I believe there is an intrinsic value in depicting subject matters using a proven craft-based painting tradition. I mainly utilize Baroque chiaroscuro techniques, a traditional oil painting method in multiple translucent layers. To work in a representational artform is exiting. It differs from photography, in that it can enhance selected parts, light and focus, precisely where needed. The world can be reconstructed in the way it is experienced, rather than simply recorded in the way it appears. It can, in that sense, become more “real” than reality itself.

In a hunt for the sublime, as it were, art materials is actually given a bigger role to play. Variations in the properties of various pigments produce colors with an inner light. A glowing effect that shines through the thin glazes, creating a sense of depth and vividness. Consequently, the choice of medium then becomes pivotal, since the optical brilliance relies heavily on the properties of the oil. Factory refined linseed oil, used in contemporary tube paints and painting mediums, lack many of the qualities we see in works produced in pre-industrial times.

It is hard to find written accounts of methods used by Masters of old. They guarded their professional secrets carefully and rarely put anything on paper. However, though experimentation, diligent research, and selected source materials, I have managed to recreate historical artists’ materials, mostly through manual production methods. Beside the superior permanency — a quick visit to any art museum will settle that — this also facilitates working in an environmentally sound way, without the necessity for nocuous solvents. This, provided that one avoid the more toxic pigments painters of the past often depended on.