A painting with no title…..

I have decided to leave this painting without any title at all……even labelling it untitled is in effect a title. There is something odd about giving titles to paintings. For the most part I do it, but with more care than perhaps most will realise after all a title like so many things is, obvious…a given… taken for granted, a simple thing on the surface. Go a little deeper and it becomes phenomenologically interesting.

In some cases it is a simple description in others it can enhance, obfuscate or even harm the artists intent in all cases a title for me is a question. For instance when I title something in Welsh or Irish it grounds the painting to a very specific experience and in my ancestry, but also it is a question…why would I do this….Well I am not going to give everything away.

Titles set boundaries, or parameters which are sometimes restrictive, limiting the scope…the intent of an artwork. It is for me to much like a fullstop an ending but like nature and in respect of nature the paintings I do are ever so slightly unfinished. So there is a paradox in this, a dichotemy in that at some point I made the decision to put down my brushes and stop painting, but nature never stops, change is the very core of existence and yet for me to bring particular attention to this is meaniful it sets up a dynamic….a creative mindful intereaction between the artwork, myself in that I give the artwork direction, form and intent and the viewer that can now no loger view the painting without knowing my intent, my thoughts and something about my philosophical background and in this way the painting continues to evolve, if not physically through a continuing process of painting then intellectually through contemplation. The more I look at this painting the more I realise it’s title is the whole thing. It is it’s own title. It is what it is and does not need words. Words in this case would only restrict and worse ill define it.

If this makes you feel unsure, unsettled bemused, uncomfortable…..or possibly curious then I would say that is a very good place to be…..