Francis Bacon (1909 – 1992)

'The Brutality of Fact' - Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester. Thames and Hudson, London, 1987

I feel that I do work instinctively as did Francis Bacon and especially at this moment I am attempting to expand on the visceral elements of my work, and as Francis Bacon states.
"It's an attempt to bring the figurative thing up onto the nervous system more violently and more poignantly." (1987:12)

That statement resonates with me as I am attempting to rework some pieces and I could easily loss the work, and yet I feel compelled to do this, as my work is a constant exploration and to be expanded on if I can. Bacon discusses in more detail how hard it is for an artist who is absorbed in the figurative element of the work. he states that he is attempting to create a more precise image but with a twist. In the work I am creating there is mixed in with the identity of not only myself within the work but of the individual that I am concentrating on, and when I create a piece I always have a sense that I am capturing a moment in time, and I feel that the work has to be reflected of an emotion impact that the viewer gets a sense of, and Bacon comments on his work about trapping an image which is an interesting comment 

"It lives on its own, like the image one's trying to trap; it lives on its own and therefore transfers the essence of the image more poignantly. So that the artist may be able to open up or rather, should I say unlock the valves of feeling and therefore return the onlooker to life more violently." (1987:17).

Bacon was obsessed with the nervous system, he felt he painted from his and therefore wanted an aggressive reaction from the viewer; Bacon discusses his application of paint in his work. Especially when he talks about the 'accidents' and I gained confidence in my own work when reading this book as Bacon's frank commentary is a refreshing viewpoint.

"One possibly gets better at manipulating the marks that have been made by chance, which are the marks that one made quite outside reason. As one conditions oneself by time and by working to what happens, one becomes more alive to what the accident has proposed for one. And, in my case I feel that anything I've liked has been the result of an accident on which I have been able to work. Because it has given me a disorientated vision of a fact I was attempting to trap." (1987:53).

Using oil paints for me creates a sense of constant change, I can damage and destroy in one second and then by one application of another layer bring a whole new dimension to the piece, creating a new facet to the piece by one single stroke of oil paint, this could be done by a brush or a finger and possibly then use of a rag to create a particular mark.