Sleeping Figures

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

This is just finished. It is 40" x 30", oil on canvas. It underwent many changes, starting out as a running athlete.

I am now very excited to start another painting on my new clear-primed linen after the recommendation by Chris Saper, and the advice from Sharon Knettell.

[Chris Saper]

This is a powerful painting - and, at least to me, on many levels. I find it provocative and interesting and even worrisome. I do not mean that worrisome is a bad thing - it creates a memory, an inquiry on the part of the viewer that contains an elusive narrative quality that I personally value in art.

While I think that this is not an image that would fall into any type of traditional commissioned art, I really enjoy viewing it It invloves me viscerally in the same way as Sophie Jodoin's work

[Carlos Ygoa]

Thomasin,

I admire the "unfinished-ness" of this piece (and I use this word as opposed to the slick, polished finishes) and of your work in general because you have a way of handling that quality and exploiting it so that the piece actually does look finished. The suggested details, the fusing of some of the background with forms at certain points of their outline making it disappear at the same time gaining relief from the background; and the way you model form and endow it with a very tangible quality--very enviable!

Nice to see your work here again.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you for your insightful comments, Chris. I appreciate you taking the time to comment. And thanks also for giving us the the link to Sophie Jodoin - I did not know about her. Her work is very tactile and her drawing is very good, which makes her pieces quite mesmerizing.

Carlos, thank-you also for your intelligent comments. I find that finishing a painting in a traditional sense loses something of what makes me want to work a painting through to a conclusion. It is the marks that are the beginnings of something - those that are trying to find a form or expressing a gut feeling of a form that are most meaningful.

It's nice to be back. I only hope that my work appears traditional enough so that I can continue to be allowed to post here!

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Thomasin,it is always very inspiring to see your work.
Especially here I find repetition with variation a wonderful occasion for you to go deeper into the examination of the figure.
Depth and mystery for me are the most strong components of your work, the ones that make it so appealing to me.

I also believe that there is no reason whatsoever not to post your works here, even as they get more and more personal and further away from "tradition".
We should all strive to be painters before being portrait painters. Seeing personal work , where an artist explores the possibilities of representation of the head and figure, should help us wondering about why we paint at all.

Ilaria

[Michele Rushworth]

What wonderful skintones!

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thomasin,

It's as if the family is swimming together in an unconscious state. I keep wondering what they are dreaming, whether their dreams overlap. On a literal level, it's disturbing, but at the same time it doesn't ask to be taken literally, there are so many possibilities of meaning. Looking at it evokes a jumble of emotions and questions.

The skin is beautifully painted, and so is the sheet fabric. I love how the figures melt into the sheets in some places, and stand out so clearly from them in other areas. I know Carlos already mentioned this very skillful use of edges but I had to mention it because it is one of the first things I noticed as far as technique. It seems that your backgrounds have undergone a gradual transformation towards being fully integrated with your figures. I think the figure/ground relationship is very well expressed in this painting, and I admire it very much.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank you very much for your enthusiasm Ilaria, Michele and Alex. It is so much appreciated!

Ilaria, your comments about depth and mystery as being a strong part of my work are really valuable remarks, as I don't often think about them being major parts of my painting. But of course they are, and I think my need for those aspects keeps my paintings from becoming too finished and, thus, too, obvious. I am always hovering between ideas, never completely committing to one or another, as I think I am searching for meaning to things beyond my limited understanding. I already know what I know (I think) and am searching for something more that that. Or perhaps it is about the searching itself. Again, this is an example of not committing to one idea because of the question of which idea is more truthful than another. My work, I think, is about the possibility of something, of something becoming and not yet become.

I saw, just recently, Tim Burton's production of "Sweeney Todd". It had been acclaimed as a work of outstanding genius and even though it was very, very good, it was still just another film (or perhaps I should watch it again). The idea of its outstanding genius before actually seeing the film was so much more promising - the promise of a breakthrough to a creative nirvana. In the end Tim Burton was still Tim Burton, Johnny Depp was still Johnny Depp. I am not saying it isn't a great film, beautifully acted - it very definitely is, but the human mind imagining the sweeping feelings that might come with encountering the sublime unknown - the unformed impressions, impressions of impressions - that something spectacular to work towards, rather than the final thing itself. That's something I want to keep in my work. The idea of something becoming.

And, on film, with film being the most prominent form of visual communication these days, how can it not influence other forms of visual art. I had thought that Sophie Jodoin's work was to filmic, but why not? It's an honest admittance of a genuine influence.

Michele, thank-you for commenting on the skin tones. I am glad you find them successful. I love painting skin and was working, again, with tones in the different types and colours of skin of different parts of the body, and the body at different angles to the light.

Alex, thank-you very much for your lovely comments. The edges were painted by feeing the lights against the darks i.e understanding the quality of the light areas in their relation to the dark areas next to them. It is not that near in result to what I wanted to achieve - I was hoping for a clarity such as you find in Balthus' work - but the thing I did discover was that my attitude towards to paintings made a real difference to whether the edges worked or not. If I painted rationally and at an emotional distance from the painting, the the darks and the lights would just lie next to each other without doing anything, but if I painted my excitement of the light against the dark there was instantly a sense of solidity and space. It's very tiring - keeping your mind in that excited state - like running a marathon. It's nice to have the background to paint as a break.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

About cinematic influences:

From the website of artist Claudia Carr

"The opening sequence of Sergio Leones film

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thanks for showing us Claudia Carr's work, Ilaria. It is always nice to see new work. I have heard of her, but not looked at her work for a long time. Great brushwork, and a great sense of form and light.