In January, I was intrigued by the thought of participating in the Art Battle in Toronto. Conceived by Chris Pemberton and his partner, this is a dynamic reality show…in real life. Think Iron Chef, with art. Art Battle is live competitive painting. This dynamic tournament style event features 16 artists creating the best work they can in 20 minutes. The patrons move around the easels and share in the fun by voting and bidding for their favourite paintings. As a participant, you are walking into the unknown, they provide the canvas and a limited paint palette and you produce a work of art in less than half a hour. The audience is right at your elbow, asking why you specifically put that paint there. Forced to work so quickly opened me up to capturing the essence without getting too caught up in the detail; this has created a looseness that I really like. I have become a bit of an Art Battle evangelist – encouraging my sister, Helen Utsal as well as member of SolidColour Art Collective to participate. Karen Taylor will be a battlin’ artist this Tuesday, March 27th at Great Hall.
I am participating in a corporate show coming up in November, 2012. The commitment is for 30 large-scale paintings – a push for me as I found that scale intimidating. In November, we heard that there was a glitch and 4 of us needed to produce 7 large paintings for delivery in about 3 weeks. Again, it pushed me to work thoughtfully…and large. The result is that I am now totally enamoured with larger canvases and am very excited to complete the balance for my show later this year.So…scary sometimes but I am going to continue to commit to myself that I will intentionally place myself in situations that push be beyond my comfort zone – continuing to refine and grow my work.
