245. Chocolate and lime & basil ice cream in Alessi bowl (Schokoladeneis mit Limetten-Basilikum-Eis in einer Alessi-Schale)

245. Chocolate and lime & basil ice cream in Alessi bowl (Schokoladeneis mit Limetten-Basilikum-Eis in einer Alessi-Schale), 2025, Öl auf Leinwand, 15 × 20cm, (Darryn Ansted)

I think the fate of a painting is sometimes already sealed in the process of preparing gesso for the canvas. When I am looking at this painting I am also looking through it into a haptic register. The tooth of the canvas was providing resistance where I needed it, and it provided also a smooth Autobahn for my brush in other areas of paint that needed to be painted with more certainty. I always come back to immense gratitude to the farmers in Flanders who harvested the flax used for the linen, and to the sheer luck of the warmth and humidity on the day I prepared the gesso. Perhaps the ratio of linseed oil to calcium carbonate to zinc sulfide fell by chance in just such a way that it gave the painting a breath of life. In any case, I think it is all quite foretold before I even know what I will be painting. It is just such a palpable joy to work on a micro-terrain of gesso over linen that I built myself, and not on a mass-produced flat, plastic sheet. I hope you get some of that feeling when you see a picture of a painting here but I am fairly sure that it does not really translate.

The reception of the painting on the other hand seems to have it’s fate sealed in the digital image compression software of the platform. However, I have had some good coversations as a result of a couple of blog posts so I will continue with posting the blog. It is very much like tossing a coin into a wishing well. Painting is already a private experience. Writing about it is fairly nerve-wracking on top of that. Then throwing it immediately to the high seas of social media is usually yet more isolating, ironically. But as I mentioned, it appears a couple of messages in a bottle washed ashore around the place and even gave people a pleasant diversion here and there.