ABOUT PANTING

A discussion with Australian painter Christine Aerfeldt made me come to some conclusions about my own practice and about painting in general. Christine wrote on her blog how she became the slave of her studio, because her style and technique require successive layers of paint, which take a long time and continue effort to complete. I replied that  I went through a time I didn't paint at all anymore, as I didn't find any pleasure in it, I had to make myself to do it, and this didn't feel right. But I remembered that when I started with oil paint at the beginning, when I was a child, I was an alla prima painter. My idol was Van Gogh. I did then a series of portraits from life of my best friend. It didn't cross my mind to work from photos, I didn't even own a camera. My friend didn't want to sit long hours, so I had to work fast. I produced some interesting portraits, which I rediscovered recently in my friend's home. Now I had to relearn to paint alla prima after I painted in layers for many years. I rediscovered the pleasure of panting spontaneously. Large brush strokes and more paint made everything enjoyable again. Christine answer was: "I so know what you mean about losing the pleasure in painting. I went through that too, a while back and realised I was trying to paint like somebody that I wasn't. Yes, you've got to be true to yourself and make the work that feels right. It's funny how going back to one's childhood or adolescent experiences of early art making can be so informative. I've also found myself reminiscing about what I was making as a teenager and thinking of taking a few lessons from myself." So in the end, we always have to paint how we feel, the painting has to be aligned with ourselves, to who we really are, and not to go against it. We admire the art of the Old Masters  or of many modern or contemporary artists and get inspired. We want to paint in many beautiful styles, and become better and better, and to have success, because others had success with those styles, not realising that this transforms us in someone who are not. And then, the artist block hits us, and we ask ourselves what happened. Maybe a part of us wanted to paint in certain ways, and we wasted years trying. We painted much less than we wanted and we kept getting stuck, and we went back to painting with a heavy heart every time, and we had to force ourselves. In that case the best is to forget about everyone, to stop comparing, and to reconnect to who we really are, to go back to ourselves, to the way is dear to our heart. Sometimes we need to travel far to come back HOME. 

Christine Aerfeldt, Oil on Canvas