My pictures totally lack tension. Tension is the key to the kind of pictures I want to make.
Neu Rauch has the kind of tension I would love to have, that sense of expectancy
Bacon has tension, its the balancing of forms which are on the verge of implosion and collapse.
Matthias Weischer has architectural tension, I tihnk this is a product of the synthetic and artificial nature of his creation of illusionisitc space. It reads as real but seems fragile and on the verge of falling back apart, of decomposing
Titian has tension, Shakespearian tension. It is a multiple tension which functions on so many formal and iconographic levels to the point of being a complex but eloqunet expression of the entire tension of episodes of the human consciousness.
Rothko has tension, colourisitc and spatial mianly, but one which leads to an emotive and traigc frame of reference.
I think Peter Doig’s work and Daniel Richters work are good, but I don’t know how much tension they have. Doig’s are almost too harmonious and Richter’s perhaps too extrovert in their schisophrenic energy.
That Nigel Cooke seemed to have tension. It seemed to be a kind of knowing tension linked too spatial representation. The stage like plane pulling us in to a backdrop of a wall. Theopening of a window met by the closing of the door. They seem slick as well. I like slickness at the moment, but only ever see it in others work.
Vermeer, he has tension. The points you brought to me attention about his quietness, his stillness, his melancholy. He has tension through the total harmonising of space and form in space. He is fucking good. He has a good amount of noise, but noise is another concern.
My pictures lack tension because too many elements are singular. Most notable is space. The consideration of form across the surface is not ofset by any consideration or understanding of the form in space. Thus they just sit on the surface. They need to exist in space and also function across the surface if I am to find spatial tension, which gives the figures a dynamic tension which finds dramatic tension which starts to make them speak rather then just splurt noise.
I have fuck all colouristic tension. Fuck all. Its just one crude obsession with a particular delight after another without ever bringing the various elements into convincing dialogue.
I think I sometimes has elements of tonal tension, but its still too overtly flat, to openly drmatic. I need more conscious reference points with light. i tihnk it goes back to a need to balance the tone of the paint with the tone of representation. I need to pay more attention to a source, or to have a firmer source.
Lackinf tension my pictures lack staying power. They are vacuous little belches.
