It’s a Conversation

I’ve been inspired by Philip Guston a lot lately. Talking of his own process helped me deal with the difficulties of mine. Particularly the repurposing of erasure as a necessary tool for progress (as opposed to a crippling step back). Always leaning towards dissatisfaction, not in a cynical way, but a more optimistic questioning, greedy even - how can I really take it there?

Painting can be seen as the translation of something we posses into material, so there will always be a resistance. In other words, the marks we make speak back. Since my imagination isn’t influenced by this resistance, that thing floating in my mind is always better than the thing painted in front of me. I can plan it forever with the aim of keeping that gap small, but I can never be sure until paint touches canvas and the idea is made tangible. So if a part I’ve painted well doesn’t quite fit in with the whole image, I have to change it. No matter how many iterations I’ve already gone through. Can be painful still. I guess all this is just to remind myself next time I need to make massive changes … erasure is never a step back, but a necessary part of the conversation.