Georgina Coburn review of Alan Macdonald's latest work

Alan Macdonald is a brilliant artist and Georgina Coburn is a staggeringly perceptive critic, so it is wonderful to see the artistic insights of her visit to Macdonald's studio. Below is her review.

Some of Alan Macdonald's latest work will be shown in Kilmorack Gallery this June.



Play Like A Child, But Seriously.


Whims-of-Desire
Alan Macdonald, Whims of Desire (2014, 44′ x 42′, Oil on Linen)
I had a long awakening dream-at the end there was a horse standing in a tree- a search party with dogs stood below and the dogs pled with the horse to come down from the tree, but the horse tried and failed, saying that he couldn’t as he was born in that tree -it was only later a friend said- that’s you. If you’re born to be an artist then that’s you in the tree.
Alan Macdonald.
What takes many artists a lifetime to learn is to be themselves and no one else; an imperative that takes courage, conviction and sheer determination in an Art World driven by artistic personas and shooting stars. Many artists produce what they think will bring them “success”, denying the authenticity and unique vision that actually creates a sell out show. Walking your own path and possessing the uncompromising willingness to go where the work and process dictate creates a special kind of energy in the making of Art. It is immediately palpable, sensed and felt directly by the audience regardless of the Age or discipline and the primary source of connection between the artist, the viewer and the work. What is immediately apparent on meeting Alan Macdonald in his studio is his profound focus and boundless enthusiasm, fully invested in creative process. Each new work is a puzzle to be solved, constantly striving towards greater awareness, fluency and distillation of language. What sets him apart in the world of Contemporary Art is his intense curiosity and joyful humour, testing his own limits as an artist and what the confines of a two dimensional painted surface can be. His latest body of work marks a significant milestone in the artist’s oeuvre, a level of mature integration of style, technique and unconscious obsessions which have consistently shaped his practice for over 30 years.
For Alan Macdonald Life/ Art is a serious, invigorating game of discovery, shared wholeheartedly with the viewer. The refreshing and expansive quality of his work lies in its joyous engagement with the imagination and free association. This openness in relation to self-awareness and to the world is invested with a childlike sense of wonder and possibility. “Each painting wants to be something; my job is to find what that is.” “I give [the viewer] the actors, the props and the set”, actively encouraging the audience to be their own Director and make their own connections with the work. Macdonald invites us into the playground of Art and into his paintings; to bring ourselves to them in a way that is liberating and free from cultural austerity. He encourages us to access the child within and to trust our adult selves enough to create our own meanings and narratives within and beyond the frame.
A Monk With a Skunk
Alan Macdonald, A Monk With A Skunk (2014,Oil on Board, 18′ x 24′)
Although humour and beauty in the treatment of his subjects is often the initial hook, what keeps me returning to this artist’s work is the multi-layered nature of the exploration, plumbing the depths of our hidden selves. “Each protagonist has a purpose” and finds their own ways of stepping outside the picture plane. The primitive, instinctual, childlike aspects of ourselves appear in Macdonald’s work and process like Freud’s analogy of the Id as a horse, with “superior strength to that of the rider”.  The rider (The Ego) on horseback holds the impulsive horse in check, but must also acknowledge the spirit and strength of force (or state of being) which ultimately carries him/her forward. The integration of design, deliberation and instinct in this latest body of work acknowledges the importance of this creative dynamic. Letting go of the reigns may bring an artist temporary fear and uncertainty, but it is also a way for the maker and their audience to experience movement, growth and go further than the conscious mind would ever sanction.
Macdonald never begins his work with a final image in the mind as a foregone conclusion. His sketchbooks are as fluid as his approach to board, canvas or linen, a fertile ground for ideas to surface in drawings which are erased and revisited over time; creating a new moment when a combination of elements or something emerging out of the ground takes the work in a another direction.  An essential part of the creative process is engagement with underlying thoughts, feelings and motivations which may not be brought into conscious awareness until the composition or body of work is complete. Surprise and discovery are as much a part of creating the work as seeing it. Macdonald characteristically brings objects of modernity, memory and history into play with the human figure to create multiple pathways of interpretation across time. High Art, Contemporary Design, Theatre and Craft are equals in his compositions and framing. Although there are elements of the Surreal in his work; in the juxtaposition of elements and objects out of time and place, it is not Surrealist and resists such definitions.
“You’ve got to let it flow and catch up afterwards. It feels like your unconscious is the more intelligent side. I always have this inner dialogue- like its saying; ‘Oh for goodness sake!’ and the conscious side is going ‘wait, wait- I don’t understand!’ (Laughing) With opposites I’m thinking – can I get away with that and make it visually work within my language. The first Van Dyke figure on a Vespa was full of life, saying something so simply and directly. When you come to paint the bike and her- they have to work together and be in the same painting. If I paint the Vespa exactly, all gleaming and precise it will look like it isn’t meant to be there.  Magritte said it’s very easy to be a Surrealist by putting a lobster on a phone but it’s much more poetic to place an egg inside a birdcage. It’s coming up with something special that isn’t just quirky or obvious. I worry over paintings-I say to myself, is that right? But I really believe in taking a risk sometimes. Put restrictions on yourself and play with the boundaries, without restrictions there is chaos. If it gets predictable, throw in a spanner or a grenade!”
The-Candy-Man
Alan Macdonald, The Candy Man, (2014, Oil on Linen, 75′ x 85′)
Understanding the categorisation and hierarchy of Western Painting and its canon of Masters, Macdonald visually acknowledges his artistic heroes like Titian, Ingres, Goya or Van Dyke but also throws a grenade, actively subverting our expectations of how the female nude, portrait, self-portrait, landscape or history painting should behave. The artist’s palette and glazed surface of his paintings, which ironically employ a technique used in restoration, create the depth and feeling of an Old Master, but with fresh marks that resist definition and encourage the viewer to complete the work.  The historic cloak of pigment and glaze, like the costumes and armoury worn by his figures are part of a visual inheritance, but they are also part of the eternally human game of trying to come to terms with Now; who we are, why we’re here and how we see ourselves. Humour is a key element in Macdonald’s work, together with a lifelong investment in his craft; always working to be present and receptive to the moment of inspiration when it comes.
“In the studio I’m playing but in an advanced way. I don’t believe in standing still. I keep learning ways to keep the painting fresh and painterly. My process has changed radically; I used to under paint bright colours and then paint it out with black and bring it back out. It’s like when you change a face- not in a photographic way but a painterly way, like you’ve just given it a soul. You have to keep an open mind- I come into the studio in the morning with a sense of adventure. I have to find a way to work quickly so I can capture that energy- if I plotted and planned for a week it just wouldn’t happen for me. I can plan a big painting then the morning I go to start it the Id will go’ hey (He whistles) over here!’ and I always go with that. If you’re a little bit scared of your ideas that’s healthy-if it’s not happening with a painting then take a risk…
I had some success with my abstract paintings- you make a mark and then respond to that mark in wild abandon- then I controlled it a bit more- using texture, primer to pre-prime an area- rub back through, using accidental marks and layers as leading elements. Abstraction taught me about following my feelings and not having to have a reason before you start. Some of my best works have happened because I don’t really know why, but I know that I want to.  The response was childlike- immediate and honest.  If you start painting about painting you need to get a life!  When I go into my studio I go inwards and see what I find on the journey. When go out to a film or read they naturally filter in and eventually they pop back out again- your subconscious picks and chooses what it wants. I’ll have this! I find that really exciting- you experience the world, be inquisitive, look into things. I love Brian Cox’s programmes- he can say something which is hard to get your head around and then he’ll do something with sand- while he’s saying it he’s got a smile and then he stops and he’s dead serious.”
Beyond-the-Pale
Alan Macdonald, Beyond The Pale (2014, Oil on Board, 13′ x 24′)
“Play like a child, but seriously” is a way of being shaped by the artist’s formative years in Malawi, South East Africa. Grounded in indigenous ways of seeing relationships between the natural world, spirituality and human perception, Macdonald’s vision as an artist is defined by natural fluency between the physical and metaphysical. Creating his own worlds through painting, aspects of self such as courage can emerge instinctually, often in animal form. There is a dance of integration between primitive, instinctual elements feeding the work and civilizing structures of domed confinement such as hooped dresses or architecture which also appear in his paintings. Macdonald’s work is created “beyond the pale” with a clear sense of a dominion of order and authority, knowing within himself that a much more exciting and fertile territory lies beyond.  The uncontrollable and the highly cultivated are marriage partners in his paintings, a relational balance of captivating tension seen throughout his work.
“I was very privileged in my upbringing”, he says, describing leaving Malawi for Scotland as a teenager as “the closing of a lovely bubble of my childhood.” Macdonald powerfully invokes this state of child-like reverie and adventure in his mature work. As a child growing up in Africa with no television and scarce access to consumer goods, immersion in imaginative play and the natural environment fired the artist’s burgeoning creativity. The freedom to disappear for the whole day to play with other children in the village, absorbed in games that became ever more inventive and complex, left a lasting imprint. “There was also the Majestic cinema- they did a Saturday kids screening- everyone was shouting and cheering, if there was a pirate film on you’d be fighting all the way home.” Visiting the UK on leave with his family every two years, everyday products, new cars, ice-cream vans and Pop music amazed and delighted him. “A light went on at 12 or 13 that didn’t go out”.  In Africa Macdonald was also introduced to the idea of Craft as the integrity and pride invested in handmade objects; in the unexpected beauty of recycled tin cars and woven materials, the sandblasted patina of old fashioned coke bottles and the pristine tailoring of hand sewn clothing which shaped the young artist’s conception of making.
“So much of what we buy now is machine made-but there is a need for man-made, tactile things- it’s why people buy antiques.  They can get a wonderfully straight surface but it’s not quite straight. I want my paintings to feel like they are handmade- there are mistakes if you look at a background or when I’ve changed my mind. Then on the other side I love modern things.  I know a lot of people don’t like Jeff Koons, but the first time I saw ‘Balloon Dog’ I thought it was fantastic- it has such a lust for life- It’s like a child jumping up and down saying ‘Look at me! I’m Happy, I’m Happy!’ I’m sure there is another side which is calculating, but I loved the piece he made for the Venice Biennale-the big puppy with its tongue hanging out made of flowers that eventually withered, it was stunning.”
Leaving Malawi on the cusp of adulthood, just as he was becoming aware of the societal boundaries that existed as part of the country’s colonial past, has kept the artist’s memories of childhood liberty alive.  It is this naiveté, sense of gratitude and joie de vivre that enter into the rendering of brightly coloured packaging or the natural cohabitation of human figures, animals and objects in Macdonald’s mature work. Reflecting on his passage from childhood to adulthood, the artist described seeing a more recent photograph of the family home in Malawi, surrounded by razor wire- a life and world view defined by “mistrust” he was fortunate to escape. What the young man carried with him to the UK was the vital spark of imagination (a quality which in adulthood is all too often driven underground) and the enduring conviction that an artist was the only thing he could possibly be.
Drawn to visual expression from an early age, in “dusty colonial libraries” he discovered books on Reynolds, Whistler and Da Vinci, free from the institutional framing of museum and gallery halls. In Da Vinci he saw not unattainable genius, but a growing capacity within himself; “Da Vinci analysed everything, he took it apart to really look into things deeply”. This quality can be seen in Macdonald’s adult paintings, applied to visual language and the compartmentalisation of dark reliquary spaces in works like Guru (1993) and Portrait of a Saint (1999). The dark grounds of his paintings are fields of unconscious retrieval and spaces of awakening conscience, carrying positive rather than negative associations. “When I was a child living in Africa, I was outside on a night lit by the moon and feeling a little scared, I stepped from the light into a dark shadow. The darkness wrapped itself around me and fear was replaced by an understanding that I was being protected.” 
03  Hell Hole
Alan MacDonald, Hell Hole.
04. Minotaur At Rest
Alan MacDonald, Minotaur At Rest.
Recent works such as Hell Hole (2014, Oil on board 21″ x 16″) and Minotaur At Rest(2014, Oil on Board, 10″ x 9″) return to the idea of dark recesses of the labyrinthine mind and what can be brought forth in a Bosch-like stream of consciousness towards greater awareness. “After the Minotaur- I did this- a painting that I just stopped working on- (Hell Hole)- originally it was a woman with a dress, one figure came out- then another and another- they just took over. It’s a bit of an uncontrolled and unruly painting but there’s a lot in there…the nailed section at the top might come into the arches and make them more tactile.” Macdonald’s framing of imagery; using proscenium arches, split composition, theatrical curtains and mental shelves ,where protagonists or objects in the foreground are about to fall into the spectator’s own space, create an exciting sense of shifting perspective. Like the image of the disappearing staircase in Hell Hole, Macdonald’s paintings encourage us to explore the labyrinthine spaces within our own minds. The repetition of circular forms also appear as threshold spaces; the burnt hole revealing a dark ground beneath, the banjo rim, the dark emotional hole of the lone chair and neon sign, the lever and pull cord to the basement of marauding figures and the white balls tumbling forth from slot machine model architecture. The paint handling in the painting’s furthest recesses is Goya-like, bold marks which allow us to imagine a Hell Hole of our own making. Even within this darkness however, there is a torch-like match- aligned with an angel who reaches towards it. The burn hole leading to the dark space beneath the painting becomes a vital act of seeing.
02. Guardian of AngelsAlan Macdonald-Guardian of Angels.
This idea of the dark ground of ourselves is beautifully distilled in another recent painting,Guardian of Angels (2015, Oil on Board, 21″ x 18”). Here the bisection of the image seen through a stage-like archway serves as a self-reflexive space. The central male protagonist stands to the right, in a tonal recess that suggests movement between different fields of perception. There is incredible depth as you move around the painting, the glazed dark space behind the figure expanding beyond all expectation. Our sense of perspective is not created by the Renaissance style chequered floor or an idyllic Arcadian landscape but by a composition of elements which are endlessly fluid. The calm demeanour of the “guardian” in historic costume, with comic ruff, the sandals of a pilgrim, gun, bell and bugle stands guard at the window threshold to a landscape which is itself loaded with shadows of ambiguity. The red rose above him feels like steady devotion to his task, guarding the angel or spirit of exploration moving into a space within and beyond the picture plane. The cut stump in the foreground and empty hollow plinth of equal height seem to regard each other on a stage of interior projections.
Villain-of-the-Peace
Villain of the Peace (2015, Oil on board 27″ x 24″) utilises a cutaway stone shelf beneath the horned male protagonist, a form mirrored in the cuckoo clock-like cavity in the centre of his chest, reflecting the interior foundation of the painting. Latin and modern text is incorporated into the ornate pattern of his Elizabethan costume which conceals as much as it reveals; a player with an action man type cord pull, AK47 at his hip and crushed can in hand in florid, theatrical dress. Standing above a well from which the assembled characters have come to drink, UFO beaming down on a Book of Retribution and background fires blazing, the central protagonist occupies shifting ground between comedy and destruction. Beneath the surface of the painting and the protagonist’s feet is the fluid, emotionally conductive element of water. The reassuring framing of stage like curtains contain the scene, but the wellspring at the base of the painting remains endlessly expansive. In A Simple Test of Faith (2014, Oil on Board, 17” x 36”) a male protagonist in cardinal’s dress sits in a space which creates its own shadow. The bisected composition with a landscape of historic exploration, attendant jaguar and Memento Mori skull is tensely balanced between humour and danger.  Macdonald playfully places the protagonist’s hat on the ledge of the painting and dares him to retrieve it. In the game of painting it’s isn’t a choice between Truth or Dare, but both simultaneously.
A-Simple-Test-of-Faith
Alan Macdonald, A Simple Test of Faith
Early paintings like Portrait of an Anarchist (1996, Oil on Board, 10’ x 32’) a panel of upside down images; Still Life, Portrait, a tree in the Landscape and vertical cloud/ horizon line. (Labelled 4, II, one, three beneath) actively play with expectations about genre and the snobbery of “knowing about Art”, a perception which is so often a barrier to honesty and enjoyment. Instinctively the audience, upon seeing what looks like a sequence of Old Masters, turned on their head with jumbled numerical hierarchies and script, understand the joke. The artist is definitely having fun, but there is also something going on beneath the entertaining punch line. Seeing an exhibition of work by Joseph Banks, Macdonald was inspired by the unexpected colour, expression and abstraction of dashed lines and connecting labels suspended in space. Rather than definitive labelling of diagrams, the scientific expedition and visual exploration of this living material presented an imaginative open book. Text often operates as a kind of inner recess or an abstract in Macdonald’s work, rather than labels which define or ascribe absolute meaning. Like the distillation of words in poetry which create natural spaces around lines and stanzas open to interpretation, the visual elements in MacDonald’s paintings are similarly composed.
The evolution of the artist’s work has been very much about letting visual elements out of their boxes of definition, categorisation and genre. When text is introduced into his paintings it is imaginative rather than instructive or didactic, seen in the emotive resonance of song lyrics or in Bird Brain (2010, Oil on Linen 70 x 60) as a stream of seemingly useless but associative information. “With Bird Brain it was so exciting-like what are you going to write? I found this wonderful miscellany- you can get the ingredients for a McDonald’s hamburger next to something completely different and it fires up your brain with opposites-just completely random things. It was free- It felt great to be able to put anything on a painting and still have it work as a composition.” This sense of freedom also extends to objects, imagery and variations of scale within a painting. “Like (panorama) photographs that don’t quite meet- the joins in the middle are exciting”, part of a shifting ground of perception, the artist consistently playing with pictorial boundaries.
Spaceman
Alan Macdonald, Spaceman
In a recent work like Spaceman (2014, 15’ x 16’, Oil on Board) there is no need for the artist to turn the painting upside down, gravity defying weightlessness has become an integral part of the artist’s language. The face who confronts us, starched white collar, ties and hair drifting in the timeless atmosphere of all human enquiry, is suitably enigmatic. His expression is like many of Macdonald’s protagonists, a subtle combination of emotions; of steadfast contemplation, an almost quizzical eyebrow and a burgeoning smile which we sense might break into laughter in the next moment. Surrounded by rubbery Haribo sweets, the egg in his hand is a comic twist at the heart of artistic creation. The depictions of consumer products in the artist’s paintings are comfortingly familiar but they are also intrinsically painterly. “When I’ve looked into a cartoon or packaging or just being in the supermarket- its striking colour and pictorial elements next to text- they’re like the Dutch ruffs, it’s so dramatic and offsets the flesh of the face…A can of coke is a complete leveller- it can be held by someone on the street or a film actress. Placing products is a levelling process, it is also the tension and dramatic effect of colour and texture; metal next to glass next to wood, they’re visually exciting- the writing as well, I find writing beautiful.  The Rebirth of Venus- Coca Cola sign behind her head- it has such an impact, brings the painting to life.”
The-Elders-Surprised-by-Susanna
Alan Macdonald, The Elders Surprised by Susannah.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Macdonald’s work is his depiction of the female figure as a uniquely self-possessed central protagonist, often deep in her own thoughts. The female nude in Art, traditionally defined by the male gaze, objectification and display is subverted by the strength of the Feminine in Macdonald’s paintings. Interestingly his female nudes often sell to women. His treatment of a popular biblical subject in the History of Western Art; Susannah and the Elders (painted by male artists for centuries including Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Rubens and Picasso) is characteristically given a humorous twist. However Macdonald’s The Elders Surprised by Susannah (2009, Oil on Board, 19’ x 15’) also delivers a feminine force to be reckoned with.  She is not a woman passively unaware that she is being looked at or overcome by the threat of lecherous advances.  Often treatment of this subject places the viewer in the position of voyeur, but here we witness Susannah centre stage, emerging luminously from the dark ground, head turned, sights set on those spying on her beyond the picture plane.  The gun she holds is level with her head and equally illuminated- her bent knee and coyly curled toes a pivot for the idea that her poise isn’t to display her nakedness or to conceal her shame, but to take a better aim the next second and take out those who have disrespected her. Her hold on the gun and trigger suggests she’s shot it before and this idea is a counterfoil to her embodiment as a passive object of beauty and chaste morality. Instead of waiting for an ancient narrative in the form of Daniel to uncover the truth and rescue her, Macdonald’s Susannah reveals her own truth in a moment of discovery, being seen as present in her own body and mind. The image is strikingly contemporary, immediately humorous and intriguingly knowing.
Black-Betty
Alan Macdonald, Black Betty (2006, Oil on Linen, 45′ x 36′)
Macdonald visibly acknowledges “the female side of Creativity”, powerfully present in paintings such as his Black Betty series, Queen of the South, Divas Don’t RunHonky Tonk Woman and A Dame With No ShameThe artist describes these feminine protagonists as elements of self “responsive to feeling”, “unafraid”, “unashamed”, courageous and challenging. “I often put firearms in –people can take them literally- but I mean for them to empower, like Honky Tonk Woman with a pistol on her dress, it just means don’t insult this woman and expect nothing to happen. The feminine side is strong in me- if I’m painting a figure that’s an inspiration she can be quite aloof. I feel inspiration is like that.  It’s like she’ll turn up and go ‘Alright, I’ll turn up just this once!’-‘Well thank you I’ve been sitting here for weeks and now you turn up?!’(laughing). She’s a bit begrudging but when she does show up its great.”
Like Jung’s idea of the shadow self (anima for the male and animus for the female, both with positive/ negative aspects and linked to the collective unconscious) the female protagonists who take centre stage in the artist’s paintings are active triggers for development and creative evolution. One of my most important paintings was Black Betty (2006) to officially come back to the darkness in my paintings- and she was the Goddess of dark paintings! She was standing there staring straight at me through her dark glasses! I did 3 or 4 Black Bettys just because I couldn’t paint anything else. She’s in here.” In more recent work like One Singer One Song (2015, Oil on Linen, 30″ x 24″) there is a feeling of expansion; the central female protagonist climbing onto the plinth, sweeping away a model architecture of being, ready for her unique voice to be heard and explored in future paintings.
01  One Singer One  Song
Alan Macdonald, One Singer One Song.
Macdonald’s persistently inquisitive nature, his humour, infectious enthusiasm and sheer bloody mindedness have resulted in a liberating distillation of language in this latest body of work.
“I do the work to understand, to work something out- if I can do it in an entertaining way that’s great. It’s about awareness. That’s the most important thing and feel I understand myself better. There is also the expression, the human aspect. Like borrowing from Muybridge’s woman up a ladder with buckets, that one frame, the moment where she puts the buckets down, her expression is like ‘for God’s sake!’(laughing) -that gets me.”Although MacDonald’s paintings are deeply personal, significantly his work rises above the merely self-referential. The humour and playfulness of his imagery isn’t the sum total of the work, after you’ve stopped laughing there is plenty of substance to be drawn into with each successive viewing. They are paintings meant to be lived with over lifetimes.
The-Garden-of-Knowledge
Alan Macdonald, The Garden of Knowledge.
Tipping its hat to Arcimboldo’s 16th Century heads made of flowers, fruit and vegetables,The Garden of Knowledge (2014, Oil on Board 24″ x 20″), depicts a portrait bust of a man sporting a cap made of flowers, who “still manages to maintain his dignity” and “has a little bit of knowledge to impart”. The white ruff he wears has been turned into a kind of pinball mechanism, white pearls of metaphorical wisdom hatched from his head, falling into the foreground and spilling into the viewer’s space. The colour of his costume mirrors the red breast of the robin to his left, suspended in flight. There is delicacy, vulnerability and poignancy in the presence of the bird and in the nuances of facial expression which meet the viewer’s gaze, shifting before our eyes as we go deeper into the painting and the emotional complexities and contradictions of what it is to be human.
The level of maturity, integration and engagement in Macdonald’s paintings is quite extraordinary, testament to an artist bringing all of his understanding, energy and passion to bear in his latest body of work and always striving to do better.
 “I’m very stubborn, I won’t give up. You can have the most terrible time some days but then I get up and start over again. There are always things that you need to improve but it’s also good to know the things that you’re good at. When I left Art School I knew I had a mountain to climb, that it is 99% hard work. I dug in for the long term.  I cut away all the rope bridges, I was offered teaching at different colleges but didn’t take any.  When things are really tough it makes you confront yourself, there’s a cliff edge back there and I need to get better. You say to yourself, I can’t compromise what I do but I can get better at what I do. I’ve learnt to say I can’t do that, but I can do this… and bring people on board. When I finish a body of work 2 or 3 really stick out above the rest and they always sell because people detect that so I thought –what would happen if you got a higher percentage up to that level and beyond? I just dug in and after a while you think-wow I couldn’t have done that last year and it then gets very exciting, because all these doors are flying open and that’s what keeps me going-the paintings I haven’t done that I want to do… the difficult ones are important because they allow you to move forward- wanting to get technically better and better and getting deeper intellectually into the process- starting to recognise things much sooner. Like David Sylvester saying to Francis Bacon; ‘You used to destroy a lot of your early work but you don’t so much anymore’- it was a thorny question, he was challenging him and Francis Bacon said; (narrowing his eyes and imitating Bacon’s distinctive voice) ‘I like to think I’m getting better!’ (laughing). He always said the right thing! I feel the same, as you get older you get better – but there’s also a side of me that pushes too hard. Years later you can push further and make the thing work.
Paint what you want to paint- don’t compromise, it’s that simple….Go back to where you were as a child. On a bad day all the demons get on board and doubt sets in- you think you were wrong. So I say to myself when you had no art education or anything else what did you really want to do? There’s your answer.”

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