If I imagine the art I would like to make in the future, I see large, haunting paintings, with rich colors, representational, but also odd, distorted and strange. But not creepy, just psychological. Symbolic. People see different things in them. They are layers, with some texture, but refined. They look like they took skill and people who look at them wonder how they were made, how I was able to create that.
In order to make work like this, I’d have to spend more time on each painting, and do more painting with similar themes and colors, and keep digging into the same ideas. I’d have to use references so they don’t have that illustrated look. I could start out with collage, and I could use other tools to get the details right without getting bogged down in the drawing/painting.
I think the thing I need to change is that I need to return to painting after my first session with them. I have to risk losing what I like about them and keep reworking it all until I like it. I am being too precious.
I’m afraid I simply can’t do it, that I just don’t have the skill and talent and that the product is going to be mediocre, or come off as something I don’t intend. That it will appeal to people who don’t really get my intention, and I will feel like I am saying the wrong thing in my art, and the people I respect will look down on it and be critical of it. I don’t want to make myself vulnerable to criticism from people I respect and if I really try to make the art I like, I will be more vulnerable to criticism because I actually did try. Right now, I don’t really try as much as I could – I don’t go that deep, so if people don’t like it, I have the excuse that I didn’t really try anyway.
It’s kind of like a musician who stopped taking lessons in high school but who wants to play jazz or classical or something that requires more skill and training, but they play punk instead because they don’t have the formal training they need. They have enough training to know exactly why they suck, but they’ve found a way to express themselves, even if it isn’t what they want for themselves, completely. But maybe they also really love punk but feel limited by it’s rawness, wish they could say something sublime or refined, or elegant. And maybe they can become a better musician, but then they will be in this weird in between place where they no longer have the raw energy for punk, but they aren’t good enough for anything else. So it’s just awkward and mediocre, no longer fitting into either world.