Some Paintings are meant to be .
The Weight of the Eye is a painting that wanted to be. A chance finding of a sculpture, as my children played in a park, led to the photograph I used to create it. The image spoke to me, as did the colours.
Once I started painting. I felt a little need to “over egg the pudding”, as the saying goes. The initial painting produced some beautiful effects. Ones that I hadn’t imagined possible at the time. Serendipity played its glorious hand. Some paintings need very little painting to make them work.
The best paintings happen when I set things in motion, then wait.
The skill with watercolour and ink is to know when to control the paint, and when to allow the natural tendencies of the medium a free reign. To this day I maintain that my best paintings are a series of serendipitous events. Watercolour is a fluid medium, and continues to work and flow after it is applied. Knowing when to stop, is as important as knowing when to keep going. The structure of the white lines created by the masking process allows the paint to extend beyond the boundaries. It provides the structure by which the chaos is tamed. You can appreciate the wildness of the watercolour next to the framework of the lines. Within these borders, little pockets of rebellion occur. Like in the figures of the sculptures, tiny stars of pink form along fluid lines.
The best paintings happen when I set things in motion, then wait.
In other areas deep indigo flows, like rain, into paler regions. Around the central figures, a halo of molten iron, glowing against the night sky. The colours like hot coals held within a grate. The halo cross hatched with white lines, as the structure contains the heat. The two fingers straining, one shields them from the heat, cradling his fallen companion, as he struggles to safety. His raised arm seems to hold the axle of the wheel, pushing it upwards and bearing the whole weight of the eye on one arm. Like a modern day Atlas, carrying the weight of the world.
