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A couple of weeks ago, I read Lauren Elkin’s recently published book, Art Monsters. The week before I read it, I’d got back into painting after a looong break, spending a couple of very fun days making experimental abstract works on small sheets of paper and in my sketchbooks. In full-on flow state, I produced maybe a couple of dozen of these loose, colourful, playful pieces.

In possession of a bunch of preliminary sketches to scale up and reproduce and reconfigure on ‘proper’ paper (all that groundwork and material, fuck yeah, I had so much!) I… totally went to shit. I messed up my colour mixes, smudged things, couldn’t get my brush to do what I wanted. Instead of feeling free, confident and excited, now I felt all bunched up, clunky, concerned with getting everything “right”. In both instances — when I was relaxed and when I was most certainly not — the results totally reflected my mental state.

I took a few days away from my desk and I thought about Art Monsters. Its full title is Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art. I love that word: unruly!

works by sutapa biswas and maria lassnig in art monsters

I think it perfectly sums up the deep effect the book had on the way I wanted to work. It made me want to get messy!! I wanted to squeeze big unctuous blobs of paint out on my palette and smear them onto paper, canvas or board. I wanted to watch the colours puddle together or sharply, boldly juxtapose. I didn’t want to think about getting anything just right, I didn’t even want to think about what I was painting as a finished piece at all. I just wanted to get lost in the paint itself; take sensory pleasure in its textures (buttery, satiny, milky, glossy, velvety) and the way it behaved. I managed to let go of my need to completely control it and watched what it did with curiosity, not anxiety.

About halfway through Art Monsters, Elkin excerpts a small section of a letter Sol LeWitt sent to Eva Hesse, written when she was struggling to paint before she turned to three-dimensional work. I hadn’t realised how famous this letter was, but I’ve now read it in its entirety (you can do so here), as well as watched it read aloud by Andrew Scott (with massive thanks to my friend, Lou, for introducing me to the video).

Try and tickle something inside you, your “weird humor.” You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you — draw & paint your fear & anxiety. And stop worrying about big, deep things such as “to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistent approach to even some impossible end or even an imagined end.” You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO

I realised there was another thing that was getting in my head and intruding as I tried to work. I wasn’t “making my own”. I was trying to paint like other people, artists I admired. Not that I was directly copying or stealing, but I had too much of their work on my mind, so that as I painted, I was trying to sound like them, rather than speaking in my own voice. Everything was too deliberate, I was thinking too much. I needed to “practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty.”

Try to do some BAD work — the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell — you are not responsible for the world — you are only responsible for your work — so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be.

I wanted it to be stripes. I just wanted the intense pleasure and satisfaction of painting lines of smooth, glossy ivory next to deep, shiny black. Not perfect lines that ran exactly next to each other but never quite touched… Lines that butted boldly up against each other, mingling here and there, overlapping and forming little waves and peaks.

i would like to draw your attention to the glossy waves down the left side of the black stripes. this sort of thing makes me make strange noises out loud

So, that’s what I did. Exactly what I wanted. Art Monsters is full of incredible artists who made bold, radical artworks. I am a completely different type of artist making very different work. And yet, they have influenced me with their attitudes and spirits in ways that go much deeper than style or medium. They have taught me to actually listen to myself. I didn’t know I was so bad at it* This last week or so, I’ve painted exactly what I truly, in my heart, wanted to. When I really wasn't sure what that was, I listened to that and stopped. (Less than 24 hours later, the answer came to me whilst I was doing something else entirely). All the work that feeds and inspires me, both my own and other artists’, is there in my head, all safe and sound. I don’t need to force it.

As I read through Elkin’s book, I underlined words that resonated with me. I shared the list in full here, but what jumps out at me about them is how many share a highly physical quality, whether it’s sharp (“teeth”) or squidgy (“dumplings”, “blob”, “flesh”). Art Monsters is a cerebral book but it concerns the visceral, and it’s that feeling (raw emotions from the gut, not the intellect) that has unlocked the sense of freedom in my work that I badly needed.

*A lie. Of course I know I am.