Mark Tennant x French Fries #6

The times in which we live and the ever changing, whether it's the markets, the economy, the culture, the waves of visual effects that come in with every great photography and ever more accessible to the visual world and being able to freeze it and put it to our phones and to re-examine it. Not only are we photographing everybody, but we are watching everybody else photograph everybody. And we're just given so many images. And it's so immediate. I mean, if something happens this morning, I have access to that around the world and I can see it through. 

All painting is a form of caricature. I think it is, but it's a subtle caricature. In other words, to paint what you see, you have to pick out the elements of it that are the most outrageous, the most outstanding, the most curious, and then exaggerate them just a little bit. But I think painting in a way is the same as a version of that of caricature. I'm talking to people and they will say to me that a certain film or an image looks exactly like so-and-so, or such and such, and I'll think it looks absolutely nothing like who they're referring to. I mean, I can't see it at all. Not to discredit them in any way, but to be aware that everybody has their own way of looking at things. It's just their own way of seeing. It's like everybody's handwriting is a little bit different. You would try to conform someone to a certain type of calligraphy, they're always going to go back to their backhanded writing. As a painter, I think what I need to do is to appeal to that. And to try to understand the significance of that. I want somebody to stop in front of me or stop scrolling? Why do I want them to stop and stand there and then be drawn into it? How can I do it? Only by maybe reaching out to their particular way of perceiving things. I think it's all trial and error. I wish that there was a way. I think that you have to become old. Before. Through age you acquire more experiences and more wisdom. Well, how can I make somebody stop and look? That's sort of my whole goal. People like surprises. I think a surprise can happen in many ways. It's sort of like when you tell a joke and you watch the person and when they get the punchline and you watch them light up, when they all of a sudden get it, there's that. It's such a good feeling. I guess in a way I'm looking to do something that will surprise and maintain my interest in it. 

But I think really what it all comes down to, we talk about culturally or what is the sort of culturally accepted, I believe it's in one word simplicity. I think the world prefers simplicity. It's appealing, universally. The fewer eye traps, the fewer places where the eye can get confused. We want the eye to have a pleasant and smooth experience inside of the work. And I think as soon as there's an eye trap, all of a sudden it becomes tedious and uninteresting and they move on. Where is that threshold? Where is it? And that's what you're always searching for. Too much. Too little. You take away too much and then it collapses. You have too much and it collapses. Where is that balance? And you can only do it through trial and error. As Bacon said, all painting is an accident. He said, but it's not really an accident because the artist has to know which accident to preserve. And I really think it's that accident that you're looking for because you're scraping off. Scraping off. Don't scrape off the wrong accident. Every day is a new adventure. But if you repeat yourself, that's death. When it becomes ordinary is when somebody camps out on something that was successful. Above the water, the swan with the graceful head and the neck moves through the water. But under the water are these big feet going away, paddling away furiously to give you that impression of what's above the water. And I don't want anybody to see under the water but wonder, are those big feet? I call it the swan theory. The reason a person becomes a painter is because a person is looking for a really difficult thing. If you figure you're squeezing some colors out of a tube. And you have a stick with hair on the end of it and you want to try to make those colors respond in a way. We're driven to something. I think the creative process is about challenging ourselves into something difficult. To get joy at a difficult experience. 

The image that I see on my phone that I decide that I can do something with, that's the point of departure. I'm not going to just make that image over. I'm not going to represent it. I'm going to use it to launch an idea. I use a mirror in my painting because I have it on the far end of the studio. And as I paint hours upon hours, I begin to see it in a very incorrect way because I’m now looking at it wrong. I look at things now and I even say I have to evaluate my mind. Has this been Photoshopped? I fight these things every day, of course I’m an imperfect creature. And why do I keep going down these paths that lead me to monotony and overworking it. And why do I keep going there and then have to pull back? Why do what? What is it that makes us do this? The best thing to do is to squint. Almost everything becomes blurry. Squint, squint, squint. If you squint at a model or you're squinting at your drawing, if they don't agree with each other, then there's a problem. It's like a mirror. I also use a mirror. Not only do I have the mirror at the end of the studio, but I also have this little mirror. I have had it for many years. And I keep it in my hands and I'm constantly turning around and checking the work. So the mirror is sort of blurring too. And, it just kind of gives you the big thing. I can be objective. So I have my brushes and I have my mirror and I and then I have the big mirror at the end of the room. So I'm like, Oh, I'm using squinting mirrors. I'm trying to find the essentials.

 When I move into painting, it moves into painting because we're still through advertising, architecture, all these other things. We're learning how to see in a different way. And I think that painting has to line up with that. Painting is about making a mess and getting yourself out of it.