Relaxing

Anyck Alvarez Kerloch, Spain

I work on several pieces at a time. When I get stuck on one, when I see there is something not working or something lacking but I just can't figure out what it is, I let it rest for a while (a few days, a few weeks or perhaps months) and move on to another. When I do come back to those recessed paintings I might be lucky and find way out to make them work. and other times they just have to be discarded. I don 't throw them away because I find that many can be used as a base or background for a new painting. The old one is then integrated in the new work. I consider myself mainly a figurative painter but I do feel the need to wander to the abstract and I usually use the drawing technique for that. The process is what I like the best, especially at the beginning when there is nothing to lose or at the very end when the work is so bad that there is absolutely nothing to lose either. Sometimes I am blessed with a free flowing session and I come out of the studio feeling great. Other times there are days in a row where nothing seems to come out right, but in the end I always get something out of these painful sessions. They push me to go further. At the beginning my main subject was people but lately I have wandered to places that were not so interesting to me or towards which I found I had a prejudice. Like painting flowers for example. I always loved flowers but never thought about painting them. Now it has become a favourite subject and I find them quite a challenge. They are one of the hardest things to paint for me, their ephemeral quality and delicacy. The imagery I use is retrieved from various sources: in my immediate surroundings, also from pictures I take of objects, scenes, landscapes and people, or just images I make up in my mind or the combination of all. Another great source of images are magazines and internet. However I admit that there is nothing like painting the subjects live, whether objects or people the feeling is different.