As with many
artists that received limited recognition in their lifetime, I consider the
chance - slender though it may be - that it could come along after my death.
For this
reason I am reluctant to part with the hundreds of paintings in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. The
paintings span a period of over thirty years and they form a single entity. Very few
have suffered what the artist James Whistler described as the indignity of being sold.
I can count
on my hand the number of artists, past and present, who have allowed
watercolour the freedom to suggest the beauty of the female form. I stress freedom
as against as against contrived restraint. My method of working direct and
rapidly from the model is unpredictable. A painting that I might perceive as a
failure nevertheless contains an element of truth. Today’s painting is a case
in point.
One reason
for my book Notes on the Nude is that after I am gone, I can still have a say as to what my work has been all
about. I hope that my models will also have their say, as they have done in the closing pages of my book. They have shared my struggles and celebrated our occasional success. I would much sooner that my models have their say rather than some art academic that wouldn't know a painting if one fell on his - or more likely her - head.
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