The Other Art Fair

When I submitted my application to the fair for consideration, I knew my work was different from what I usually see in Australia. But I was curious to see how it would be received. My application was approved. I decided to treat the opportunity this gave me as a means to present what I had been working on for nearly a year for a potential solo exhibition. After all, I reasoned, a solo exhibition would incur similar cost, without the exposure that the fair promised.

Even so, somewhere in my subconscious, was a hope for at least a few of my works to sell. Selling seems to be the single, recognisable marker of success for artists, their families and the general public.

The Fair seemed to start off well. I sold a small work to an enthused buyer on the opening night. But thereafter, for three days, nothing made it past ‘great interest’ from visitors. I reasoned that the first of those subsequent days was a work day, so we probably didn’t have a lot of visitors. But then the weekend was similarly dry. I felt disappointed, I questioned my judgement and even, at times, my work. I say ‘at times’ because my work was one of the things I felt surest of. Every time I looked at my booth, I felt a surge of self-confidence. It was professionally presented, the paintings were all visually arresting, the colours were rich, saturated and the works together created a cohesive whole.

People kept stopping in front of my booth. Everyone gazed for at least a few minutes at the paintings, as a whole, before walking on. Many walked up to the ones they found especially interesting and inspected them closely. Only a very small minority simply walked on with a glance at my booth. I’d confidently say that for ninety percent of visitors, it was definitely something different, something that sparked their curiosity.

On the first day, visitors stopped at my booth and compared what they saw to the works of Frieda Kahlo, Amrita Sher-Gill and Gauguin! On all four days, many stopped to gaze at the paintings, then turned to ask why the women in the paintings were sad. Were they all me? What were they thinking? Many called the paintings ‘emotional’. Some said they were ‘moody’. One person said they were ‘gallery level’, and another commented they had soul.

And yet they did not sell. Why?

I have a few theories. The simplest, most basic one is what I heard from my neighbouring artists: the current state of the economy seemed to be the culprit. Most people had expected to, or were used to, selling much more. But only smaller, more affordable works seemed to be selling. I didn’t have small works. Or to be more accurate, I had a total of only two small works, one of which sold on the first day. So lesson number one: a variety of sizes, a variety of price points is necessary. People have varying budgets and home spaces.

The more interesting revelation seems to have been this, however: the general public is not necessarily open to melancholy on its walls. People seem to want to live with simple, bright, happy compositions, unfussed, non-confrontational subjects, against which TV dinners can be eaten, young families can be raised, life can be lived. We avoid ‘drama’. The absolute extent of broody art seems to be crashing waves on a beach, or dark skies on fields of green.

My work was heavy. A few people who stopped to look at it, left saying it was ‘thought-provoking’. It was the kind of work we are used to living with back home. In Pakistan we almost celebrate melancholy. We sing songs about it, write novels about it, paint it and hang it up on our walls and live our lives against its backdrop. We are not afraid of it. It is a condition of life and we accept it as such. But if I want to carve out space for myself in Australia, I need to delve into the cheerier recesses of my being perhaps?

One small thing though: I got invited to collaborate on a feature about my art by an art magazine :D. Maybe the sad ladies whispered something in someone’s ear!

New Horizons

I took a year off to work with cold wax and oil paint. I bought myself a year-long online course with Jerry McLaughlin and Rebecca Crowell because their paintings and techniques looked and sounded fascinating. I decided I wanted to tap this new possibility and see where I would end up.

To begin with, I was bewildered. They talked about ‘developing your visual language’. I discovered I didn’t have one. At least not the kind they were talking about, involving texture and subtle effects achieved through the myriad techniques they described in their book ‘Cold Wax Medium’ and in their talks. I was used to painting from reference photos, drawing from life, always with a reference point before me that I would try to stay very true to. They weren’t doing anything like that. I wanted to be them.

I made alot of awful paintings. Some of them I was thrilled by, some I hated looking at, some made it into art shows as finalists! Some I actually even sold. It was clear that something was definitely right with the new things I was doing. There was definitely potential.

I decided to get serious about watching all the online material I had access to through the course I had bought. I kept working. I kept watching Jerry and Rebecca, listening to them dissecting paintings, watching them work whenever I could find something online, listening to Rebecca’s podcast ‘The Messy Studio’ every chance I could. They made me feel more confident about what I could do and what I was already doing. I realised I needed to listen to professionals talking about their art, other people’s art, galleries, shows, the art business. I realised I was doing okay and I just needed to keep working and keep showing my work every chance I could.

Now, three-quarters of the way through the year, I find I am doing things very differently. I have been working on a series of paintings that all depict a solitary, pensive figure. Producing a series, a ‘body’ of work was also a suggestion made by Jerry in one of his talks. I see the wisdom in it now. I see the earliest paintings I made, and I see what I am doing now. I am looking at so many more things now. I am looking at shapes, colour, unity, spontaneity, movement, texture, light and shadow, emotion. I am not fixated on depiciting what I am painting exactly as it exists. Instead I find myself having to resolve problems that have to do with a balance or a unity of colour, a balance of shapes, a focal point etc. It isn’t that these were not things I didn’t have to work with before. The difference now is that I am not relaying a scene or a concept exactly as it presents itself but instead trying to re-think and re-invent it. It seems like I may have developed something of a visual language of my own.

This year I have only worked this way with the human figure. But I feel I am at the end of my exploration with these. I feel ready to take these techniques in another direction now. Working on these paintings has freed me to using unconventional implements in unconventional ways. It has made me view things differently. I feel ready to apply these same techniques to my landscapes and still life paintings now. I am convinced that this will take me closer to where I have dreamt of being for several years now in terms of more textured, looser painting that still retains the core principles of representational art.

Aha!

Six years ago an artist friend mentioned an ‘Aha!’ moment that happens to people somewhere on their artistic journey, basically a sudden epiphany about what they really want to do. I think I may finally have had one of those this week.

For as long as I can remember, the human form has been an object of intense fascination for me. As a teenager, in a restrictive home environment, sketching figures and faces from magazines and from life was a triumphant release for me. I filled sketchbooks with my drawings. My sister was my ultimate muse. We shared a room, I would observe her as she sat on the floor with a novel on her knees, I studied her as she folded her little body into the rocking chair in our room, as she bent on her books, working hard at schoolwork on her desk. I enjoyed working with a pencil, I was partial to mechanical ones. The process of studying and producing accurate line drawings from life gave me the greatest joy. I did not have a teacher or a lot of artistic references to learn from. So I muddled along. I even tried achieving tonal values at times, through cross hatching, though most often by rubbing graphite into my work.

This week I have discovered a way to bring those earliest of artistic impulses into my paintings! Yes there is an exclamation point there! And again :) because this is so exciting. I was working on a painting in the midst of which I happened to pick up a black oil pastel lying on the table. The original idea was to draw a figure onto a wooden surface that had a few layers of paint on it and then to go forward with painting it in a manner I am more or less accustomed to. But the appearance of these black oil pastel lines shook everything up. I found I wasn’t inclined to cover them up with paint as I had been planning to. The more I stood in front of this work on successive mornings, the more it has grown on me. The lines have grown more numerous, some cross hatching has appeared as well. Simultaneously the paint has echoed the line-work through subtle tonal changes. It is making for a very interesting, raw visual experience. Drawing and painting have been pulled together onto a surface and it is making my heart sing! Aha!

Towards Abstraction

When I first started painting, I put all my energy into representing things as they appeared. I felt I needed to demonstrate my ability to draw realistically, to capture colour and light realistically in my work to be seen as a real artist. Partly this had to do with the fact that I have always enjoyed observing people, places and objects closely. Partly it stemmed from the fact that I had entered a new world without any formal training. Unless I could prove to myself that I could depict a scene exactly as it existed, I felt like an impostor.

For five years I painted, almost exclusively, representationally. And then I discovered cold wax medium (CWM). So unique was the texture of this new medium, and so distinctive its look that fussing over a realistic scene with it seemed to be a missed opportunity. CWM was opening the door for me to try out something that had been capturing my imagination forever: texture! Impasto, three dimensional painting has always fascinated me. Well here was a chance to experiment with just that. I began working in a way that I never had, a much freer, headier way. I felt as if a new eye opened up within me. I did not want to restrict myself to a pre-determined colour palette or composition. I wanted to let go and play with just colour and simple shapes. It felt massively liberating not to be restricting myself to tight, detailed compositions and instead revel in the glory of simply texture, colour and the buttery magic on my palette. The marks I am making in my free works nowadays come from a deep, visceral place that I have never had access to before. I had never experienced working intuitively. I had never approached a painting not knowing exactly what I wanted to say. CWM has opened me up to abstraction. It has allowed me to become introduced to an artistic facet of myself that is new even to myself. The uncertainty of where I will end up in a painting and the process involved to reach it are thrilling in equal measure. It is a fast-paced, breathless run as much as it is measured, deliberate decision-making. And so I will often have three paintings ongoing at the same time - a representational work, and when I tire of the preciseness, the refinement that is an essential component of my style, two abstract works to free up my mind and my heart. Jackpot,

Journey

Though I have loved anything to do with creating something out of nothing for as long as I can remember, I have become a serious artist quite late in my life. I have spent a good many years second-guessing myself, changing the direction of where I am happily headed to please those who appear to be cheering me on in this new phase of life. Confidence in myself and my choices has been hard-won. It is easily shaken even today.

But not as easily as it was once. The reason has been the selection of three of my paintings in art prizes this year. I entered a total of five prestigious Australian prizes this year. I was accepted in two. Both are respectable names on the local art scene. My acceptance into them has made me feel like I belong. I am not an impostor.

My friends and family have supported my journey with fierce love. I have been inundated with encouragement, praise and even advice. Some I have actively sought. Some has been given without me asking. Everyone whose support has encouraged me wants to offer advice with the best of intentions, though not necessarily any knowledge or idea of what the industry is about. Their advice has come from their own preferences in art or hunches about what is likely to be snapped up by a certain demographic. It is endearing.

It is also exhausting. When they ask expectantly, ‘So did you win a prize?’, it feels like a very disappointing thing to report you haven’t. They look back at you either sympathetically or with bafflement because they have been certain your work was worthy of a prize and they voted for you too, dammit. Both responses can deflate your joy in a matter of moments. You sound defensive when you insist that being selected in such an important prize is an honour in itself. This doesn’t matter when you’re Pakistani. Only winning an actual prize proves your success.

It doesn’t though. It really isn’t just about winning, clichéd though that sounds. It is about your work having been looked over by a panel of judges. It is about your work having made the cut. It is about your work being selected to be shown in a prestigious location in a city you have called home for only six years. It is about the hundreds of people who have come to look at your work, who have thought about it, imagined the hand behind it. Being seen is what this is about. In a public space with other professional artists whose work you looked at with wide eyes just a few years ago.

The prizes can wait. The journey is what this is about. And it is an exciting, incredible one.

What is Art?

Many people approach art nervously. In a discussion about art, they will tentatively begin with a disclaimer, ‘Now I know nothing about art really…’ All of us, to some extent or other, labour under the illusion that art is the exclusive domain of the cultured, the differentiator between the truly refined and the vulgar.

But is it? To me art has always been a visual escape into worlds unhindered, an exhilarating tour de force on the part of the artist and an equally exhilarating celebration of form, colour and perspective for the onlooker - me. If it moves me to experiencing the great human emotions of joy, hope, love or grief, it is something to cherish. If it makes me think of the hand behind the work, the person behind the painting, their life, their technique, then it has achieved its goal. This is what art is about: to stop you for a moment wherever you are, to speak directly to you in that moment, to lead you to feel perhaps a part of what the artist felt when the painting was conceived and produced, and finally, to allow you to feel emotions and think thoughts that are exclusively yours about the work.

This is true of good and bad art. I say those word with deliberation. Art is meant to be subjective. It does not require you to approach it with ready ideas or expectations. You may, but you will only limit your enjoyment of it then. Art is a language between the artist and their viewer. Perhaps the two of you will have a long conversation. Perhaps a glance is enough to satisfy your curiosity.

Underpainting?

The more regularly one paints, the better one gets. It's as simple as that. Is it muscle memory, or developing technique, or discovering all that is possible with the materials, the implements at hand...? Probably a combination of all these things.

In the past month, I have worked on three landscape paintings. I began two on canvases toned with a bright orangey-red acrylic paint. I drew my scenes fairly simply using pencil or acrylic paint. Then started working with oil paints in layers.

The third one I began with an underpainting using burnt umber and titanium white acrylic paints. I thought working tones out would make the eventual work of painting the scene simpler.

What I have discovered is that there is no need for this. An underpainting to work out tonal contrast does nothing to improve my work, not right now at least. Not ruling this out altogether as a technique, but in my other two works, working in thin layers, in the actual colours I intend to use, gives me more of an understanding of how I want to proceed, and a chance to develop tones within the colours I have chosen. Far more productive.

Not ruling anything out though. Disclaimer ;D