It has been commented that the most valued things of civilization are often those that stem from the detrus of life. Curdled milk, fermented grapes, fermented hops and barley, maybe even memories ...that civilized it is from the patina of life, which is the source of the most valuable. Patina being the expression/history of usage. In other words, that value stems from interaction (usage being a subset of).
So in portraiture, is it possible to embody this patina of a life lived and shared? That the sitter is a social being. Can, in effect , a moment have patina?
Maybe it is from this sort of paradox, something else allowing us to understand the original, where art gains its expression?
I'm still considering this work (meditating on meditation? - no that's a contradiction I think) -
To be honest, it bothers me, the distortion in the elongation of the face is disturbing to me, or maybe it keeps me returning to it, and that undecideness is the disturbance. Yet the technique, of the media of the painting- that I find valuable, this patina of painterly interaction. Yet does that patina (which I find intriguing) have anything to do with the subject other then being an indication that there is an interaction, that the other has become subject for the painter? Or is it maybe that this patina of controlled chaos gives the opportunities for the viewer to engage? Allows them to discern for themselves the meaning of discovery of this portrait?
© GAMcCullough 2013