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Luc Tuymans - The Open College of the Arts

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Luc Tuymans

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Luc Tuymans is one of the most well known artists working today and someone often cited by OCA painting students as being influential on their own developing practice.
I had the opportunity recently to hear him speak about his work and process recently and wanted to share something of that experience with you here.
Tuymans tends to remediate an already mediated image, particularly from film, rather than working from real life objects or places.  By painting from appropriated imagery – 2D to 3D, he foregrounds the act of painting and the viewers attention is drawn to the way imagery is perceived or experienced. It is a practice that is born from facing the question ‘why should I paint this’ head on. This is a question that can be enormously helpful for students to ask themselves, even if it opens up a can of worms.
In particular I want to draw student’s attention to the way Tuymans described his actual method of painting. He said that he may take quite a while, perhaps a year or more, to research or think through a subject. He might spend 6 months or more making painting studies and building up a head of steam as it were. When he is ready to make a painting, he will spend a few days psyching himself up in the studio but ultimately, each of his paintings are completed in one long and highly focussed day.
The painting might not work and need eventually to be thrown away, but it is never reworked. In the old days, he would paint out a painting so that he could reuse the canvas to save money, but now he can afford to just move on and try again another day.
When we look at Tuymans paintings and see the way that wet paint bleeds into itself, the surface is like double cream at times, we can see how this method relates back to his interest in film and the old fashioned film emulsion from which a photograph would emerge.  This method of making the painting in one fell swoop inherently informs that way the paint operates and what is left behind on the canvas.
This idea that we might need to be ‘in the zone’; in the right physical and mental state to commit to the act of painting is an intriguing one. I would suggest that it is certainly not a requisite for art making, but on the other hand, it is something that I personally have experienced, particularly with painting. I know that students have complained to me over the years about mistakenly popping into the studio to ‘tidy up’ a last bit of a painting, only to watch it turn to dust in front of them.  Working part time, and for many students with a multiplicity of roles and demands filling up the other half, perhaps it is worth remembering that art does have this meditative quality and that it is a connected physical and mental activity for which the integrity of that connection needs to be nurtured.
Tuymans is represented by David Swirner.
Image Credit: Luc Tuymans, Orange Red Brown (2015)


Posted by author: Emma Drye

3 thoughts on “Luc Tuymans

  • Hi Emma,
    Thanks for sharing this… very interesting. As an actor it strikes me that painting shares a lot of DNA in the creative process – not in the intellectual aspect – but in the physical and emotional act of creation/performance.
    Also very interesting in his use of found images and the ‘meaning’ of cinema/individaul films he appropriates to his paintings. At least in the interview.
    So he’s not only incorporating and manipulating given images (best not let the director /writer or cinematographer here their work classified as kitch) but also working with given meanings and bending it to his own will.

  • Fort a long time I have found the notion of doing a painting in one sitting an interesting one. I have rarely managed it, though. I think this is because i like a certain amount of layering and scraping through, which you can’t do until the layer below has dried. Paintings done in one go do have a freshly laid feeling- although sometimes can suffer from slickness- and I try to retain at least some areas of early marks when adding to the painting the next session. I try not to correct or tidy up: each new layer is meant in some way. Goya, in his later years, stopped correcting anything he did. i feel that is something I would like to aspire to.

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