Alan J Slater - Artist's Statement

Artist's Statement

Much of my work concerns one model...my "muse" ... although, occasionally, I do work with other models and, even more occasionally, make paintings of landscapes and still lifes.

The "muse" paintings explore the nature of our close but platonic relationship. In addition, my muse plays a very important part in the creative process of the making of each painting, for example, she almost always chooses the poses and, working together, we select which ones I'm going to use as the basis for the paintings. There are often several variations on a single theme - for example - a single body position or single viewpoint but with the position of arms and head changed. The resulting sequence of paintings is very like a short series of film stills.

In many of the "non-muse" paintings the surface of the work and the way the subject and background relate to each other are given equal importance. This results in a challenge, for me, to preserve the integrity of the subject whilst presenting a sense of balance across the painting as a whole which may mean altering accepted notions of 'beauty'. Additionally, in the most recent paintings, the "setting" contains paintings from earlier "muse" and other series. This serves to introduce an element of reference to, comparison with and "remembrance" of those earlier paintings.

Alan J. Slater

"Occasionally, there comes into existence a bond between artist and model that projects their relationship beyond the boundaries of the purely physical. When a model becomes a muse, life and art become impossible to disentangle. She is the single figure acting as the initiating force in the creative process. And sometimes she will continue to be involved in that process long after the canvas is completed. Whatever her bodily relationship to the artist - whether it is sexual, platonic or familial - she will exert a unique influence over his work. If the relationship between artist and model is tenuous at the best of times, when the model becomes a muse, the results can be cataclysmic."

Carly Wilkie Steven, © 2006

[ extract from a magazine article "Painting from Life" and reproduced by kind permission of Ms C.W. Steven. For the full text, see: www.londonart.co.uk ]