Emotional Work

Let there be no doubt about it: the true artist paints from the heart and with deep, genuine passion. Funny thing to say? Maybe, but after an enforced break from my creative life, caused by travel and other lovely things, the urge to paint returned to me with a vengeance.

It’s an artist’s job to experiment. What’s the use of churning out numerous similar pictures? If I wanted to work on a production line I’d do that (and get a proper job’s wage too) but I cannot, I follow my heart, my instincts, and paint what I need to paint.

This means that everything I create is unique, often vastly different from what I made last week; it’s individual, thought-out, personal, and born of an idea from a stage of living. What matters to the recipient of each painting is the emotional connection they make with it. What does it make you think of? There is something in that painting that appeals to you, that matters to you, that makes you feel right.