INFLUENCERS

In my painting journey, there have been many artists whose work inspired me. Aspects of an artist’s work can sometimes ‘floor’ you with their power, and those instances recalled long after, can sometimes yield the ripest fruits.

For me, 2018 saw a shift in direction in the subject matter of my painting. This mixed media work Reflected, made in 2018, marks the beginning of the change. When complete, it somehow reminded me of a subject often revisited by Canadian artist, Peter Doig.

In the year 2000 I visited the Douglas Hyde Gallery, and saw his show Almost Grown. For the first time ever, I was moved to tears by painting…not by the subject, but the exquisite beauty of how he handled the medium.

Not that his subject matter wasn’t intriguing, just that for me, it almost didn’t matter, so lyrically did he move pigment across canvas, and punctuate the surface with his mark.

In this instant, I understood why I wanted to paint, and the power that drive held over me. For me subject is the initiator, but it is the handling of pigment, the interest in mark, the feel of substance and where it might take you, that keep me painting.

As for Doig, it is typical of his practice to make variations on particular motifs in paintings, drawings and prints… Images reflected in water are common. According to curator P Bonaventura, Doig has commented that ‘reflections function as entrances to other worlds’, and one image to which he repeatedly returns is that of a solitary canoe in a wilderness…