What Keeps Returning

My painting practice has been moving around quite a lot lately. I’ve been working abstractly, returning to still life, experimenting with different ways of beginning and generally following whatever seems to have some energy in it. At times, I’ve felt as though I should be trying to work out exactly what direction I’m heading in. Am I painting abstractly now? Am I returning to still life? Should the work look more consistent?

But the more I make, the less interested I am in answering those questions too quickly.
Instead, I’ve started noticing what stays the same. No matter what I’m painting, there are certain things I keep returning to.

Colour is probably the most obvious. I seem to organise everything through colour. Large fields, quieter neutrals, complex greens and blues, warm earthy passages and occasionally one small hit of something much more saturated.

Then there is space. I like paintings that have somewhere to breathe. I don’t feel the need to fill every area. Often the quiet parts matter just as much as the active ones.

I also keep returning to simple shapes and strong structure. Even when a painting is representational, I’m increasingly aware of the larger abstract arrangement underneath it. A vase becomes a vertical block. A plant becomes a dark mass. A tabletop becomes a broad field of colour.

At the same time, I don’t want things to become too perfect. I like visible brushwork. Scraped edges. Slightly awkward forms. Little areas where the paint does something unexpected. There seems to be a tension I’m always looking for between order and looseness. Enough structure to hold the painting together. Enough imperfection to keep it alive. The interesting thing is that I haven’t deliberately chosen any of this as a “style”.
It has simply kept appearing. And maybe that is what style is. Not something you decide in advance, but the things you return to often enough that they eventually begin to feel like your own language.

That idea takes quite a lot of pressure away. I don’t need every painting to look the same.
I don’t need to choose between abstraction and representation. I don’t need to know exactly what I’ll be painting six months from now. The work can move. The subjects can change. The process can evolve. And perhaps the more useful thing is simply to keep noticing what follows me through all of it.

Colour,  space, simple shapes, visible marks, a little wonkiness, quiet beside activity, structure without too much control.

Those are the things that seem to keep returning. For now, I think that is enough. I don’t need to know exactly where the work is heading. I can simply keep noticing what follows me there.