Silence and visual noise

When you paint a picture it doesn’t help to overthink the meaning of everything. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, as the song goes. That’s become a sort of corny motto for me while I try to get something going that comes from an authentic place in my being.

What has become real for me is the immense silence that’s required to create visual noise. All my pictures are self-portraits first and foremost. They show me in the throes of some not-so-great discovery that has already changed my life.

Sorry about the contradiction, but I value the small moments of enlightenment over the lightbulb moments after which  humanity will never be the same. I don’t mind if I don’t change the world, I’m happy if you say that my picture just changed your day.

A few months ago yet another earth shattering, abandoned self-portraitof Van Gogh was found behind a famous painting of his that hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland. They had to x-ray the thing to see the ghost of the old self-portrait therein.

There’s a sadness to painting, as a solitary occupation, that becomes even more poignant when you understand that every honest work contains the soul of its creator, crying to get out. We don’t just clean the brushes and then go out to lunch. We stand alone in the studio wondering whether we are good enough. We eat ourselves up.

As I say, it doesn’t help to overthink