Painting from the subconscious

"Only mental blocks prevent you from seeing your pure natures. You are your own light. Look within your own self." His Holiness, The Dali Lama of Tibet www.odysseyofthesoul.org

I discover the wisdom of His Holiness's words whenever I come to paint.

My best works come from a place in my subconscious that only emerges when I suspend conscious thought and contrived gestures and enter a state of meditative calm. It is only in this relaxed and focussed frame of mind that the Dali Lama's "mental blocks" dissolve and I am able to make decisions that facilitate rather than subvert the alchemic process.

I have learned to have faith in my unconscious capability to produce artwork. To an extent I believe that, once the pigmented solution I mix is poured, the the less I interfere with its progress over the canvas the more integrity and clarity I achieve.

Having been born into a religious family in the 50’s I am full of preconditioning about societal expectations, behaviours, role modelling, my place in the world. My belief is that if I can surrender to the subconscious and suspend conscious interference to some degree, I will produce work that contains expressions of self that would otherwise not be produced.