Pinning down the whats and the whys of painting.

‘I don’t believe in a permanent self or in developing any artistic style. Our world is full of intricately connected systems and events. I’m simply trying to make work in collaboration with them.’ - Keith Tyson

I’d agree. My systems and events are far removed from Keith’s and his own flower paintings, but I am painting around them just the same.

I have been rereading an essay around Keith Tyson’s flower paintings from the book, Keith Tyson, iterations & Variations. I want to pin down why I return to flowers and things to put them in, to make paintings of.

I have to take ownership of some of the systems which have got me where I am today. I set out to create the home my family live from, as a safe cocoon suitable for resting in and I think my painting subjects are most definitely an extension of that. I also think that this home has created the restriction on what I paint revolving around it.

Looking at my floral paintings in context to my home, the flowers are the comfort, the draw to return, the container the structure which supports the bloom and as important as that role is, I have always tried to make the containers as beautiful as I can, they have significance within the picture in their own right so I have never taken them out of focus.

The patterned backgrounds, the negative spaces have to be enough to be somewhere to rest the eye and give permanence to the space.

However, the flowers aren’t the only aspect of home I paint, they are very different to the intermittent - Plants I haven’t killed yet, pictures which can be pencil or paintings or the mundane pictures of washing or shelves in my home or the quick colour studies of the chrome teapot which are more about the effect of the whole series than the soon to be split up individual component parts.

I want to be able to take part in all these aspects of my creativity, and the home. They each have an important role in describing the whole space, not just the bit most of us are prepared to show guests.

I am writing this from within the second half of the flowers on a green checked fabric series and the chrome teapot series in yellow, orange, teal, red mauve and forest green. I have a miriad of ideas on what to paint next and have just completed yet another rotation of the sun. Maybe that is why I’m being thoughtful…