Composition 18-17 Painting

Retirement was the event that triggered a desire to release my creativity through painting, where the constraint of work and time were gone. The hardest point in starting my artistic journey was picking up a paintbrush and convincing myself that I could create a work of art that I would be pleased with. Every time I pick up a paintbrush there is the fear of not being able to perform. I paint to escape, to express and to challenge myself. I paint to reflect the feelings and emotions of the moment. Creating an artwork, for me, is a combination of spontaneous decisions performed in a short timeframe, involving conscious and subconscious thoughts, my values, likes and dislikes, visual perspectives, application choices, colour selections and body movements. For each piece, decisions are made intuitively until such time as I feel that the work is complete. My art is a statement to myself, of personal satisfaction, of fulfillment and well-being. For me being artistic is innovating, experimenting, learning and changing. I find that painting techniques are limited only by one's ingenuity. I use tools such as putty knives, brushes, fingers, wax paper, tape, paper, cardboard, cloth, bottle caps, scrapers, wood, ropes... to apply and manipulate the paint. The paint can be scraped, absorbed, dripped, thrown, imprinted, poured... I believe my art is varied, it has presence, it is different.