In an effort to re-boot the creative juices recently I had a wee 'dance' with abstraction. Dancing quite literally! Those of you who know me well know I am mad about music and love to dance.
I set about creating four smaller paintings each 50cm x 50cm, armed with some fresh bright new colours, proceeded to allow the work to develop with absolutely no pre conceived objective, simply to enjoy putting paint on the canvas and seeing where it might lead.
Allowing myself only a short burst on each canvas, then swapping to the next one, letting them dry between each session. This was so exciting, as each time I re started work on a canvas my eyes were fresh from a completely different composition on the previous work.
I began to notice that the music I was listening to, some classic jazz and blues, was starting to affect the way I was painting… once I became aware of this, I began to select particular artists while working on each painting, and allowed the music to inspire the type of brush strokes I was making. This developed without any conscious intention at the beginning of the process, but led to four paintings which were linked by colour but separated by artist.
This Jazz and Blues collection is currently hanging at Bloomco Shared Workspace in The Lakes, Tauriko.
