59 Paintings

What does a painter think about when he or she sets out to make a work? Where do their ideas and inspirations come from? How do they begin to translate those thoughts into a painted image? Taking his own works as a starting-point, award-winning artist Paul Winstanley presents a series of texts that together reveal what it means to conceive, make and think about paintings. Among the varied subjects that he considers are how a painter seeks out and finds inspiration in life and the world; the relationship between observed and depicted realities; what constitutes ‘truth’ in a painting; how to approach conceptual and technical challenges; the role of the viewer in the transaction at the heart of painting; and the various belief systems that lie behind the business of creating and looking at paintings. The result, a rare monograph on the work of an artist written by the artist himself, is an exquisite personal account of the art and craft of making painted images today.