I have had a very interesting experience over the past two days. I decided that it would be useful to spend a couple of hours, during the time my exhibition is open, at the South Square centre. My original intention was possibly rather utopian, in that I expected that its primary value might lie in the opportunity to encounter people who had come to see the exhibition. As out turns out, the current restrictions on movement because of the Covid-19 virus have been even more effective than I anticipated, and there has been, as a consequence, little opportunity for conversation.
The time spent in the gallery has not been wasted. Far from it. It is unusual for me to have the opportunity to see my own work at leisure. On reflection, even when I hang a piece on the wall at home, in fact it receives relatively little close attention. Over the past two days I have had the opportunity to give careful critical scrutiny to a selection of my material.
On the whole I have found this encouraging. The really interesting part of that experience, however, has been the growing realisation that one of the pieces on display really is not up to scratch. Interestingly, it is a picture (I think I might have commented on this in an earlier posting) which has undergone two “face-lifts” over a period of a couple of years. Although I believed, after the last revision, that I had produced something respectable, it did not take me long today to realise that my original intentions, good as they were, have simply not been realised. Quite simply, it doesn’t work. Next time I go up to the gallery I will take a replacement.
There is an important lesson in this. Before committing myself to displaying a piece to the public I really do need to give it careful and prolonged attention, and not rely on the fact that I have had clear intentions in painting it. It is essential to make sure that these intentions have actually been realised in the finished product. It might seem a trifle narcissistic to say that in future I will spend more time looking at my own pictures, but there is a serious reason for doing so. I’ve learned this week-end that if you look, you see, and above all, you learn.