Mindfully uncertain
Memorial Art Gallery at Night, Jim Mott, oil on board
I had a desultory conversation with Jim Mott recently, touching on why we paint, so I’m just going to leap into it in media res:
Jim: In a better world the agenda for painting since the Sixties might have been to integrate the abstract and the real.
Dave: Everybody tries to some degree. I think that’s really what painting is, even the most abstract is representational and vice versa.
J: But to have the dialog between them . . .
D: Right. What I love about your work is that you create that tension between the painterly quality and the image.
J: My worldview isn’t defined very well. I try to do tighter stuff but it doesn’t work. I would love it if I could do a Van Eyck. But I think it doesn’t mesh with what reality is.
D: How so? MORE