225. Fernsehe
225. Fernsehe, 2025, Öl auf Leinwand, 40 x 30cm, (Darryn Ansted)
Come and walk with me.
In the time I have worked on this painting, the world seems to have gone yet further down the garden path. I see myself in this little person now. Who can avoid being stuck watching in these uncertain times?
Time itself is certainly uncertainty itself. A young artist chases art dealers and opportunities. A decade later they see the hip galleries close down. Financiers develop new interests and the art dealer disappears to the sunny shores of Southeast Asia or Spain.
Unlike in Leipzig, where I lived for half a year, when I went to the academy in Belgium, I found that kitsch was all the rage. It was so interesting to catch a train from where kitsch was verboten to where, only hours away kitsch was hip. (If you are interested, you can see this transformation in the artwork of Kati Heck, who paints as though she is dwelling in this cleft, being a German whose painting is very Belgian.)
Studying painting in Antwerp taught me that it is possible to be both scientific and yet human about things. You don’t need to be either superlatively pained like Kathe Kollwitz or mad-free like Jonathan Meese. The interesting space is the middle of that modern sandwich, to be a regular Jo who maybe just observes things a little more than the average person.
There was an occasion when Jacques Derrida was publicly called out for being obscure, overly complicated and perhaps saying nothing or nothing worthwhile. Derrida’s response, which I think was a letter to the newspaper, was to effectively say ‘I am going to keep on doing my work because the people deserve to know these things’. 20 years ago, when I read about this, I thought ‘wow, Derrida must have been completely deluded, how laughable. Who cares about this impenetrable rambling’. However, now, 20 years later I am looking at the world, and seeing that it has become exactly what he predicted: its move from modeling ideas based on development and progress toward modeling them based on rhetoric, discourse, spin and infinite jest is complete. It’s like he was taking the pulse of a social animal that was about to transform into a werewolf. And we brushed him off as obscure. It’s like he was a regular Joe who just observed things a little more closely than the average Joe. It’s like he was just two hours away by train.
I have almost completed my listening to Knausgaard’s autobiography. I have been able to agree with him about many things but toward the end he mentions Peter Handke’s decision to write a eulogy for a tyrant and suggests that it is not an immoral act. I have to differ on this point. He attempts to position writing as autonomous, I guess. I am more critical of writing. Otherwise, I would probably have followed up my first book with a second book by now. Suggesting writing is autonomous is like suggesting the Ebola virus is autonomous. Yes, technically, I suppose. Yet... are you out of your mind? At least Knausgaard goes on to sternly demolish the other book of the title ‘my struggle’ and that is a kind of relief after reading of the Handke vindication. Perhaps his opinions are variegated and held in dynamic tension… or even contradiction. In any case, the end is gristly. These are topics that put humanity on trial and one really needs a vast reserve of strength to endure it.
Also during the completion of this painting I held a painting class. A couple of days later I had the experience of walking into the studio and actually smelling the paintings of others. I cannot describe this experience. However, I had it as a painting teacher for the twelve years I taught at university art schools. I think maybe it is the generous use of medium containing linseed oil. As a painting teacher this ebullient use of linseed oil alerts you that there are new paintings on easels to look at. Maybe the best part of that job was then always seeing new paintings on easels. It was so comforting to smell that in my own studio, as though it reminded me of my own first dive into painting. This simple olfactory element is the manual, the practical, the physical that for me separates painting from writing. I have a tendency to get a little existential when it comes to painting as you can see from this post. However, I moreover do it as a trade. A carpenter saws, a painter saw.
