“You have the potential to create infinitely more fluid work using the process and imagination of the poet, rather than that of the geographer. You have so many tools that you can use to image, on the floor of your studio and inside your head. You are never condemned to paint only what you see; you can paint anything you want to.”
Gareth Edwards & Kate Reeve-Edwards, “Painting Abstract Landscapes”, page 114
“It was in the photo” is one of the most disheartening reasons I hear in workshops for including an element in a painting. There’s no reason to include something if it doesn’t make sense for the painting. You’re interpreting, not transcribing, being painterly not a photocopier. Adverts for photo editing software and fancy phone cameras are full of “look how easy it is to delete things you don’t want in a photo” (along with “sequence has been shortened” in the smallprint). With a painting you simply leave it out from the start.
