Destruction and Rebirth

Have you ever watched Sky Arts’ production of Portrait Artist of the Year? It’s a competition among both amateur and professional artists, chosen from their self-portraits, broadcast weekly from various locations in the UK. Being a figure-painter, I love watching it and I’ve gotten my husband hooked too.

Speaking of “hooked,” I have been mesmerized by the winner of the 2014 competition, Christian Hook from London, who paints by creating his portrait maybe halfway, then completely obliterating it with terp, a rag, whatever. His portrait of Alan Cumming (his winning commission) is below. I get lost in it.

I’ve watched Sabra Alwad Issa in an online class create a beautiful portrait in charcoal, only to bat it into oblivion with a towel; same with Caren Ginsberg. She’ll take a ruler, scraper or whatever she has on hand and swipe through a nearly completed portrait smearing it to smithereens. Afterward, she’ll look right into the camera and say, “You have to get comfortable doing this.”

Creation, destruction, reassembling. Kind of resembles life, yes? I guess the point of all this is that art does imitate life in that nothing is created without some kind of destruction. There’s a saying in writing: Murder Your Darlings. Nothing is so precious that it can’t be changed, altered, obliterated and raised up again. So I’m off to my studio to see what I can destroy and recreate before the heat sets in. Go destroy something and make it wonderful!