If you’ve stopped by it’s should be obvious that this website is due for an upgrade, but I thought I’d do a quick post to say yes I’m still alive and painting. Most of the work in the gallery is from another place in my life and things have taken a very different direction since. My website and gallery will be overhauled as soon as the new work is ready to be documented, but to give some idea of what’s been going on in my life I’m going to link to this thread I started on art and autism.

In the meantime feel free to look me up on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jpohl

Michael Winter is very likely counting his blessings. Last year he narrowly escaped death by incinerator, and together he and novelist Christine Pountney have most recently entered a new chapter (excuse the bad pun, but I can’t help myself!) in their lives: They are proud parents of a beautiful baby born barely two weeks ago. And it is no secret that Michael has even more to happy about: His most recent book has just made the Giller long list.

Self-Portrait by Michael Winter

I bought Winter’s first book of short stories Creaking in Their Skins back in the days I would run into him in doorways around St. Johns, Newfoundland, and was taken by the imagery and sensuality of his language. Since then he has come far and won numerous awards, including most recently a publishing deal with Penguin. One critic has described his work as linguistic pointillism. Perhaps when I have caught up on my reading I’ll understand what that means. I’m also looking forward to reading some of Christine’s work. Her book Last Chance Texaco was long-listed for the prestigious Orange Prize in 2000.

Pancake Island by Michael Winter

That Michael Winters is now on the Giller Prize list with one of my all time favourite writers Michael Ondaatje was far less of a surprise to me than the recent discovery that this writer can paint, and paint well. A painting of his family seated around a table reminded me very much of a Vuillard, and even a notebook sketch shows wonderful promise. Michael says he might consider some kind of “writers that paint” exhibition, but he has too much respect for painting to claim to be a visual artist. I disagree.

This man is already a painter whether he likes it not, and I think it would be exciting to see touches of his sketches or paintings in the pages, or even on the cover of one of his books. I wish the new family every happiness, and am getting ready to dive into ten years of his writing, but before I follow the exploits of Winter’s alter ego, Gabriel English, l will start with his 2004 novel about the life of artist Rockwell Kent, The Big Why.

I love to look at other people’s gardens, but I don’t think I realized how much peace and joy working in my own could give me, despite all the thorns from the wild roses. And with a little luck, and a few prayers perhaps, dreams can come true. I planted sunflowers and lavender near the Arctic Circle yesterday.

Keeping in mind the BP Portrait Award has been traditionally open to “young” artists, I found the choice for short listed work for this year to be very interesting. The list has become increasingly photo-realistic in recent years. It is very technically impressive work, but it got me to asking what is it that I view as “great” portrait painting.

Self-Portrait by Alice Neel, 1980, Oil on canvas

Ask me who some of my heroes are, and Alice Neel and Frida Kahlo would be among the first on a very long list of artists. The perfection is in the imperfection. It is something more than caricature or the artist’s thumb print that draws me in. I love the clumsy mark, the passion and energy, the brave rawness and the awkward honesty.

So when is an image better left as a photograph? This is not to discredit the use of “photo-like” realism in painting, but to ask more of it.

In Vermeer’s most celebrated portrait the handling of the paint, the quality of light, and conveyance of humanity lift it beyond verisimilitude.

There are those who deride what has been termed magic realism, but even in Mary Pratt’s work I find an abstraction and a treatment and celebration of the light, which goes beyond a simple-minded copy of a photograph.

For me, it was when Chuck Close lost the use of his body and hand that his photographic-inspired portraits became stronger, and far more poignant.

Portrait Wunderlich by Gerard Richter, 1967, Oil on canvas

With Gerhard Richter’s “photo-painting”, a heightened sensitivity and investigation into the nature of the photographic process makes the work compelling. There is a psychic energy, as if the artist is trying to catch a ghost. In his work, painting lends permanence to images that would otherwise be discarded or overlooked. There is always a sense of a questioning and critical mind at work. The beauty of a found object and brush mark meet in his paintings (or perhaps bad photographs sometime make for better paintings (-: ).

We cannot all do work of this calibre, but perhaps this questioning reflects my own shift as I look towards tempera as a way to start fresh and learn a new language that will be just awkward enough, like painting with my left hand. Perhaps I’m just tired of cringing and trying to be gracious every time someone says “Wow, your painting looks just like a photograph!”