|
Thanks so much, everyone. I had one teacher in the third and fourth year of my B.F.A. degree whose remarks and insight have stuck with me. At the time I didn't like what he said because he was so unflatteringly honest unless he was really impressed with something (a very C20th British way of approaching art education). He didn't actually teach us how to paint, he just guided us through our own particular pitfalls. One remark about a nude I was painting then (or, rather, not painting - I was decorating the edges over and over and neatening the middle bits) was that it had a "nasty feel" and since then I have become paranoid of slickness and quick dazzling paint that tries to hide a lack of rigor and feels hollow and cheap. Mostly in my work my results come from trying not to paint like this, although sometimes I get so lost in trying not to do something that I can no longer see when something does work.
|