My experience has taught me that artistic evolution belongs more to the model of evolution championed by Stephen Jay Gould - slow, steady growth punctuated by catastrophe. Twenty years ago I painted mostly faces and human figures in an expressionist style that drew heavily on Munch, Baselitz, Francis Bacon and Van Gogh. Then I reached an impasse, a catastrophe: I found I could only produce versions of the same thing and I coudn't take it. I started looking at other art - Romanesque and Byzantine paintings and I found a new channel for expression. Unfortunately, I have no photos of these works to show here but the point is, after a while I had to admit to myself that I had reached a point beyond which, it seemed, I could not advance. So I stopped painting all together.
It took me 5 years before I dared pick up the brush again, 5 years in which I used up the extra time (and extra creative energy) to catch up with my interests in maths, science and philosophy. When I took up painting again, I exploded into a rage of prolific activity, painting just about anything that caught my fancy until I hit upon the notion of a collection of paintings based on Northern Renaissance art depicting scenes of Christ's life. The idea was to focus on the details - only the limbs, no faces.
The collection culminated in an exhibition, EX VOTO in March 2016. Here's a sample of the works:
The exhibition was a success and I felt confident that I could continue developing along these lines but soon after I found myself trying to break free from this mode of representation. It's some kind of spiritual restlessness that precipitates the crisis. I make a discovery, develop a mode of representation and instead of settling down to it, resigning myself to a future as the artist who paints harrowing faces, the artist who paints sacred but faceless body parts, I start seeking new venues, rethinking, soul searching.
It is clear to me that this has happened again to me. I have taken the decision to stop painting for some time to give myself the space, the cover under which a new metamorphosis will hopefully take place. Will I survive this crisis? I have no idea...
It took me 5 years before I dared pick up the brush again, 5 years in which I used up the extra time (and extra creative energy) to catch up with my interests in maths, science and philosophy. When I took up painting again, I exploded into a rage of prolific activity, painting just about anything that caught my fancy until I hit upon the notion of a collection of paintings based on Northern Renaissance art depicting scenes of Christ's life. The idea was to focus on the details - only the limbs, no faces.
The collection culminated in an exhibition, EX VOTO in March 2016. Here's a sample of the works:
The exhibition was a success and I felt confident that I could continue developing along these lines but soon after I found myself trying to break free from this mode of representation. It's some kind of spiritual restlessness that precipitates the crisis. I make a discovery, develop a mode of representation and instead of settling down to it, resigning myself to a future as the artist who paints harrowing faces, the artist who paints sacred but faceless body parts, I start seeking new venues, rethinking, soul searching.
It is clear to me that this has happened again to me. I have taken the decision to stop painting for some time to give myself the space, the cover under which a new metamorphosis will hopefully take place. Will I survive this crisis? I have no idea...
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