When a painting is ready?

What does it mean when a painting is ‘ready’?

Deciding whether a painting is ready to be shown can be an agonizing process for any artist. When is the painting ready? I can’t answer this question unequivocally, although I have painted many paintings. It seems to me that when an artist does something unexpected during the creative process, he entered the studio with a specific intention and yet did something different.

Or he didn’t know what to paint or how to paint at all, and yet he painted – then the painting starts to become independent of the artist, it breaks away from him, it talks to him. Then, within this discussion, one reaches the end, the painting completes itself in its logic, and the artist recognizes that the painting is finished. When I experience this – I take a photograph – a record of my work.
After some time, I see the image again. Its logic seems outdated to me, I see that the image previously considered ‘finished’ needs further work. I blame myself for not seeing what I see now. So I keep working. I change the painting, despite the fact that it has already been in the exhibition, that it is already reproduced in the catalogue. Despite the fact that some of the guests at the vernissage have spoken positively about it.

Ready or not?

Hardly, why should I keep paintings I’m not happy with? Of course, the most satisfaction comes from a large number of finished paintings. Finished? Again the question return: ready or not?
Fortunately, the need to create new ones is so intense that I don’t return to previous works very often. Returning – it’s about entering the path I was on when the painting was created. When I make the decision to paint it seems to me that I have found that place where I stopped and that I know in which direction to go next. This means that I don’t tear down the composition, I accept it. Instead, I deepen the colours and thicken the structure. This can be compared to a facelift.
It doesn’t always work. Then I demolish the composition and destroy the image. No regrets. A painting is a place to work.

The painting titled Entangled, oil, canvas 120 x 80 cm was presented at an exhibition at the House of the Visual Artist in 2015. (the version on the left).
After some time it underwent a transformation.

Is it better? Let the viewers judge that. One thing is certain – the first version is now only in the form of an archive photo, like a rock painting.

Comfortable experience

This is how I will title what I am going to write about now. The experience of comfort comes at a cost. To experience it, you have to work hard. For me, it is extremely pleasant when I can say to myself that what has been created is not bad. To quote Luciano Pavarotti. I don’t think I need to write about who he was. I watched a documentary about this great singer. One of the sequences showed him in the hospital when he was terminally ill. Listening to his own recordings, he stated that “he wasn’t that bad”. I think he spoke sincerely. That he felt that comfort as an artist. That was his comfort at the end of his life. I am writing here about a great artist, I know the proportions. I don’t want to and can’t compare myself to him. But I do understand what he said.
And as for the fame and knowledge of Luciano Pavarotti’s art, I have an example that it is fleeting. My student, 25 years old, did not know the name.