On the Question of Changing Your Style

 

                        Photo from 'A Life of Picasso The Minotaur Years, 1933-1943' by John Richardson

I was so surprised to see that these portraits of a woman's head (I forget which one it was, maybe Dora Maar) were both painted in 1939.  Look how different they are!  One is a somewhat realistic depiction of a woman with a cute green hat.  We would know who it is if it were a friend.  The other one however is a strange contortion of a head and body, sort of surrealist, and only the people on the inside know who it is intended to be.

Many times I am chastising myself because I keep changing my 'style', if you can call it that.  I go back and forth from a more realistic depiction of a landscape to a minimalist abstraction with only a few clues as to what it is.  For instance, here is a lake that I painted inn 1999:

Chaperon's Lake, 38x54", 1999.

You can see it is sort of an impressionist lake scene with shrubs and bushes in the foreground, then the water of the lake and the view across it.  However, here is another lake that I painted in 1988:

Lake Shapes, 40x50", 1988.

It is so different. There was time to change because they were painted 10 years apart.  But Chaperon's Lake is more similar to the work I did in the 80's when I was first starting out; and Lake Shapes is hinting at what I went on to paint in the early 2000's.  I guess I sometimes I have to remind myself that I can still do something, to reassure myself that I am still me.  And it is actually really boring if you are just repeating yourself.  When you are in your studio regularly you have lots of ideas and you want to try them all.  Many famous artists do it with no qualms at all.  Look at Gerard Richter - his two different styles are extremely apart from each other, all abstract to photographic reality.  

Paintings Hanging at the University of Saskatchewan President's Residence

It was a nice surprise recently to learn that two of my paintings are hanging in the renovated residence for the president on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon.  This is a link to the article in the Star/Phoenix newspaper:

http://thestarphoenix.com/entertainment/local-arts/collecting-saskatchewan-u-of-s-presidents-residence-showcases-best-in-prairie-artwork 

The big landscape "Whereas", 55 x 80", was painted in 1994.  At that time I was starting my canvases in acrylic paint and finishing them with oil paint.  I liked to get a big start with the acrylic, but could achieve more subtlety with the colour by finishing with oil.  (Technically, you cannot start with oil and finish with acrylic because the paint would not hold very well.  But as long as you gesso the canvas first, the reverse is fine.) Here is my photo of it:

When you scroll through the video, you will catch a glimpse of another painting I donated to the university, my "Far Out Chickens".  I don't have a proper photo of it, so here is a photo from the video:

This acrylic is 42 x 56 inches and was painted in 1986.  For a few years I had a lot of fun using animals as subject matter.  

Online Catalogue/Essay About The Retrospective "Painting This Place"

                                           1983         "Nocturne"      30x36"            acrylic



The Evergreen Centre has produced an online catalogue for my recent exhibition, with an essay by Gregory Elgstrand.  It is viewable at this link:  PAINTING THIS PLACE .  Please click on  Exhibition Catalogue.
   

Retrospective Exhibition at Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam

March 6 is the opening date for an exhibition of my paintings at the Evergreen Centre in Coquitlam, B. C.  The curator and I went through three decades of my work to select the representative canvases, 16 pieces altogether, just barely skimming the surface of the many directions I have pursued.  It has been quite interesting to look back and one of the things I noticed is that I have ended up not far from where I started.  The paintings are on my website (www.patservice.com) and here is the show announcement:

Do You Throw Out Old Paintings?

Last summer I went through some paintings from the 90's and with the help of my granddaughter, I made decisions about which to keep and which to destroy.  That went along very well, until one morning I woke up and realized with a sinking feeling that I had thrown out a painting that I really liked.  "Throwing out" means cutting it up into small pieces and putting it out into the garbage.

My friend Bob has told me not to do this.  Although I thought enough time had gone by for me to be able to clearly sort the wheat from the chaff, it is obvious that I couldn't.  Lately I have been looking through some even earlier records from the 80's, and I can see that I often threw out paintings that I wish I hadn't.

Reading in The Art Newspaper about the famous artist Gerhard Richter, I see that he has thrown out numerous paintings during his career - but only after they have been photographed.  "Sometimes, when I see one of the photos, I think to myself: 'That's too bad; you could have let this one or that one survive'," Richter is quoted as saying, but added: "Cutting up the paintings was always an act of liberation."

I don't even have good photos of the ones I destroyed.  But some of them did need to go.