25/Sep/2012

Studio experience at SFAI-Painting from photograph

A painter should be able to answer two questions when he/she is painting from photos:

What has changed significantly during the process of painting?
Why paint from photo in the first place?

Using photographs in painting has been a dangerous thing to do, a sophisticated artist should know the difference between using photo as source material and using it as a thing to copy from (unless copying is the idea itself, that's a different story).

There have been successful painters who work from photograph. Gerhard Richter for example, his photo paintings is more than just the combination of photos and blur effect. what's more important is the choice of the photos he paints from and the attempt to study photograph as a subject matter. Therefore his photo paintings cannot be read only as the reprocutions of photos.

So a painter should ask him/herself these two question before using a photo to paint from to avoid becoming a "copier", rather than starting with "Hey this is a interesting picture, I wanna paint it"

If painting doesen't make a interesting photo different, then the photo should remain as a photo

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time
Oil on canvas
105x150 cm

Untitled
Oil and Acrylic on board
47x43 cm

Abandoned Glasgow 2

Abandoned Glasgow-Recent Practice

Sunday Afternoon Death Mystery, Oil and Acylic on canvas, 150x120cm

Where It Begins and Ends, Oil and Acylic on canvas, 145x105cm

Untitled-Dec 2011

Observation of A Cat