Intuitive Art: The Birth of an Intuitive Oil Painting, and How I Found my Style

When I was first getting really serious about painting, I had several very ‘serious’ ideas about what constituted real art. I thought I should be painting from life rather than using photographs for reference. And I felt like I should be painting representational art; paintings that depicted scenes, still life or other things from the real world. I didn’t know that intuitive art was a thing, or at least a thing that didn’t involve some sort of abstraction. I used to examine paintings in galleries, wondering how I could replicate them, whilst desperately wanting to find my own expression.

I also believed that to make the best paintings, I should use oils, not acrylics. This last one I stand by. The pigments, textures and flexibility of oil is just altogether better. A really good quality oil paint like Rublev is like the best musical instrument. It just does things that a cheap replica can’t. I’d never learned to use oils, and so I taught myself. I remember being VERY nervous about the whole thing.

I’m now a total convert to oil paint. But the rest of those ideas? Well, I changed my mind.

I’m not entirely sure when my ideas about painting changed. I remember watching a documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat. I was struck that all of his work came from inside his head, as if he were compelled to express something on the canvas. It really resonated with me that in this way he produced work that was absolutely unlike anyone else’s art.

Another thing that happened was that I realised my paintings were becoming part of my journey in a really personal way. I often have difficulty knowing how I feel, meaning it can be hard to process my emotions. I’d been through some rough stuff and lost a bit of myself on the way. My paintings began directly uncovering my feelings. I’d start painting something, with an idea of the finished piece, and as I worked thoughts would pop into my head, “What about doing this instead?”

I discovered that the more I listen to these thoughts and the less I try to ‘direct’ the work, the better the result, both in terms of the painting and the emotional processing that goes with it. If I’m feeling something that is difficult, the process of painting transmutes it. All that’s left in the end is a feeling of catharsis and a beautiful, colourful image.

For me, this is the essence of intuitive painting, and it’s why I identify as an intuitive artist. At the moment, I paint entirely from my intuition. I use photos or objects for reference, but when I begin a work, I no longer begin it with any idea where I might go; what I might paint.

I’m currently working on a fairly large canvas that began as a feeling. I had a sense of heaviness that it seemed was best expressed by using my own face, but I have no intention of this painting being a portrait. The face merely gives the emotional context. It’s also freeing. She’s looking into the distance, to somewhere we’ve not been yet. There isn’t much to the face, and I’ll leave it that way. The rest of the canvas I imagine to be richly covered in busy, bright detail. All of the work I produce in this way is, to some extent, a self portrait, but not one of externals.

The next thing was to paint a snail. I don’t know why, but the snail seemed right for the feelings. I also like to experiment with perception, so I wanted to produce a rich, two-dimensional floral panel with three-dimensional snails. I feel like this kind of trick of the eye reminds me to question the shifting nature of reality - and in truth my own reality shifts throughout the course of the painting.

Snail symbolism is quite interesting. The snail is sometimes seen as a symbol of female energy as well as the cycle of death and rebirth; ending and beginning; fertility and continuity. The snail’s shell connects it to the symbol of the spiral and self sufficiency. All of this is very relevant to me. So far there are two snails. I have a feeling there may be more…

Three days in, this painting only has its bare bones. For the rest, I have some half-formed mental images and ideas. All I know is that I have to follow my intuition.

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