I’m not entirely sure why I’ve never posted or finished this painting. I suppose it ties back in to my considerations of process.
Why am I painting, what is it I want to achieve? I’d like to think that I begin every painting with intention and drive, and only later does that desert me. But in truth, I feel guilty. I feel I have failed and that only painting will redeem me.
No.
In truth, I paint to free myself. I paint to occupy a space, to absorb a moment and become one with it, to lose myself in process. To cease, for a time and connect with something outside of me. I imagine the intricacies of my photo-realism are something of a curse. When I stop to consider, to engage with a piece I can often fall on myself, lament my inability to render something, or to even finish.
I worked on this piece tirelessly for a month in 2012, I had mostly forgotten it, resigned it to my many folders of discarded work. I had considered it useless, a pointless expenditure of my time. Perhaps I was wrong.
Does this image not convey something? Am I not communicating something I have seen and been moved by? This structure that seems purely functional, a tower of concrete and metal with purpose and form transposed into the aesthetic. Light spilling into the endless night, illuminating the car park for none but me to see. Why do I like car parks so much? Why does it matter? Is this image not beautiful, regardless of content?
We shall consider the hidden meanings of this particular car park soon.