I had some people come into my studio the other day and an old painting caught their eye. They loved its heightened colour and texture but hesitated to purchase it for some reason.

 

When I told them the painting had been reworked from the original they were immediately interested in the story behind it.

I told them I had created the original piece in the early to mid 90’s and never really liked it. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I decided I would paint over the piece to make room for a more up to date piece of art.

As I was about to paint it over I noticed how well the horses had been painted so I painted around them, blocking in the background with white oil paint.

Most of what was left were horse heads popping out of a white fog. As I kept painting and adding colour I noticed the thickness of the paint and the red and green colour seemed to camouflage the horse figures. I used several different sizes and styles of palette knife to form thick ridges of paint. As the work progressed the horse figures disappeared. As I pushed the piece further and further into textural patterns of abstraction and troweled on more paint the horses began to re-emerge.

 

 

 

 

I always hesitate when it comes to re-working an old painting.

I ask myself, can I make the piece better or will I be replacing something that's essential and unique. The truth is, I am never sure when I start how much of it will survive, if any, It’s like losing an old friend.

Looking back on some of the paintings I’ve re-worked, I see heightened colour usage and better use of the original composition. The pieces are always more interesting and have more energy.

The fear of ruining or over-working a composition disappears as I get into the process of re-working a piece. On a profound level I know that the original irritated me and the best thing I could do is paint over it.

One thing I’ve discovered as an artist and human being is that we all have a tendency to hold on to things that we’ve out grown. It’s hard to move into a positive future if you haven’t dealt with some of the shit that plagues you from the past. It’s all based on fear of the unknown and no body knows it better than an artist.

Lets face it, stepping out of comfort zones is what we artists do, at least that’s what it looks like from the outside.

 

I’ve been to that place called the creative sandbox where it’s easy to admire some-ones bravery for stepping out of their comfort zone. Most people can’t definitively describe their comfort zone in the first place. The truth is, most of us displace the fear of doing something new by creating a rationalization for it. We all do it! that is why most people feel safe and stop themselves from expressing who they are.

 

 

Stepping outside of the proverbial creative sandbox everyday is what good artists do. I do it all the time with the realization that I must push things further. Re-working a painting is only one thing I do but is a good metaphor for pushing myself to another level creatively. Moving beyond parameters of the creative process applies to us all because it helps us discover where we’ve been, who we are and how much we’ve grown. Many people do it with travel and others do it with extreme sports.

 

 

I don’t simply choose a painting and re-work it, it’s generally something that has been nawing at my psyche for a while maybe even years.Sometimes I can put my finger on “why” and sometimes not. It’s odd to say but when I re-work a piece there's an alignment of universal values that help me rationalize my choice. The idealism of new art on an old face always exhilarates me.

 

Whiting out a canvas and starting a new painting is recycling, keeping the original image intact and adding to it is re-working a painting.

Not that often! In fact out of 200-300 paintings maybe 1 or 2 would have been reworked.

 

 

Every seven to ten years I will go through old work and pick out 4 or 5 paintings (or more) that are no longer representative of my style and white them out to be used again. I keep some paintings no matter how old they are because they represent transition points in the lineage of my work. I have every painting documented ( including recycled and re-worked paintings) with old slides and photographs to digital images.

 

 

When an image is recycled or re-worked it generates a story. Looking back on an original and contemplating it’s new future always has me reflecting on it’s inception. I can’t help remembering what it was ( on some level) the reason for creating the piece in the first place. The painting may have traveled to various shows or been used as a prop in a movie.

Most pictures have a past story and re-working them just adds to that story.

 

 

I have done thousands of pieces of art including Drawings and I can honestly say I don’t get attached to any particular piece anymore. That is not to say I don’t like what I’m doing, I just see it as another part of my journey as an artist.

I know that every new painting or drawing brings something exciting with it. Some pieces I like more than others but that is a purely subjective reference. If I only showed what I loved then the viewer would miss out on the whole process of creation.

 

 

One of the toughest things is to know how any one given image will affect a viewer. We are all individuals and our life experiences, good and bad have a strong foundation visually. We identify very specific feelings with certain colours, forms and spatial relationships, so my intent as a painter is sometimes no further reaching than the end of my brush.

 

A foregone conclusion is that art doesn’t exist with out the artist. To take it one step further, art has no worth unless the artists life is illustrated through it.

The stories I tell about each painting really have a life of their own and they represent what I've done and seen plus how I see the world around me. Art can’t be created in a vacuum and it certainly can’t take on an identity of anyone but the artist himself.

 

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."