I don’t always like this painting. In fact, some days I despise it. There are days when I look at it and feel an enormous connection and others where I struggle to understand why I’ve kept it.
It was built over months, through countless layers of paint, revisions, interruptions and moments of frustration. The surface is heavy with its own history and there are wrinkles, drips, scratches and marks that seem to fight against one another.
Somewhere in all that noise, something resembling a face began to emerge.
I made this painting during a period when I was also painting bright, colourful landscapes. Those paintings were full of light and beauty but this one seemed to come from somewhere else entirely. It’s built from aggression, ugliness and catharsis.
My relationship with this painting changes depending on how comfortable I am with myself. When I’m comfortable being vulnerable, I find something deeply honest in it. When I’m feeling more guarded, and more concerned with how I present myself to the world, I find it difficult to look at.
Perhaps that’s what has kept me coming back to it.
It doesn’t offer me the comfort of something beautiful or easily understood. It doesn’t ask to be liked. This painting isn’t commercially viable. You certainly wouldn’t hang it in your bedroom or living room.
I’ve lived with this painting for a long time now and I’be still never signed it. I don’t entirely know why. But I’ve never painted over it either. This is a painting for somebody who understands that that beauty still exists in ugly places - even when you can’t see it.
