
Slowly it dawned on me that it was far better to make my own
'impression' of an old frame. To make a sculpted frame, one that is
100% part of the artwork. So now I have a sculpted, a painted and a
digitized version of my impression of a frame.
It
is very fragile, I hope it can survive the Archibald judging process.
Most years artworks come back with small scratches. I hope this year
will be a gentle year.
Paint as Leonardo liked it...
Thin and
transparent, but applied layer over layer to build the body of the
paint. Modern technology with old techniques make for a new result not
quite like either age. Leonardo would not have thought it strange.
The
paint is acrylic, applied in the portrait in tiny strokes with 'OO'
brushes. A very slow and meticulous technique, it produces a glowing
vibrant paint surface pregnant with colour. I believe that the paint
should not just be charged with feeling, but that the paint itself
should be beautiful. There is enough ugliness in the world without me
adding to it unnecessarily.
It meant however weeks inside
the teepee, sometimes spending an entire day on just a square
centimetre or two. As my work has become more realistic in recent times
I have come to appreciate the dance at the tip of the paint brush.
Music helps create the dance. For me making art is a total experience.
A
Snapshot Looking into a Mirror into the Soul...
People ask me if I used photographs. If only it was that
simple. I used every resource at my disposal. I set up coloured
lights to explore colours. My camera was terrible at recording the full
range and richness of the colour, so I ended up making a lighting
device out of a dolphin torch that worked well with my portable
mirror. I have huge mirrors in the studio, but the bulk of the
work was done with a little two dollar Woolworths make-up mirror that
hung with a wire over my panel.
As
to photograhs, while handy and I did chop up and generally destroy a
couple of photos as I tried things out, I actually used
photograhs a little less than I usually would. The simplicity of the
head shot meant that all the effort was going into a small image.
Besides working from life is generally easier than working from
photographs and a self portrait meant I was always on hand for life
modelling in the paint. That was a rare luxury.
Once the likeness was achieved
the hours staring into the mirror became a communication with the
self that went beyond the practical needs of accuracy. It gave me an
insight into the value of the extraordinarily long sitting sessions
demanded of sitters by Degas. He was said to take 60 to 80 sessions
working on a portrait. Likewise Picasso used as many sittings when
painting Gertrude Stein. I have discovered there is method in their
madness.
It is possible to get to a point where the sittings take on a spiritual
nature that allows deeper insights than normal.
In todays busy world
photographs are used so much because it is hard to tie busy subjects
down to many sitting sessions. This does not help the cause of great
portrait painting. We all lose because of it.
Where photography was an
essential tool for me in this work, was as a digitizing tool, becoming
an interface between the hand done paint and the computer. My mac was
in the end the quiet achiever, helping with
experimentation, digital components, and
finally the web development that made this cyber extension of the
painting possible.
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