Detail versus Colour

I sometimes think people don't understand when I say that I had to get rid of detail in my paintings so that I could go crazy with colour.  In my early years of getting into painting, I was trying to prove that I had 'skills' in my ability to represent something.  That went on for quite a while and I did some good paintings that way. But then it got boring.  The careful placement of brushstrokes was a very unimaginative exercise; it took a lot of time but it wasn't very difficult.  I started to get jealous of my friends who were abstract painters.  They could place large areas of innovative colour and shape on their canvases in ways that were exciting.  I started to think I would like to do that.  I wouldn't let go completely of my wish to connect to the real world; but I began to think I could do it differently.  I realized that our eyes and brains can easily put together images from very minimal amounts of information; a few flicks of a brushstroke can create quite a good description of a face, and so on with other things.  So I started to get brave.  I created simple shapes to represent basic elements in a landscape, a tree for example, or a road beside a field.  Then I could really play with colour!  I could put a red or a blue or a green anywhere I wanted.

Here are a few paintings to show you what I mean:

 

Foothills, 36x66", acrylic, 2013

Corner, 42x42", acrylic, 2013

Arbitration Place on Bay Street in Toronto

Nikola Rukaj Gallery in Toronto has placed some of my paintings at Arbitration Place on Bay Street. They will be up for June and July this summer.  I hope they are aiding the discussions and 'arbitration' taking place!

Here are a couple of them: 

'Layers-I', 36x48"

'Minder', 69x65"