Between Fantasy & Reality

"All ways here are MY WAYS!!!" - the Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland

One of the difficulties I faced when developing my style (which I still encounter) is whether to try to depict the reality of what I'm trying to paint or to paint what I feel is 'right'. If I'm painting a flower, for example, then the scientist in me screams 'you must show the pistals & stamen in the centre' or 'it has three layers of petals, not two'. But the artist in me quietly thinks 'I know this is not an accurate depiction but it somehow looks better this way'.....So which path to take? Fantasy or reality?

Since my garden & love of plants had been one of my biggest inspirations for painting, I recalled something I once read in a bonsai book about the art of Chinese landscape in a pot, called p'en jing. This art form may contain living elements, man-made elements, or not. It exists in the minds of the creators and the art is in the spirit or intent of the piece. It is not a reproduction or photographic image. Each portrays a mystical and wonderful land where one might want to go. More impressionisic than still life it moves one's emotions.

I saw then that my struggle was like the difference between bonsai and p'en jing. Bonsai seeks to replicate nature faithfully, whereas p'en jing allowed the artist to replicate the 'spirit' of nature. Both ways are merely different perspectives of the world.

I reasoned that the human mind is not like a camera, remembering things in 'photographic' form. But we remember the 'spirit' of something..the colour, the smell, the emotions evoked, sometimes small details & sometimes only an impression of size & shape.

I wanted my paintings to reflect the way I remembered and felt something, because to me that is more real than 'reality' ... if that somehow makes sense. At the end of the day I think of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, who thundered the phrase 'All ways here are MY WAYS!!!" - in other words "It's my painting and I can do whatever I like."