Just because you can do something doesn't mean you need to do it or
that you must do it. In making art and in teaching art one of my guiding
principles is that less is more. Being too obedient to what your eyes
tell you can mean producing something that is competent but banal,
pedestrian. What you must obey is the truth of your intuition and this
often means having the courage to reject information, too much
information.
I knew that the last version I posted of my portrair of
Fionn Wilson with the more detailed. lighter hair, was wrong. Wrong in terms of
my portrait of Fionn, never mind anything else. The added information
about hair detracted and distracted from the character of the face. I
knew this while I was in the act of 'improving' the hair and yet I
carried on, going against my intuition.
5 comments:
Yes! Now it has really come to life. Your dilemmas, deliberations, reworkings—and the portrait itself—instantly bring to mind Final Portrait in which Geoffrey Rush plays Giacometti. I think you would appreciate it even more than we did.
Your portrait tells me something: I should like to meet Fionn Wilson!
Quite wonderful!
Thanks Vincent. I haven't seen the G.Rush/Giacometti film, is it on DVD? The link you gave isn't working but maybe that's just here. Some weird things have been happeniung with my internet connection, it's not letting me into my own website for one thing. Am trying to sort it out.
Bruce, yes, Fionn is an interesting and very sympathetic woman. I only met her recently but we are already good friends. She's an artist and urator and has invited me to take part in an exhibition which opens next year.
Tom, thank you. I think this last stage works best but I also wish I'd kept an earlier, simpler version.
That's supposed to read "curator" not urator!
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