Blog

11/12/2018

Not having had a background in art, over my 30+ years in my artistic journey, I have taught myself many genres of art. I didn’t realize that an artist should have a specific style of which to be known [as I have been told by other artists and galleries]. Since I am an eclectic person, my painting style is also eclectic. That’s who I am.

I have recently started an ambitious trompe l’oeil painting, for my standards, anyway, for a submission to an internationally juried exhibition. “Trompe l’oeil” is roughly translated from French for “fools the eye”. If you look at my website, my paintings are separated by category, and my trompe l’oeil paintings have their own section. Of the 40+ trompe l’oeil paintings that I have created, including the minis, I have only sold ONE, “Trompe l’Oeil Series: Lovely Birds”, and that was to the Woodson Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. After its inclusion to the 2015 Birds in Art exhibition, the museum chose to add it to their permanent collection. This newest painting will be one of my submissions for the 2019 Birds in Art exhibition. If I have a painting selected, it will be my eleventh time since my first in 2002.

“What is wrong with you?” you may ask. “Why do you keep painting images that nobody wants to buy? If you aren’t likely to make a sale, why are you painting trompe l’oeil paintings?” Those are very good questions. My question back to you is, “Why aren’t you painting what you love, with no guarantee of it selling?”

Many years ago, I had a very bad experience with a gallery, so I chose to not focus on gallery representation, but instead, paint what I love. In recent years, any galleries that I have approached about representing my trompe l’oeil paintings have had reactions that were not favorably inclined. Some of these galleries have never sold trompe l’oeil pieces, and others already have their trompe l’oeil artists, and don’t want any more.  In addition, when I have entered my trompe l’oeil paintings in juried art shows, I have heard that sometimes the judges thought that my paintings were collages, not painted artwork. What’s an artist to do? Keep paintings them! Here’s why.

I believe that artists should include in their repertoire, paintings that they create out of sheer joy, not expecting to sell them. My background is in science. I became a scientist out of love of science. Although I have always loved design, science won out for my major in college and graduate school. Trompe l’oeil paintings connect my love of science with my love of art. As a physiologist, I know how the eye and brain work. My job as an artist of trompe l’oeil painting is to fool the viewer’s brain into thinking that what I have painted is real. I asked a trompe l’oeil artist several years ago, what was the difference between a still-life and a trompe l’oeil painting. [Remember, my background was science, so I had never heard of trompe l’oeil]. He said, “If they think that your painting looks real, it is a still-life. If they think that what you have painted is real, it is a trompe l’oeil.”

This lead me through various iterations of trompe l’oeil paintings, with each one refining my technique to make my paintings look more believable, so that viewers felt the urge to touch my paintings to see if what they were looking at was real.

Why should I paint something that has no guarantee of selling? It is an exercise in stretching myself artistically. I don’t have a fear failure, since I am not expecting to sell what I paint, but only do the best that I can do. I have even painted a top of a table and drawer with the trompe l’oeil technique in my quest to ‘fool the eye’. My last trompe l’oeil painting, “Boca Beauties” was rejected from two prestigious exhibitions. What a blow it was to have that happen, especially since I thought it was my best trompe l’oeil painting, to date. [Full disclosure: I must add, that I had another painting accepted into one of the exhibitions, and that I have had several trompe l’oeil paintings juried into national and international shows but have not sold any of them]. My trompe l’oeil paintings take months to finish, as well. Why create something that takes so long to complete with knowing that nobody will buy it? Because I am not painting it for a sale, I am painting it for discipline, growth and testing myself.

Are you testing yourself or are you painting the same old thing? What can you do to stretch yourself to the limit, without the comfort of the knowledge a sale? I hope that if you are not doing so now, that you will start soon. Don’t always paint what you have had previous success in selling, paint what your heart desires, as well.

PS I will not be showing my newest trompe l'oeil painting until after I find out if it is accepted or not... just something that I do.