This technophobe got an iPad Pro. I am still waiting for flying cars, but in the meantime I let my mind be blown by mixing “live paints” on this glowing glass thing. To be honest, I found it frustrating to get into it. The concept of layers is central to my painting process, but these digital layers feel so alien. I have spent so much time thinking about “layers” and “masks” recently that they have tweaked how I see paint.
These small self-portraits are the first incarnation of that change. I came home Saturday night and banged out a series of them on Arches watercolour paper. I used chunky acrylic pens and had them all done in under 10 minutes. The next morning I was in the studio and tried them in oil paint. First on two tiny canvases and then one large one.
The speed of these works is part of the process. I think of the different areas as shapes cut out of coloured paper, or shapes on a single layer on the iPad. The details are rendered cartoonishly with a dry looking, quick, dark line. The simplicity of these self-portraits is what draws me to them. They have a Postman Pat quality that I like. I pared away every detail, except the lines in the woolly jumpers which are much needed in a chilly studio.
The orange shape on the head accidentally turned out like Trump’s hair. It’s actually meant to be my favourite orange hat. The wool has worn out over time, and it’s now so big that it keeps falling over my eyes. I have to push it down the back of my head to see.
The longer I look at the portraits, the more I think that their composition might have been influenced by the Picasso portraits I saw in the Museum Berggruen in Berlin. I bought a postcard of one of them and had it on the studio wall for months.
Wherever they might have come from, they have a buccaneer flavour to them. I think this guy might go on an adventure, maybe start chasing tigers again..
I found this image in a German art magazine and was captured by the movement in it. The narrative is about a saint on a journey. Sitting here in the studio, a year into the pandemic, I realise that the idea of travelling has become so alien to me. Ironic, considering that Christopher is the patron saint of travellers. I made a promise to myself to go and find this Patinir painting in the flesh when all this Covid is over. What’s happening in the painting is just as interesting. Patinir’s treatment of the …