I try to be open to advice and guidance as an ‘emerging’ artist, and it is amazing just how often that boils down to one phrase: “You must find your voice…..”, or “Know what you want to say ….”

OK, I know that I tend toward being a pedant, but really?

I produce paintings. I put paint on canvas.

Where exactly does my ‘voice’ come into this?
I do not sing (a good thing too), I do not speak - what on earth has my voice got to do with anything?

Yeah, I know this is a metaphor, but it is now so overused, it is given out as the answer anytime an aspiring artist seeks guidance, and so often those giving it out have no ideas about how to follow through.
My paintings cover many different subjects - does that mean I have not ‘found’ my ‘voice’?
Or is this another symptom of the way the world has become shouty?
Yes, I am seriously worried about climate change, and yes, I despair about what we do to the landscape that I paint.
But my personality is bright and cheerful, optimistic. I am a pragmatist. I find a way of dealing with whatever, so I actually find it difficult, impossible, to paint dark and gloomy pictures. I have tried. (Some go with this piece, below)
I argue that just as a professional musician must be able to play a dark and sombre lament then move on to a lively waltz, then on to something else, so an artist ought to be able to paint pictures in different styles to evoke different reactions. But I derive no pleasure from ‘dark and gloomy’ - maybe that is the point - I want to enjoy what I do and I want to produce paintings that other people will enjoy looking at.
Does this mean that despite my protestations, I HAVE ‘found my voice’?
Lively. Colourful. Interesting.
I have great respect for artists who are capable of producing work which is a very close replica of the reality they see in front of them and indeed that is where I began, but over time, with growing confidence and the years of practice, my work is moving, evolving, and is now somewhere west of expressionist, but is still south of abstract - proving the point that the ‘voice’ metaphor gets mixed up with the ‘journey’!
I am also puzzled as to why these words matter - shurely you, the viewers of art, look at the pictures in front of you, as I do with Turner, Cezanne, van Gogh - and the others. When he died, Turner left over 30,000 watercolours to the nation - were there 100 word descriptions of each of them?

The ancient Greek philosophers provide an answer: “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom” - which would mean that all this stuff about voices and journeys is actually aimed at helping me, the artist, to realise what I am striving for and to put that into my paintings.
Off I go then, into the studio ……..

A selection of paintings which should each tell a story.
Alun at Lower Navigation Colliery, now derelict, told me he served his apprenticeship there.
And ‘Home Alone 2021’ needs no more commentrary.
Cwm Sere Cottage - derelict old homes which are scattered around the hills always raise questions - who lived there? What was life like for them in that place? Did their hopes die ?

Artist's Blog

Posts tagged with Contemporary

The Artist’s Voice?