The Painter's Eye

 

Moonlight and Rain, 2021, oil on linen, 40.5 x 20.5 cm

This painting is in an exhibition at Nicholas Thompson Gallery titled The Painter's Eye. There are 14 artists and one of them is Kez Hughes who curated the show. It's good to be in an exhibition where painting is held in high regard. The almost obsession with machine made imagery in the art world is disappointing to say the least, so it's a relief in a way when the art of painting is allowed to balance that which is made by humans against that which is made by technology.

Hugh Magnus wrote an excellent essay to accompany the exhibition. His last paragraph says a lot and to quote him here - 

'These paintings share many things, but most of all it is their makers' utmost respect for the traditions and techniques of their craft that endows them with such lightness and beauty. Through bringing these works together, the monolith of an imagined, capital-P 'Painting' begins to crumble. Working in different styles, varying modes and motifs, the artists of The Painter's Eye apply their tools and logic to create lasting icons, persistent images whose power stretches well beyond the edges of their supports'.

The artists in this exhibition are - Xiao You Bai, Sis Cowie, Sarah Crowest, Alex Dillon, David Egan, Storm Gold, Kez Hughes, Natasha Col, Shane Jones, Madeleine Peters, Steven Rendall, Rachael Robb, Kristina Tsoulis-Reay and Kate Wallace.

The Wind Stirs the Water

 

The Wind Stirs the Water, 2025, oil on linen, 55.5 X 45.25 cm

This painting was inspired by a windy day. Water is such a beautiful medium that reflects the various colours sunlight sweeps across its surface, but the wind can disrupt this and affect the surface in a different way. I like the choppy and dark water stirred by the wind. Since wind is invisible, it's this movement that allows the eye to 'see' it in its various moods. 

From the Life Class

Over the years I've attended many life-drawing classes, but one of the biggest problems was the lack of long poses. Many artists wouldn't know what to do when a session resumed after the 20 minute break, so 20 minutes or shorter became almost standard lengths of time to draw a human being! Not always, but too much of the time this was the case. Consequently, these two small life paintings were done in a sculpture class, and over 5 afternoons with the same pose. There are now many Academies all over the world that embrace the study of the human figure over a sustained period of time. The quick sketch is a good thing to do but again, it's often mistakenly seen as capturing the essence of a figure and no more need be done to the drawing. But essence is the life of a drawing, not just the suggestion of a figure. If you wrote a story in short-hand it doesn't automatically mean you've captured the essence of anything. A great novelist captures the essences of the characters portrayed in the book because the author brings them to life. For me, the same applies to drawing and painting. Of course spending a long time on a pose doesn't mean you've caught the essence of the figure before you, because bad paintings can take just as long to do as excellent ones, but it's good to be able to draw or paint the figure over a long period of time as a challenge and to arrive at something more 'there'.

The paintings and drawings below were done over various periods of time. The first and second took 20 x 20 minute poses to paint. The third, fourth and fifth were done over 4 x 20 minutes of posing and the final drawings were 10 minutes. Various mediums and time periods bring different results of course, but it's good to practise them all 

oil on canvas

oil on linen

oil on paper

                                                                    dry pastel on paper

pencil on paper

ink on papere

ink on paper