Collection: Painting Ourselves X Jo Beale

Painting Ourselves (The Other Is Us)

The work is about painting, I am viewing a subject and then making an image. For me the most challenging and troublesome subjects are people. This work is a way for me to understand being with people, painting to work out concerns about identity and social identity.

I placed images of people on my canvas, within my most intimate space. Unanticipated complications took place during the painting process. A kind of exchange began to occur between the likeness I was creating and my objective, which was to start with, to simply paint a person. I was startled by the feeling that I wasn’t alone, I even felt that I was not singularly responsible for the results. I felt the subjects were also asking me what I was asking of them. Lots of questions and misunderstandings remain still.

Through my engagement with the exercise I am aware of a new openness and vulnerability in myself. The exciting thing is that the investigation will go on forever.

J

The title and the signature are made up of two groups of letters with the symbol X between them.

The X means- by or times or multiplied or affected or effected.

Painting Ourselves (The Other Is Us)

The work is about painting, I am viewing a subject and then making an image. For me the most challenging and troublesome subjects are people. This work is a way for me to understand being with people, painting to work out concerns about identity and social identity.

I placed images of people on my canvas, within my most intimate space. Unanticipated complications took place during the painting process. A kind of exchange began to occur between the likeness I was creating and my objective, which was to start with, to simply paint a person. I was startled by the feeling that I wasn’t alone, I even felt that I was not singularly responsible for the results. I felt the subjects were also asking me what I was asking of them. Lots of questions and misunderstandings remain still.

Through my engagement with the exercise I am aware of a new openness and vulnerability in myself. The exciting thing is that the investigation will go on forever.

J

The title and the signature are made up of two groups of letters with the symbol X between them.

The X means- by or times or multiplied or affected or effected.