Years ago a substitute teacher in college told us in a painting class, that painting was dead. Everything’s been done. I was already disappointed with the education I was getting compared to the debt I would owe on it. And I was paying this guy to come in and tell me the thing I’m paying him for is dead.
Well, painting is dead when making obvious comparisons to the renaissance or even the impressionists time. Taking good photos and video is on your phone always in your pocket. With just a filter in photoshop a photo can look at lot like a painting. But that aside, has everything been done, in painting? A blank white canvas has already been done. Splattered paint has been done. Painting with shit, piss, blood and mud has been done. Abstract, cartoons, expressionism, german expressionist, child-like, orientalism, photo realism, surrealism, realist, cubist, pointillist, impressionist, …
Why use painting as a tool to get an idea out there? In the process of painting, unpredictable things result. Predictable are the mistakes. After painting something that was stupid, I often wished I had an undo to the extend of miming the cmd/ctrl+z in the air with my left hand. Layering ideas on top of ideas, gives the piece a history. The painting builds a memory that helps give it a life of its own. Having to paint a new color on top of an old color on top of a color gives depth that never would have occurred otherwise. My impression of this creation process, is that I sometimes felt like I was giving birth to the painting. This is my mental child in a visual form. Even without speaking this piece can be more descriptive than the artist attempting to describe it.
Then there is the physical side of the process. Pushing the paint on the canvas with bent bristles attached to a long brush extended from fingertips controlled from the curving gesture of the moving bending arm. The process is difficult to control. In my own experience, embracing the mistakes makes the painting much more interesting. The resulting emotion passion history and energy in a piece are what brings it to life.
That said, painting is not done. If painting were dead then exploring, inventing, wondering about anything anywhere, has all been done. I, and you, are in space right now. Imagine flying above the earth with your arms extended like a bird looking out towards stars and galaxies. BBC, Milky Way’s true color article, Jan12/2012. We are in earth, space, milky way, universe but I want to go beyond. Does space go on forever? Could it? What is forever? Surely forever must have boundaries somewhere? Is this space we know also the inside of a crazy giant planet orbiting around with other crazy giant planets in their own outer space? If so, then hmmm. Perhaps. As long as dreaming and wondering about the other are an option then painting will not die. – Christopher
