Part III - Creation, of the interview series with Duncan Stockwell atâŞ#âTidebreakersâŹ
9. How much do you think you allow the undertaking of your work to be informed by more practical or physical boundaries? Do you start with an overall vision that you try to achieve no matter what, or do you think that the process of painting and the choices and boundaries presented to you informs the final piece more than the original idea?
As for practical boundaries, I suppose choosing to work mainly with acrylic paint on stretched canvas could be one. I like the non-toxic nature of acrylic paint and the fact that canvases are relatively easier to handle and to frame.
A great perk of starting from blank canvases is that the format lends itself to minimal creative constraint and that I get to start from point zero each time. I usually have a vague idea of how I want the final work to look like by the time I start painting. This idea can be just a few colors I want to use for the abstract works, or it can be more defined as in the case of the floral paintings. While painting, I simply paint and kind of âshut-offâ the analytical part of my brain, and Iâm usually surprised by the final work when it finishes. Fortunately, the surprises have been good more often than not.
10. You mention that you were scolded for using small brushes when you were younger. Are there any other painting habits you have developed you would like to outgrow â are there any that you are happy to have stuck around? Have you developed any new painting habits recently?
I did have several painting habits that I, fortunately, outgrew. Looking back, I am grateful that I have those habits to outgrow since it is through overcoming them that I have developed my style. I am certain that there are ways of painting I have now that I will eventually outgrow in a few years.
Now I try not to develop habits anymore because habits suggest behavioral patterns that I compulsively follow regardless of the context. Instead, I am constantly developing new techniques that I turn on and off depending on the project. A technique I have developed recently is to use a heavy body medium to build a texture layer in one color. After the first layer completely dries, I use a very dry brush to speed paint another layer of a different color on top. This technique creates a nice richness of the texture.
11. Transition seems to be a big theme in your paintings and in your world-view, which is suited to your common topics of nature and the environment. Have you ever experimented with trying to portray more urban, man-made environments and the (perhaps incorrect) assumptions of permanence they assume?
Well, I enjoy urban and man-made environments and find many masterpieces in architecture refreshingly inspiring, but for whatever reasons, directly depicting them has never given me quite the same creative kick as working on natural subjects. That said, perhaps it will come to me one day as my work and experience grow.
12. Your paintings mostly seem to be rooted in the physical depiction of things, but in the pieces you composed with the banyan tree, you've designed quite abstract symbols. Is this something you've explored in other pieces, and do you find that it's a different creative process to design these more abstract elements?
I enjoyed creating the abstract symbols as in the banyan tree, and I have a notebook full of them. The design phase of these symbols can be seen as more precise and even more mechanical, but working on them feels very similar to working on the representational pieces. I plan to start working on a few large-scale pieces featuring those symbols and trees in the second half of this year, and they will form the Enchanted Forest Series.
