A Celebration of Seeing — Or the Elimination of the Self

This can't possibly be one of my paintings — or so you might think. Where is the impasto, the heavy texture and mark-making, the lively handling of paint that characterises my usual way of working? This was, in fact, my style some two decades ago.

Whilst clearing a working space in my garage recently, I came across a large MDF board sandwiched between a couple of old doors and dismantled bunk beds. It was covered in dust and cobwebs, and I thought it might serve as a makeshift worktop. As I turned it round, I discovered this acrylic painting in pristine condition — a highly detailed portrait of our family dog, a golden retriever called Tia. I remembered making it; it took many hours to complete. I had no idea what had become of it and hadn't thought about it for years. And here it was.

'Tia Corr' Portrait Painting 100 x 70 cm MDF Board (Close-up)

Photography and the Question of Fidelity

I am accustomed to saying that I don't use photography in my work — but here, photography plays a defining role. How else could I have achieved this level of detail? There is something quite particular about copying a small 5 × 3 cm photograph and reproducing it at a significantly larger scale in paint. This MDF board measures 100 × 70 cm. But it is not an accurate transcription or a photo-realistic rendition. I didn't project or grid up the photograph — I copied it freehand, which meant an inevitable accumulation of small errors in the final piece. Tia probably had a more refined profile than the one depicted here. The leaves are a distorted approximation rather than precision replicas. The trees have a slight quality of unreality — one or two steps adrift from the world they describe.

'Tia Corr' Portrait Painting 100 x 70 cm MDF Panel (Close-up)

Why I No Longer Paint Realistically

When I was teaching, I would often say to students — many of whom were determined to draw and paint with photographic precision — why would you want to do that? The more adept and skilful you become at copying a photograph, striving to disguise the method of production, the more detached and invisible you become as an artist. The achievement of that goal ultimately eliminates the individual, the self. As your skill level rises, you become a mechanical device for copying — a slave to the photographic image.

One or two students could see the point I was making. But nearly all of them still revered the skills of the copyist. The desire to reproduce the visible world with precision is deeply ingrained — and understandable. But for me, the more interesting question has always been what painting can do that photography cannot: what it can reveal, distort, remember, or invent.

'Tia Corr' Portrait Painting 100 x 70 cm MDF Board (Close-up of Gutersloh Stadt Park)

Representation, Abstraction, and the Self

The shift away from realism in my own practice was gradual rather than sudden. It was less a rejection of the visible world than a growing interest in what lies beneath or beyond it — in the way that memory, feeling, and physical process can shape an image as powerfully as observation. The paintings I make now are not records of places but responses to them: layered, reworked, and arrived at through a process of accumulation and reduction that leaves its own trace on the surface.

Finding this early painting was a useful reminder of how far that journey has taken me — and of the questions about representation and identity that have driven it.

'Tia Corr' Portrait Painting 100 x 70 cm on MDF Board