Artist Statement - Michael Linscott

I start my work with photographs. Composition, initially, is considered quickly and feverously. Many photographs are taken. The photos are not laboriously staged, if at all staged, and much of the subject matter is indifferent to my purpose. Buildings, shadows of buildings, trees, signs and people are all of interest and movement as much as subject matter is a pertinent focus. The translation from the ‘decisive moment’ of photography to painting is of interest. My paintings begin with drawings straight on the canvas; there is no preliminary drawings, sketches and experimentation. I work on the wall not on stretches because I believe it enhances the texture of the canvas and is less precious. I then start the painting with large gestural splashes of primary colours. Figures and buildings come into view with similar handling, rarely giving a distinct clarity to figure over building, tree over shadow. The process of drawing over painting, painting over drawing, erasure and building back and forward is continued layer upon layer. I do not seek to hide any mark making in this process and am seeking to show the viewer the construction of this process. Upon reflection these progression of marks create the foundation for a further set of marks.

Yet I am always attempting to satisfactorily translate that initial ‘authentic’ experience. This process of construction is analogous to trying to scribe an experienced moment. Moments are layered over my other moments in continual transience. Although I have a photograph that has captured that moment, it is now only an artefact alluding to a glimpse of a larger narrative. I wish to create the sensation as D. Sylvester (1994) suggests of Alberto Giacometti’s paintings
“…broken and agitated, flickers and the figures, ridged in their posture, perpetually tremble on the edge of movement.”
I never consider my work as definitely complete, rather a moment in which I am happy to show the process of their construction.