Paintings Carried by Quietness
I’ve gradually come to realise that what I’m looking for in painting is a certain quality of quietness. Nietzsche once wrote, “Profound suffering makes noble: it separates.” I often think about that sense of separation. Suffering has changed the distance between myself, other people, and the world around me. In doing so, I’ve also begun to see the shape of myself more clearly. For a long time, my intuition felt almost too sharp, and I learnt to soften or conceal it simply to live and find my way in the world.
Hope and fear, calm and desire, tenderness and darkness are rarely so clearly defined. They’re often blurred by our motives, which can shift depending on all sorts of circumstances. Honesty and transparency, I think, are rather rare qualities. So these seemingly contradictory things often exist side by side, sometimes within the very same moment.
But I’m not particularly interested in painting those experiences directly. What matters more to me is what happens to them once they enter a painting. A figure from memory, a room, a tree, an afternoon, or something I’ve only caught a glimpse of can all become the beginning of a painting. Once I start painting, parts of these things gradually disappear. Forms become less certain, colours begin to shift, and something remembered slowly becomes something imagined. At some point, I’m no longer quite sure where the memory ends and the painting begins.
I think this is where intuition becomes important to me. When I begin a painting, I rarely know exactly what it should become. I prefer to respond to what is happening on the surface. A colour can change the weight of a figure. A blurred edge can sometimes make something feel more present rather than less. Covering an image can bring it back to life, and sometimes a small area of paint is enough to change the direction of the whole painting. At a certain point, thinking too clearly can begin to get in the way. I trust that when something feels right, I’ll recognise it, even if I can’t quite explain why. Sometimes, I just know.
Technical skill, different subjects and striking compositions can all be deeply pleasurable. But these days, I don’t find myself particularly drawn to any of those directions. What interests me more is whether I can arrive at a very delicate kind of balance within a painting, a relaxed sense of stillness. A finished painting might look relaxed, perhaps even effortless, but for me that sense of ease is actually very difficult to arrive at. If it becomes too clear, the painting begins to explain itself. If it becomes too vague, it can dissolve into atmosphere. Too much emotion and it risks becoming sentimental. Too much restraint and it loses its pulse. It’s quite a narrow path.
Perhaps that’s why I keep returning to very ordinary moments in life. They seem to be able to hold far more than they first reveal. For me, perhaps this is where stillness begins. It isn’t an absence of feeling. It’s a place where different feelings are allowed to exist at the same time.
I don’t particularly want to become what people imagine an artist ought to look like as well. I’m quite happy to remain a fairly ordinary looking person, living a fairly ordinary life. Perhaps it’s better to keep some of that energy inside. Then I can simply go back to the studio, work quietly, and let the brush and colour lead me wherever I’m meant to go.
