Jawbone, 2024
A packet of meat wrapped around bones, bones that have a relationship to rock. Vegetation and earth. Sky and moving clouds. And … ? Mystery. Testament of a life lived.
The creation story (diary) of the artwork Jawbone
“… [I’m now working on] a painting in which a lower jawbone is the key feature. … I’m not going to do anything further to the jawbone itself, nor to the face and the turbulent cloudy sky. Their tension came out of my agitated emotions while painting. Much agonizing and a mixture of wide-ranging feelings. A situation involving emotionally charged feelings adds to my creativity. I fight it out as I paint.”
stadium 1
“Just stopped painting in my studio. It is slowly starting to get darker and I want to see the colours by daylight. … The only thing I’m going to keep working at is making adjustments here and there to the body. The transition from the right arm to the right shoulder doesn’t look right and I absolutely must do something more to the throat.”
“I’ve painted the vegetation in a way that fits in with the execution of the body. Quite realistic in other words. It should be as if you could smell the earth below and see the leaves rustling. There’s a troubled sky and, together with the protruding tongue and the facial expression, this creates a ‘dramatic’ effect. I’m not so clearly recognizable in terms of the face, but that doesn’t matter because I’d rather a universal portrayal.”
stadium 2
“Have just come down from my studio because the daylight was beginning to go. Have revised the clouds to make them look less rounded. Everything apart from the body has now been finalized.”
“I had wanted to powerfully render the turbulence in my cloudy sky in order to reinforce the expression on the face. There’s definitely more movement present in it now than there was before.”
stadium 3
“Have just stopped painting. Enough for today. I’ll carry on tomorrow. Only adjustments to the body, and I reckon everything else is already complete. Do hope to get this done in the next few days.”
stadium 4
“Have just stopped painting as the light is getting steadily dimmer and I’m exhausted. I’ve spent the greater part of my time working on the body and at the end did a bit more to the cloud construction, and that’s now completely finished. Tomorrow, I’ll work solely on the body. Demands great concentration, which explains the exhaustion. Flesh and blood. By degrees more life is starting to appear in it and it’s all becoming ever clearer.”
“That state of tension between light and dark, on a razor’s edge, is what fires my creativity. Actually, I think I’ve always been like that. But right now I’m in good condition. Because I’m so focussed on my work with its execution completely preoccupying me …?”
stadium 5
“Have just left my studio and am calling it a day. It’s getting too dark and I’m starting to feel dizzy. It went smoothly but by the end I was beginning to fuss around. Fatigue and loss of concentration. … While I was working, my admiration grew for Rubens, Lucian Freud, Jordaens and other painters who were so able at portraying the human body and, above all, flesh. They would have worked a good deal faster too. I’ll start out painting very fluently with immediate good results, especially in the first two hours, and then I get bogged down on details and spend too long scanning and fussing around. But those details have to be assimilated within the whole eventually. Tomorrow it’ll be warmer and, I hope, sunnier and brighter. That’ll be better for me.”
“I’m now calling a halt and it should finally be finished. At 4.35 pm. Dusk is starting to fall and have just been able to take a photo before it gets to dark. I feel like a marathon runner who collapses exhausted at the finishing tape.”
“The gaping mouth with its red tongue: Rolling Stones (sex, drugs and rock’n’roll), pure greed, receiving the consecrated host, greetings from the Maori, images from Oceania, gargoyles on medieval cathedrals, fauns and satyrs from antiquity. Who knows?”
stadium 6
“Today FINALLY finished at last. Took more time than I thought.”
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