Synonyms for offshoot · projection · branching · side branch · branch · vine [botany] · cutting [botany] · root shoot [botany] · tentacle.
The offshoots that unexpectedly emerge from the very trunk or branching of an established approach to image-making often prove fruitful in the search for an expression that responds to an unspoken feeling seeking communication with the practitioner.
This silent “conversation” that takes place in the studio can be directed toward new viewers, where lines, like tentacles, try to grasp someone passing by. When the line or thread does not succeed, it grasps the emptiness instead and forms a spiral — a sign of the will to communicate.
Sometimes the thread used to hang the painting on the back breaks, and the work falls to the floor. I attach a new “thread” and hang it again, but allow the old broken thread to remain as part of the work, as a memory. The thread is painted with reverence to emphasise its significance. What has been lost or has failed is carried with us. Life…
This interpretation of my new works has emerged afterwards. When I am immersed in the work, there is no finished idea of a motif to follow; instead, I intuitively search to evoke something from the surfaces that I have painted in several layers over a long period of time. I want an “invitation” from a worked surface with a certain patina in order to release a line that will describe something on that surface that feels essential.
It can be compared to fishing. You prepare your equipment, choose a good spot on the lake (not too deep), and sit down to wait…
Staring at the float while time rushes past beneath a rumbling horizon. Clear to partly cloudy, +10°C. A light to moderate wind from the southwest. The sound of a tractor with a heavy load and a church bell can be heard in the distance. Time ticks on.
