Studio - January 2024

It has been a slow start to this year for me. In fact, it was a slow end as well. I finished my series of swallow paintings, and suddenly felt bereft. I had no plan for what should come next, no big ideas that quite made it out onto paper and not even a feeling that I wanted to carry on as I have been.

Many creatives out there will recognise the feeling. At first I was sure there was something there, I just had to wait until it was ready to appear. After a while I began to wonder if perhaps I was missing a vital part of my process that was preventing the something to appear. Not long after, I felt afraid that maybe there was nothing, that maybe I had nothing interesting left.

Don’t get me wrong, I have kept on creating. I focussed in a bit on my sketchbook practise, got briefly lost in drawing birds in ink, and played a lot with my favourite colour paints. It’s all been a bit haphazard and confused, but when I don’t spend a little time each week creating, I get… odd… in my head…

I’ve also been looking back at how my paintings have developed and changed over the years, especially this last year. I have moved from being an artist trying to produce a relatively realistic and recognisable slice of life, to someone much more interested in the amazing and beautiful things my paint can do. In my paintings of 2023, the parts I found most fun, most exciting, are the parts where I got to play with the paint, searching for the tiny shapes and ideas hidden in granulation and blooms.

Now I understand that there is something in me still, but it is not the same as what was there before, and it’s a bit shy. I’m working on it, playing with paint and paper and ink and salt. It’s just going to take a little time to build it into something strong and confident.