A Musing #63

All that seems to be bouncing around in my head this week are portraits. Not portraits of me, but of others. With Sam and Max on the go, I’ve come up with the idea to paint two other people. One of which I’ve only met for literally 7 minutes and 45 seconds. The other subject is still only an image on my phone, but who will soon be visiting my gallery. By far, I think this is the creepiest thing I’ve said as an artist. If it wasn’t for painting, I’d come off as a huge stalker and you’d be forced to call Stranger Danger on me.

I don’t pick the subjects for my painting on a whim. It’s always been the painting that choses them. There are so many rare cases I decide to paint someone who I’ve just met or barely know at all. I feel it’s an interesting challenge in comparison to painting someone I know more intimately. So having two portraits of people I barely know versus two portraits of people I deeply care about and love will be some sort of something. The narrative changes. I’ve always believed a portrait is the artist’s reaction to the subject as opposed to being just a copy of reality. What the viewer will see is the result of my unconscious reacting and creating those first initial steps of a relationship on canvas.

There are two other self portraits I have in progress at the moment. I’ve said this a lot to other creators and I’ll say it again how much it helps to have many things on the go. These two pieces have been turned away so I haven’t seen them in two weeks. My eyes will be really fresh when I take a peak at them this week. Chances are I’ll have at least one done within the upcoming days or I’ll just book a mental vacation from them again. The joys of creating.