Anyone who has seen my work knows that I pile the paint on, some areas up to three inches thick. This technique is called impasto. I loathe impasto. Other than Frank Auerbach, I don’t like artists who paint thickly. I’d rather look at a George Tooker than a Chaim Soutine. I am not interested in using color in the service of form but as the form itself. Color and form are inseparable.
In his book Art (1914), Clive Bell wrote, “You cannot conceive a colorless space; neither can you conceive a formless relation of colors.” Contrary to my reviews, I don’t use thick paint out of passion, energy, emotion, or bravura. I use it to establish spatial orientation; thicker is closer and thinner is farther away. Content is a function of how near or far things appear from your face.
Some painters work to remove any evidence of their hand, while others allow the process to be an integral part of their conceptual framework. Although my facture is painterly, I’ve learned a lot by looking at minimalism. As I stand before an Agnes Martin painting, my physical relationship to and awareness of the space around me is amplified because of the deliberate lack of the artist’s hand; I become aware of my body standing in the room with an object hanging on the wall. My work thrives on such heightened awareness. I’m a minimalist who doesn’t know when to quit. I overemphasize the physicality of my materials to connect the painting to the tactile world that we all occupy. When I throw a fistful of vermillion at the canvas, it splats; if I add thinner, it runs, and one color appears to pass over another because it really does. Think of colors as a pack of playing cards dumped out on a table, a pile of overlapping layers, some visible and others partially concealed. I spend all day stacking color.
I’m obsessed with materials and process, but I don’t like technique. This notion sounds ridiculous because anyone who sees my paintings immediately notices the manner in which I apply paint. However, one way to draw attention away from something is to exaggerate it. As the ventriloquist Otto Petersen, of Otto & George, said, “I exaggerate to clarify.” Repetition also clarifies. I’ve always admired arduous, repetitive jobs such as those of traveling salespeople, lounge comedians, or birthday party magicians, who do the same gig three times a day, 360 days a year, perfecting their moves to the point of effortless delivery without a trace of technique. When I washed pots in restaurant kitchens, I took masochistic pleasure in the monotony: dirty pots went in, clean ones came out, and one thing became another through clear intention.
The reason I cultivate a rigorous work ethic and am prolific is to become so fluent with my materials that I can just show up and be with paint. Bob Dylan said, “I want to play guitar without tricks.” Picasso spoke of possessing so much technique that it vanished. An artist should never let the audience know how much technique he or she possesses because, if an artist is truly communicating, the content is automatically built into the process; the artist uses precisely enough technique to tell the truth, no more, no less. Practice constantly so you can develop such fine muscle memory that you don’t think while you paint. Practice to lose technique instead of acquire it. When the effortless appears difficult, it’s entertainment. When the difficult appears effortless, it’s art.