Inscape Painting

Over the years since I started this painting lark I have on occasion been pulled into a painting by the force of the image that inspired it, as if it jumped up and insisted on being painted. The first time this happened was perhaps 9 years ago when an idea utterly unlike the sort of work I’d been doing pushed in and got itself made. It was so radically different from previous pieces that I was convinced it would be unpopular with the audience I’d begun to gather. The subject matter was almost unrecognisable, the composition stark and lopsided, the figure it portrayed heading out of frame in defiance of the official rules. And within perhaps half an hour of it being on display, the paint still very wet, it sold. This and various other instances of a similar nature told me to follow that inner thing, whatever it is, because if I feel it strongly enough to commit to the journey and execute it well enough, other people will look at it and feel the same thing. It was sold to a homeowner in Knysna, and with the fires in 2017 it got burned along with his house. The idea to revisit it was intriguing enough to do a reprise, incorporating the changes that had entered my approach to painting over the years, so here it is.