David Lynch

David Lynch first came to my attention as a film maker and director, it was after i did some research on him that i found that his painting is also something that i admire. His film Eraser Head has inspired past works of films that i have done, but it is how he relates both his film and his painting into his own unique style that transcends all medium.

 

In his words:


"You go by most paintings, and they don't stop you. You can walk by so much because it's merely beautiful. I like to feel that you could bite my paintings. Not to eat them, to hurt them. I like to feel like I'm painting with my teeth. I call my painting `bad' because bad painting has its own beauty. It's not a designer tapestry or a commercial hype. It makes you react to it." 

"Actually, they're really different [his paintings compared to his films]. It's a whole different experience, painting. And yet, a similar experience. It's like a creative process. A dialogue with something. It's action and reaction. It's an experiment. It's talking to you, it wants to be a certain way. And there are highs and lows in it. Many, many things happening in it, which are abstract, that you can't put into words. And I love painting because it's really an internal, personal thing. But then, so are films..." 

"People have sometimes said my paintings stink." 

"My mother refused to give me coloring books, but gave me blank paper and things to draw with. I was never limited by pre-conception, my imagination was never ruined - I was free."
"Art means different things for different people and we all have personal tastes – where they come from, we don't know. But these tastes can evolve, or devolve. What worries me is that in the present time tastes are devolving and very few people are engaged in what is on screen or what is in a painting and it's just a one-way hollow thrill." 


I enjoy the way Lynch has created his own dialogue in his images and in his films and how he creates them for himself, using them as a way to figure out his own emotions and thoughts. also i think his embrace of the dirty and the abnormal are inspiring and something i would like to develop my work into.   

reference 

Hartmann, M. The City To Absurdity; The Art Of David Lynch. accessed August 30 2011 http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/