Professional Practice part 5

Continuing the answers to most commonly asked questions, here's part 5

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I am essentially a process artist - i enjoy painting, want to do it as often as I can, love to experiment with what paint does. That's my real inspiration, and somewhere along the line, I realised that landscape provided me with the structure to hang the paint, so that's what i do now. (I love the landscape as much as most people do). I am also interested in expressing the spiritual, primal, monumental - and landscape seems to provide the device to do this.

As for the day to day - best way to get inspiration, for me, is in the studio painting. Just start and see where it takes you! I am lucky to have had a residency in Bundanon and internalising that landscape structure over the 5 weeks I was there (working every day!) has provided a great base, so I can remember it and call on it at will. (I need to get back out there now, as I am waning in inspiration! ie I need to fill my soul again for the next lot of work.) I often start from a drawing, then draw from that drawing, then paint from the drawing, then let the painting talk to me as to what it needs. Thus, I waste a lot of paintings, but the good ones reflect something in me that isn't on the surface, that i can't get to otherwise (the "other" in art) and is unique (I hope).

Where do you draw your inspiration from? What is your process?

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Image: Cherry Blossom 2009 Oil on Ply 30 x 30cm