The Joy of Painting

“The only time I feel alive is when I am painting.” 

Vincent Van Gogh

This is true for Van Gogh and it is also true for me. This is why I paint:  to share this aliveness of being a painter with others. 

Some may say I am a representational painter, but there really is very little difference between being an abstract painter and a representational painter.

Art critic Roger Fry states, “The idea that a painting must succeed as an arrangement of elements before it can succeed as a representation of something else is a central tenet of modern art.” By this he means that whether it is realistic or from the artist’s imagination, it must succeed as an arrangement of elements i.e. composition, colour, line etc. This is why I say to people that I am more concerned with what is happening on the canvas than what I am painting.

Something sparks my creativity like a domestic scene or a bunch of flowers. I start to paint, but it has to pass through my inner being before the image appears. As I paint the subject, something quite abstract often starts to come into the painting. I am simply creating with paint, allowing my inner filter to disappear. Composition and colour have their own life of which I am not conscious. But I am in the zone, loving what I am doing and feeling ever so alive.