Illustration was interesting for me. Over the years leading up to university, my work had mainly been illustrative in one way or another. I captured the mental journey after losing a close friend. It was a visual diary of my life, each picture has its own symbolic meaning. I was unable to properly vocalise my feelings and development until I began drawing. Through an automatic drawing process, things came to light that I couldn’t explain any other way. I think what sets apart this long series of highly detailed images from basic illustration is the fact only people who know me very well can read them as they are intended – they are totally introspective.
With the knowledge that focusing on the dark in one’s life for too long is not healthy, I used colours that brought me joy but this somewhat confused the message for the general viewer. So to summarise, I was telling a convoluted and cryptic story of my life. The ‘pretty’ patterns were not conceived as such. They were a repetitive action to both relieve stress and anxiety and give a structure for contemplation. They were my mental relief, a productive and healthy alternative to self harm.
The School of Art teaches that painting and illustration are antithetical. Even though you could be using exactly the same tools but with very different starting points. When you illustrate something, you’re telling a story, which means you have something in mind, you develop it, and it comes to life. Painting often comes from a multiplicity of ideas and feelings which float in a nebulous form until they finally settle on the canvas. Therefore my paintings are not illustrations, the idea develops with the image, not before. My paintings are not fantasy, they are echoes of my reality and I must add, they are neither pure abstract or representational but a hybrid of the two.
jonathanretallick.art 