Painting is doing; it requires taking action and seeing it through. But it is also something more akin to being. It requires presence and quietness and listening. For me, the less agenda in a work of art the better. I'm not saying I'm against political art, but there has to be something else behind it. Art whose only content is ideas lacks something; it is all-too-often empty.
So the artist paints of his/her time. We paint of the moment in the hope of connecting to the timeless, and we paint from within in the hope of connecting with the universal. I make art, in a physical sense, to survive for hundreds of years. That alone doesn't make it superior, but one must concede it makes for a formidable case as to its intent.
The paintings I am most uncertain about are often the best. Those which please me, that is to say those that I look at and think, "that's exactly what I want" are generally not as strong as the ones cloaked in ambiguity or ambivalence. So this state of uncertainty and doubt is a powerful place from which to create.
Proper pics of this one as I complete it within the next few weeks. I like to snap pictures with my phone for shorthand reads. It enables me to see the work instantaneously and in an unflattering context. I need to be able to see the work in the moment, without context or history or the relationship I've developed with the long time spent.
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