Melitta Nemeth
01.03.21 - 07.03.21
DAY 1
This week in my home studio I will start a new painting. Having spent the past week creating oil sketches utilizing photos of women I came to the conclusion that I want to use a photo that represents movement.
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I made some screenshots from a Youtube video. I will choose one of these photos to use it as a starting point for my work.
I have cut out a detail from the third photo.
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I hope to create an unusal female portrait that expresses beauty and power. Also, I want to explore how to create a visual language that originates from a digital image but tries to move in a terrain between figuration and abstraction.
DAY 2
Today I completed a small scale sketch from the photo I chose to paint. I tried to understand the essence of the movement and get a feel for the colours.
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Also, made a drawing on the canvas from the image. This will provide a structure, a kind of skeleton for the painting.
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I think the flow of brushstrokes I will create will be a key element of this work.
DAY 3
I made an underpainting on the canvas.
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This helps me to locate the darker and lighter parts of the image and to get an idea about the direction of the brushstrokes I want to generate.
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Then I created the initial colour palette of the painting. I made notes about the components of each colour. This way I can mix them again if I need to.
DAY 4
Today I started to add colours to the painting. You can see the stages of development here.
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I was trying to keep the momentum of the drawing and underpainting.
I widened my initial colour palette.
DAY 5
There is a quotation from Helen Frankenthaler that really inspires me:
“There are no rules, that is one thing I say about every medium, every picture . . . that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about.”
I added more colours and brushstrokes to the painting today, as you can see it in the photos.
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Although I have the reference image in front of me most of the time while painting, the process is still intuitive. Only when I make some brushstrokes will the next movement reveal itself. I cannot be sure if something works until I try.
The photo is only there to support the making process. I want to create a balance between the abstract play of the brushstrokes and the representation of the human figure.
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Sometimes I need to step back to take a look at my work as if I was only a viewer. To see the bigger picture.
When I have an idea about how I want to continue I decide on the colour of the brush strokes I will add and just go with the flow.
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DAY 6
While making this painting I realized that the movement is not only the subject of the work. I am using my own body's movement to paint. It is very important to trust my body and make confident brush strokes, without letting my rational mind stop me.
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DAY 7
At the last stage of making this work I decided to use thinner and more fluid brush strokes. I wanted to bring back the dynamism of the initial drawing and underpainting.
I realized that I used to draw much before I started to paint. I remember really enjoying the act of drawing. Probably it is still much easier for me to create lines than to cover a surface with colours in a different way. It means that perhaps my work is rather a drawing than a painting.
The brush strokes sometimes leave the figure and start their separate life. It is crucial to maintain their momentum that gives the work dynamism.
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When I want to finish a painting, I look for a certain presence or power in it. When I can see this in the work, I am able to let it go and call it finished.
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This work became something I did not really expect it to become.
It is important that the paint on the surface still seems to be in flux. As if I could continue it anytime again. I believe this will give the viewer a certain experience that is similar to what I go through while painting.
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I want to share two artists' thoughts on painting that I find really thought-provoking.
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"I'm not the kind of artist who has an idea and then carries it out; it's more like I find what the idea was through doing the paintings." (Cecily Brown)
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"The thing that keeps me going, is the painting. In getting lost in doing that, a language is invented. A way of working in the language has evolved through the last ten years, but the paintings have changed every year through that - slowly, because painting is slow. In the end it's about trying to make the painting." (Julie Mehretu)
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Watch the full interview with Julie Mehretu here: art21.org.
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Learning outcome
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A great learning outcome from this residency is the significance of trusting the process. Perhaps inventing a language through painting is more important than representing the human figure in the picture. It might even be the real subject of my work.
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