I first painted when I was eleven. I’ve no memory of a time when I wasn’t. Holding a brush is the most natural feeling I have. My first works were in oil. But I soon gravitated towards acrylic out of necessity and convenience. Later I developed a method for placing oil glazes on top of an acrylic under base. Acrylic is so very fast and thus suits my speed of creation. It is a blocky chunky medium that tumbles across a canvas like rolling bits of prismatic gravel. But it dries even faster than I paint. It is limiting. Oil, on the other hand, is so ephemeral, so shiny and so liquid. It takes forever to dry but until then you can move it around the canvas like buckets of water moved around a tile floor with a mop. It is like colourful plumes and puddles of gloriously shimmering pigment suspended above the surface of the canvas. But it can be mysterious and difficult to control. Glazes of oil paint hover above the surface of my canvas as sunny skies that either smile upon my base creation or lour upon it’s ruin. 

Recreating a Vermeer affords me insight into the mind of a genius. His compositions and techniques are wonderful to behold and walking in their lines and playing in their colours and shapes envelops me and whispers me glimpses of his artistic musings. I have adapted my means and methods to afford me the ability to properly pay homage to his creative gifts. My new techniques seem almost too easy at times, as if multiple decades of painting have suddenly coalesced into clear artistic vision and material manipulation. God it almost feels like I’m fucking cheating now.

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” is powerful. Her direct simple gaze looks into and through the viewer. She is timeless and beyond beautiful. My girl wears a scarf I imagined with the house crest of Ravenclaw and is adorned with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows dangling from her ear. I fondly think of her as my girlfriend at Hogwarts. And no, I hold no clear distinction between imagination and reality.

Oil on Canvas 14" x 18"