Projects

I've decided to give myself a few project titles to work on. The aim is for me to approach working in a new way, recording thoughts, producing work, evaluating and hopefully improving. With any luck, rigorous self-criticism will pay off and I'll end up painting a masterpiece. Right.

The first working title I've landed on is "Violence as Pleasure", so will be looking at all sorts of things from the spectacle of arena combat (gladiator, bull-fights) to violence in literature, the theatricality of violence in splatter films down to the sublimated exercise of being a sacrificial agent in some computer games. I'm hoping to produce some writing as well as visual work during this process, which will maybe inspire me to be more diligent in posting here.

Tilda, Tilda

I've been wondering to myself lately if Tilda Swinton is in fact the most awesome person in the world. Apart from having a sort of fae beauty that is somewhere between enthralling and haunting, the way she leads her life is really refreshing in an otherwise boring, exhibitionist world.

Ivan IV

Today I started a painting based on Ilja Repin's great 1885 piece, depicting the horrific moment of realisation of Ivan that he'd lashed out and killed his son and heir in an uncontrolled fit of rage. 
Having spent months fixating on how I'd like to be able to paint and how other painters are much better than I am I've developed a lack of confidence in my own abilities and really have to coach myself through a painting. I think the lack of self-certainty is actually quite refreshing. I've always been extremely self-critical, but to approach the process of painting as an exercise in avoiding perceived failures is quite new. Exhausting and fulfilling, all wrapped up in an emotionally unstable bundle.

After about 40 minutes I'd got to the stage above. My brother was hovering while I was working, which put me off a little bit. I spent a while before applying any oil to the canvas trying to get the right shade of red smeared all over it, and teased it down the sides of the canvas a little too.

I built up the eye in quite a bit of detail with an unusually small sable brush (detail destroyed courtesy of built-in webcam, thanks Dell) then worked on smearing the rest of the flesh on. I was quite consciously trying to figure out how a couple of other artists I admire work, so had a couple of Antony Micallef, Philip Gurrey and Benjamin Cohen images floating around (I was painting from my screen.)

I wasn't really happy by the time I'd reached this stage so started generally destroying the areas I wasn't happy with and then working on them again. Semi-pleased with progress so far. Time spent painting: about 2 hours (however long it takes to listen to Gåte-Iselilja and Rammstein-Liebe ist für Alle Da.)