Cornered: Painting as Performance & Painting on Location

This painting started in my studio and was finished in my studio but the majority of work was done on location surrounded by people in the midst of a show.

I had a show of all my work at the Pueblo Arts Alliance in October 2025. The title of the show was “The Art of Showing Up”. The show was all about the process of painting. I wanted to take painting away from the spotlight and the continuous reverence or magical act that many non artists think it is and bring it down to earth.

Painting, like any other skill, is built over time. By showing up day by day working on it. Talent is overrated. Yes talent plays a role but to get into the upper echelon of artists a whole heck of a lot of time and effort has to be put into the craft.

The show featured close to 200 pieces of my art. Many of them were unfinished. The center of the show was my easel with this painting on it and during the show I continued to work on this painting throughout the month. I wanted to show myself working, the easel at the center of this whirlwind of art scattered everywhere around it. The center of creation. As the painting moved away from the easel they became more organized. More formalized and ready for the gallery.

But throughout the show many of the paintings had post-it notes with my commentary. Much of them critical. “Values incorrect.” “Lost energy and phoned it it.” “Good but what is it about?”

All of these notes were actual criticism I have those pieces. The necessary feedback I need to improve. I’m intentionally pointing out the problems in the work to the viewer. I wanted them to constantly think about the work that went into the painting. The struggles, the successes, and the failures. All of which are learning opportunities for improving.

It’s not talent that makes this happen but time and effort. Talent just got me in the door. It was the impetus of interest that led me to want to work my butt off.

It was quite a challenge to paint when there were a lot of people around talking to me. My focus on what I was doing was very fractured. In addition I worked on the painting throughout the month so it was one day of working on it then a few days away then back to the painting with distractions.

This ended up in a painting that I wasn’t happy with and I ended up working further on in the studio, where I have full focus.

As you can see in the images above the last one has a whole section that was glazed over to push it back and bring the focus to the top left and the figure piled into the top left corner. There was just too much going on in the bottom of the painting. It was distracting away from the focal point.

I’m very happy with the finished painting. Those big choices and bold moves to do whatever it takes to keep the focal point really made a huge difference in the success of the painting.

Also I learned, once again, that focus without distraction always contributes a great deal to whether or not the painting is a success.