Painting Ourselves BXJ
----------------------------
Jo Beale
Oil on Canvas
60" X 36"
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.
----------------------------