Why is painting so complicated?

 

Diana Hand Red and pink 30 x 15  Acrylic on board

Diana Hand Arctic   30 x 15  Acrylic on board

 
I have never felt confident about making paintings. A lot of people seem to share this vulnerability., as though they  are putting their self confessed "inadequacy" on public display.  But it is not like this with drawings.  That we can do without self consciousness or fear of failure or ridicule.  But...pick up a paintbrush with the intention of making marks on a surface and suddenly the whole canon of western art is on your shoulder. Plus there are the uncertainties of working with the mysterious properties of paint and its awkward property of colour -a lot of different colours, uncontrollable and unpredictable in their relationships with each other.. 

Diana Hand Special place 18 x 16  acrylic on canvas

So how to find a path?  One way is to learn traditional painting skills and make the kind of figurative work that is still much admired (and bought) today.   Then at least one can hold onto those precious skills and fine tune them.  I never really got on with that way.  Perhaps I did not have the patience, maybe I felt it had been done so many times before and so much better.  But it did seem to be a necessary stage in learning to paint. -  just go into any bookshop or art store for examples.

For me colour is a gestural statement, and for years I have found a satisfying expression of my energy by applying colour in the form of liquid dye to cloth. I sometimes think "that would make a great painting" or "that really works" , but have also thought also that making a painting was an entirely different statement and procedure.  Right, up to a point.  But what if when I did a piece of cloth, I also created  a little painting with acrylic?  Quite thin acrylic, echoing the translucency of the dye.

Diana Hand Colour games 18 x 16 acrylic on canvas

What happens is that I start to think of the "painting" process in a completely different and entirely abstract way.  No more angst about line and tone and complementary or simultaneous colours.  Just let paint works its magic, mixing the natural energy of painting with dye with the improved scope and control of paint on board or canvas.  Watch this space.

I started to try this new approach courtesy of  the late Abigail Mclellan's recent exhibition at Open Eye Gallery.  Abi used acrylic in her own way, building up layers of glazing to create a glowing effect.   My thinking was miraculously reinforced by a visit to the Klee exhibition last week.. "paintings saturated with primary colours liberated from specific local objects, and this independence of colour from form presaged abstraction" (Making Visible Tate catalogue p. 19) 

Diana Hand Special place #2  18 x 16 acrylic on canvas

PS   But the next day I returned to three-dimensional work, grounded in the body, and relating more senses than just the visual.  Relief!   Painting is too scary, full of unknowns with the colour slipping about and presenting a million variables and opening up holes in the consciousness in a sneaky way.  It is too uncertain for me. It just takes huge amounts of psychic energy.