David Bailly vs deadly hands of commercial portraitists
Figurative art is often undervalued in the art world. It is partly due to the rise of “bad figurative”, as described by Dean Kissicik in an article for the Spectator: “Pleasant enough, but mediocre at heart (…) paintings of nothing. Watered-down, cordial, dull subjectivities.” Portraiture is even more controversial, especially…
To Paint is to Love Again Part 13: The Unknown Heroes
Everybody loves the clichéd rags-to-riches stories of people surviving hardship and poverty to then become famous and wealthy. Oh, the American Dream. The cliché of making your way from the bottom of the social ladder to the top is well present in pretty much every industry one can possibly think…
To Paint is to Love Again Part 12: Friends and Mentors
“To work alongside another painter, a serious one, is a great privilege”, wrote Henry Miller in To Paint is to Love Again. Having a friend who is a fellow artist means that we have someone who not only understands and appreciates our work, but who helps us learn and grow.…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 11: The Healing Power of Art
Just like I don’t need an ‘inspiration’ to start painting, I don’t need to be in any particular mood either. In fact, I paint in all sorts of mood. I’ve painted in ecstasy, anger, melancholy, apathy. I’ve laughed at the easel, I’ve cried at the easel. I’ve painted in pain,…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 10: Art and Insanity
For some years after graduating from art school, I had a variety of art jobs. I worked independently, as a team leader and a team member, in smaller and larger groups. The jobs, albeit all within the creative fields, were very different, and so was my experience in each role.…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 9: The Struggle in Art
I sometimes wonder how many users on Instagram make some kind of art. I guess there must be thousands of them though when I tried googling that all I got in response was articles telling me how to get my first 1000 art Instagram followers, which frankly makes me want…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 8: Finding Inspiration
There are many questions artists are repeatedly asked. Following “What kind of artist are you?” (which I elaborated on in my previous post), another frequently asked one is “Where do you get your ideas from?”. And my usual response to that is: from everywhere. Finding inspiration happens pretty much anywhere,…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 7: Ingres’s Violin
“What kind of art do you do?” must be one of the questions artists are most frequently asked. It makes perfect sense, for “art” encompasses a great number of disciplines. In my case, this used to be: theatre design, art direction, graphic and motion design, animation, and various inter-disciplinary work.…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 6: Living with Paintings
When you are an artist, paintings are your children. You give birth to them, you shape them, you look after them, and there comes a day when they leave your studio. “The pity of it is that so few of us are privileged to live with our paintings”, wrote Henry…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 5: The Wonder of Colour
One of the bigger frustrations painters experience is not getting things ‘right’ — this will often mean struggling to depict something in correct scale and proportions. ‘My eyes often resemble the eyes one sees in an optician’s window. (…) As for hands and feet, generally it is impossible to tell…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 4: To Paint Like a Child
There’s a popular meme on the internet which says ‘Your only two emotions when you’re an artists’, and shows Bart Simpson in two states: 1) screaming ‘I am so great! I am so great!’, 2) lying in bed depressed. I’m not sure if there’s an artist who can’t relate to…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 3: Through Painter’s Eyes
One of the things which particularly resonate with me in Henry Miller’s “To Paint is to Love Again” book is the idea of appreciating the everyday and familiar by viewing the world through painter’s eyes. We marvel at the beauty of places we visit when travelling: ancient ruins, neoclassical palaces,…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 2: What is a Picture?
What I like so much about Henry Miller’s “To Paint is to Love Again” book is the joy of discovering a new way of looking at things — everyday objects and views which one is attempting to transfer onto canvas or paper. And the same with viewing artworks — when…
To Paint is to Love Again, Part 1: Maybe You, Too, Can Paint?
A few months ago, I came across a magnificent text by Henry Miller, “To Paint is to Love Again”. It was originally published in 1960 by Cambria Books, but unfortunately the book seems to have been out of print for a while now, and besides a handful of copies available…