Wednesday, May 3, 2017

I have not seen as others saw

As a painter it is necessary for me to have a different way of seeing. My task is to see beauty where it has not been seen before. But in doing so, I make life difficult for myself and difficult for others to patronise what I create.

  • I work in watercolour and watercolours are not readily marketable.
  • I paint the female nude: a subject that most buyers are shy of.
  • My models are Afro-Caribbean: black rather than white.
  • I resist the abstract: my figures are physical and passionate.
  • I work rapidly and suggest rather than define detail, and it is in laboured detail that buyers consider they get their money’s worth.

For my good friend and kindred soul, the Virgin Island poet Sheila Hyndman Wheatley (1958-1991), I choose this poem for her memorial service. It may well be equally as fitting for mine.

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; nor could I awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)

Today’s painting is my most recent and in the very same vein.


No comments:

Post a Comment