Defined by Limitations

Luc Tuymans in his studio (via Elle)

An older idea came back yesterday: how much does an artist's limitations define their strengths and direction in their work?

As an immediate example Luc Tuymans came to mind. His paintings aren't limited in their intended capacity. But his work has a distinct style, already influencing a host of young artists, even before Tuyman's own career is finished.

Tuymans admits that his paintings are executed in one day. He claims, "I only have an attention span that's that long". Still they are "captivatingly blurry, washed-out and bleached" conceptual representations. His paintings are derived from banal photographs and television.

I remember a figure from my memory - perhaps in undergrad, maybe a grad student in adjacent studios - explaining to me one afternoon that it was necessary to continually refine your process, throwing out old ideas and experimenting with new ones, until you were able to produce what you wanted effortlessly or at least fluidly. And recently, another friend hearing that I had taken a banal, incremental change in the way I moved paint around remarked: "that's creativity - each time you find a solution to make what you do better."

Surface: Seeing it in Person

Reflection, Self Portrait 1985 Lucien Freud (via WebMuseum)

There is a Lucien Freud exhibit up at the Centre Pompidou in France. It's unlikely that I'll get to that. There isn't a good chance I will see Freud's work in person for a long while either.

Lucien Freud uses so much paint - his images are so tactile -  that I wonder how seeing them in person would change my experience of them. My wife said seeing the paintings in London is the reason for her undergrad thesis. Oppositely, another friend recently said he saw some in person and it changed his view of the work for the worse.