GRAEME BALCHIN ARTIST PAINTER
THE IMMACULATE PERCEPTION
LEVEL ONE OPEN GALLERY
Art is
something that lives inside me, a thing that is vital to my well-being. It is a
huge part of my everyday life and to be without it is something I could not
comprehend.
A full time artist working mainly in oils and graphite, I choose the term
“Imaginative Realist" to describe my style. I am mostly self taught but
have learnt and studied in a great many places, so I am influenced by many but
determined to stay true to my own style.
I have found that I am a solitary person, not quit fitting in with mainstream
demographics and therefore I live alone and am happy to do so; I feel most
artists are this way. I often feel perhaps we are just a touch crazy.
I constantly look for meaning in my work; a story that can hide inside the
painting. I find it hard to paint just a portrait of someone.
My endeavour
in life is to create a masterpiece - which I hope I will never do as it would
signal the end of my desire to paint.
I am fascinated by the changes in young women that have come about due to their
freedom and equality, which I find an endless inspiration. Most of my figure
work has come from this; the dawning of their own sensuality and how they work
with it.
The paintings I have created for this exhibition, "Immaculate Perception"
are the culmination of a decade of working with two particular models, my
stepdaughter Amy and her friend Alexandra.
I started painting Amy at the age of twelve. She loved to pose and I painted
her for the local regional art prize each year. She introduced me to Alex, who
was equally keen to pose, and they became my main stay muses each year, winning
me People’s Choice in 2009.
After some time I became aware that I was capturing the lives of these two
young women as they grew into adults. Theirs was such a different experience to
mine when I was young and yet strangely the same. As they say, the more things
change the more they stay the same.
I started playing with their ‘modern-ness’ and my era, bringing the two
together, painting in a style that would bring out the feeling of them and not
just the image. After you have studied a subject so long in painting it, you
fall in love with every little detail. I like to paint so as to give the desire
to touch the painting, the feel of the skin, or the material - kind of 3D effect.
I want to
give the viewer the same feeling that I get when painting it; everything
becomes so immaculate and the shapes are so beautiful you can not stop looking
at them.
Having known Amy and Alex so long I feel I can paint their personalities as
well as their image. The two girls are quite different; Amy a little reserved,
Alex more extrovert. I feel this shows in the paintings, not just in their
images but also in the whole story of the work. Their sensuality shows in different
ways. It has been a great delight to watch them obtain and recognize the power
their looks have given them, and observe how they use this to get their way -
how they throw it at me when they pose and then giggle at the knowledge of
their suggestiveness.
It is an amazing journey for them, and to be able to paint it is even more
amazing. I hope the viewer can feel this also.
The only way to capture this emotion is with a high degree of realism but I am
always aware of not losing a painterly effect. It lets the viewer see that the
artwork has been created and crafted with emotion and thought; about how to
capture the moment with narrative and symbology; how to make their temporality
eternal.
Most of my paintings carry a metaphor or symbolism, a story of a part of the
lives of these young ladies. "Papiliophobia” - the fear of butterflies -
the desire to be free, but with it comes the fear of the responsibility; the
desire to leave the nest, crossed with their need for security.
They want to go in search of far away castles but are hearing the warnings of
danger.
To
use any other style or method, for me would not convey the same message. The
artworks have to be painstakingly and lovingly laboured over. Each painting has
the emotion of the subject thought about and slowly brought out so that it
becomes embedded into it; to paint them in the abstract would simply be a waste
of the precious moment. If the work is completed too quickly the subject matter
does not have the time to incubate and talk to me about where it wants to go;
something that can take months. Yes, my paintings talk to me and they tell me
the precise moment when they are finished too.
I hope the viewer enjoys these paintings as much as I have enjoyed creating
them, and that Alex and Amy will allow me to continue painting the ongoing
journey of their lives. Graeme Balchin 2012
Exhibition will exhibit throughout March on Level one Open Gallery
Artworks visual and list of works on application.
