What should I paint?

The question of subject is one that constantly reoccurs to me:

What should I paint?

Why do I want to create a work about this?

Should I?

Is it worthwhile?

What will everyone else think?

Having a sense of self consciousness is vital to thinking critically about my own work, but I may just be the kind of person who thinks themselves out of action.

Analysis paralysis again…

Usually what I consider the most successful work comes about when I stop obsessing about the reasons I feel interested in something and simply explore the idea.

Give yourself permission to experiment… and fail.

The major editing has to take place during the creation, or even afterwards, or else I have the tendency to talk myself out of every idea. This excess of thought is probably what kept me away from painting for many years. Only since I have given myself permission to fail have I been able to see results.

Having a visual record of a thought gives me a chance to assess its strengths, weaknesses and future development… and these infantile records often come to have their own lives independent of whatever work they may have triggered.

You only figure out what you should be painting by trying a bit of everything.

Over the years, because of knocking around and trying different things, I’ve realised that I gravitate towards depicting the human figure, and that everything surrounding exists in its orbit. The landscape exists because it is viewed by the person. The objects have been arranged by, or carelessly left behind by someone, who may reappear at any moment. Although the places, rooms and objects hold their own value, it is the people populating the spaces I return to instinctively.

Just how to use this, now, is the thing I’m continually working at.

The world outside of the figure

Of course, not all of my work revolves around painting portraits; some of my recent text-based prints focused solely on handwriting and colour. It’s possibly a strange departure, but when I consider how much a part of me my writing is as well, the text pieces are a natural progression of my words flowing into the visual.

Why I paint portraits…

I love examining the nuances of faces, and the angles and relation of each part to the next. Portraiture has fascinated me since I was a child. The capacity to render another person’s likeness is a tremendous thing to discover as a young person, but the discovery that that capacity in itself is not enough, is even more so. That’s what spurs you on to make art.

When a painting is finished, and it represents many hours of contemplating another person’s face, attempting to conjure up some representation of their personality, you are left with the realisation that it is incredibly fragile.

What should I paint?

I should paint the idea I can’t do without. Here’s what it is for me:

A portrait – a depiction of a human being – can lose its meaning in a second, all because of what the subject does, or perhaps no longer does. The person changes continually whilst their image remains the same. It will never remain an accurate representation of that person; it can only be a representation of a subject at a single point, as seen through the mind of the artist.

It’s an exchange between two people who will never be the same two people again.Then, when either the artist changes her mind, or the subject changes himself (or is unwillingly/unknowingly changed), that representation can crumble into something quite meaningless.

That brief glimpse of meaning is what I want to paint.

What should you paint?

Ultimately it’s the meaning of the object or image, more than the object or image itself, that will give your work purpose and lead you on to the next step of your work. Start with something – anything – and mess around until you know what you don’t want to paint and what you want to.

The next time you think, “what should I paint?”, think about it as, “what do I want to say?”

Bodybuilder art / art about bodybuilding

You’ll often hear bodybuilding described by its practitioners and admirers as an art form.

Naturally, the medium frequently referenced is sculpture; it’s often invoked in the way that developing certain muscles is referred to as “sculpting”, and it leans on the languages of ancient nude statuary and the Neoclassical tradition.

Bodybuilders accept their place in the story of the idealised (predominantly male) body and they relish it. More than any artist in the contemporary era, the muscle-bound gym-goer carries the torch for the display of the body and the decisions as to what constitutes the ideal body. Now, more than ever, it’s acceptable to see muscles on display almost everywhere, and the depiction of the anatomical figure rests in the hands of advertisers and marketers instead of artists.

Transforming the body

For some years I’ve been interested in the history of the male figure in Western art, but that’s not the main reason why I’ve started to make art about bodybuilding.

It’s the actual process of transformation that I find interesting, and the determination behind that process. We’re all being physically transformed, whether we like it or not: children grow, we get old, and most of us get a bit fatter with time. Passive transformations like these happen to us without being noticed, until we end up in a very different state after a few years have gone by.

Bodybuilding is a process of wilfully transforming from one state to another through a violent process; it’s the ripping of muscle fibres on a minute scale that creates the need for the muscles to repair and grow. There’s a fascinating force of will that goes into trying to control one’s body and manipulate it into something it would not naturally become.

My own interest in the culture started when I was very little, with my mother’s friend Tony “Broad Back” Parris, a well-known figure in Barbadian bodybuilding. I remember visiting him and having him lift me far above his head with one hand – he was definitely a figure to look up to!

Bodybuilding as a measure of masculinity

Bodybuilding is an overwhelmingly male pursuit, and I think it comes down to our inherent social expectations. That’s not to say that there aren’t lots of amazing and noteworthy female bodybuilders – it’s just that most women don’t size each other up on the basis of how big their biceps are.

Men still compete with other men in a race to be the biggest, while women are still conditioned to want to become smaller.

The art of bodybuilding

Nowhere does this seem more pointed than when looking at the art and illustration that accompanies bodybuilder culture – the visual language of bodybuilding. Of course, a lot of it has to do with the photography of competitors, as the purpose of posing is to display one’s body to one’s best advantage, and photography for posterity is essential.

But I’m talking more about the way in which built-up bodies are interpreted in visual culture, by fans of the sport and amateurs, as well as by designers and illustrators creating images for wider consumption.

In so many images, proportions are distorted to those incompatible with human life… it’s as if there is no such thing as “big enough”, no pleasure in keeping within the realms of reality. The most superhero-like beings amongst us are still contorted and stretched beyond all recognition. It’s as though those who are most keen to absorb this kind of visual spectacle get hooked and start to seek out more extreme bodies than the pec deck could ever provide.

Not convinced? Do a Google search for bodybuilder art, and skip through YouTube thumbnails of bodybuilding videos. The dedication to freakishly Photoshopped images is impressive.

To me, it’s as if these bodies, that have been pushed to the edge of human capability and live in the realm of fantasy, are never seen as fantastical enough by their audience. They inspire thoughts of more are always pushed to being something more, something superhuman and, of course, superheroic.

Sure, it’s easy for a traditionally focused, representational artist to see something uncomfortable in the work of a predominantly comics-based segment of visual culture, but I see my art as celebrating the human endeavour and not just the end spectacle.

My approach to depicting the transformation of the built body

Instead of pushing the fantastical, spectacular aspect of the forcefully altered body, I take a more naturalistic approach, rendering bodies in a contemporary realist style. My goal isn’t to idealise any further than the model has been able to idealise himself; it’s to express admiration for the process of transformation – guided, willful, and of course, difficult self transformation.

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