2010 Creatures

The word ‘creatures’ was derived from the word ‘create’. Not many of us would make the association, and yet the word evolved from the notion that all living things were created by a supernatural force – or deity. I suppose as a faithful believer of chaos as that relatively unpredictable primary force, I pondered the appearance of familiar and unfamiliar ‘creatures’ – the known and unknown beings - which evolve as shapes and forms when one is engaged in the most early raw stages of a painting. The paint oozes and drips, pools and floods, ravishes and erodes; and if allowed to do so in the actions and mind of the artist, new or derived creatures step forward. It’s so crazy, so unorganised and yet so close to what really happens in nature. This is what constantly tempts a painter to follow chaos as if it were serious and to paint a black glossy eye into what was just a puddle, in order to make claim to a new species because he is really a discover, an explorer of territory we all thought we already discovered. Such are the joys of painting.

Helen Norton 6 July 2010

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