Lionel Murcott

I am drawn again and again to human figures and faces. To their substance. Their flaws. Their vulnerabilities.

Acrylic paint responds in live marks to my touch, my shove, my scribble. Responds to my desperation, to my play.

To the energy that plays between the sitter and me. I restrict my palette – three primaries, usually, and white. Rich, if you mix, place them right.

Across the painting colours relate, call to each other, echo or challenge one another. Sometimes I work from life, looking, registering what comes up to my eye.

Other times I work from inside, from my darkness’s, memories, desires. Many things go into a painting. All – seeming opposites – must hang together: Being in the present – with an innocent eye, seeing as if for the first time. Being present to the Master-painters, who have shown what’s possible. Seeing the subject as a cluster of colour patches. Feeling the being – thought, strength, pain – in that subject. Seeing the light, which is colour. Mixing pigments, densities, to give a painter’s equivalent.Painting’s a crazy job. I’ve worked forty five years at it (other jobs you’d be retiring, yes) and now – watch it taking off – my zest, new paint that talks…