In Transit “In transit, on the move, looking for a location.”
October/November 2014. I had been commissioned for a painting that was too large for the studio at home. But that’s when the space at Haus zur Rose was ideal. The temporary gallery was set up as a studio, walls and floor covered, paint and brushes dragged in. The concept and the draft for the painting were ready. I had the idea of opening up to an audience the process of creating a painting from stretching the canvas to the finished picture, the activities of an artist that normally happen behind closed doors. I put myself in front of the public for about a month, visitors to the gallery could follow how the painting developed, they were allowed to have a look over the artist’s shoulder. Passers-by could look in through the corner windows of the shop at any time of day. When the days got dark early, the view into the illuminated space was even more impressive, and especially when the Soest “Kirmes” was raging outside in the old town, I continued to paint. How many people saw the painting is impossible to estimate. The picture was painted with Lascaux acrylic paint on a heavy natural cotton canvas. Finally, the picture was lightly varnished. Before delivery I had invited to a vernissage. The whole project was documented in a film by Hans-Werner Gierhake and shown as the first version at the vernissage. The picture was commissioned by the Association of Catholic Churches for their new premises in the Don Bosco House in Soest. Don Bosco’s wandering years and precisely the existential search for positions in life were explored in the painting.
©Richard A. Cox 2014. acrylic on canvas, 160 x 350 cm
A picture emerges. Below are some paintings documenting different stages of the process. You can see two paintings, a colour study, as a finger exercise so to speak, with the continuation to the actual painting.
