There is no tension in the simple application of oil paint to canvas, it is freedom, it is gliding, it is accepting.
MOLLY MANSFIELD is the name behind our first collaboration. She is an oil painter based in Taylor, Texas. Mother to four vibrant little boys, she works out of her backyard school bus turned studio in the in between times of motherhood and homeschooling.
She has always felt the need to create and as a child made as many crafts and things as she could get my wee hands on. She took her first painting class when she was 16 as dual credit at the local Community College. It just so happened to be the only classroom with proper ventilation for oil painting. She was immediately hooked and knew that she had found my medium. She has always loved the sensory experience of oil painting, the smell of pigments and oils, the texture radiance of the painted canvas. The buttery consistency of the paint gliding across canvas. Tension is encountered in much of life. Like Todd Snider says “ I got tension out in traffic, I got tension in my office, I got tension, and it's everywhere that I go”. But there is no tension in the simple application of oil paint to canvas, it is freedom, it is gliding, it is accepting.
How would you describe your art to someone who has never seen one of your pieces?
I make landscape and still life oil paintings with a big emphasis on texture. Inspired by the impressionists, my paintings look a bit wild up close with each brushstroke standing on its own. Taking a step back however, the eye fills in the gaps and the paintings become something familiar and comforting. I love flowers and you will find elements of floral and pattern throughout much of my work.
In terms of your artistic process, do you find physically creating your pieces a particularly spiritual or metaphysical process?
Definitely. The first thing that God tells us about himself in the Bible is not that He is love or savior or sovereign, but that he is creator! Beauty matters to God, even extravagant beauty and art is extravagant. Art isn’t practical and it doesn’t make sense through a darwinian world view, but throughout history it has always had it’s place. When I enter into the process of art making, something magical happens and it is hard to explain or even grasp. But I think that God created us to create in order to be like him. And that creation is an anticipation of this journey into a new creation-when "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Rev 21:4
You have spoken in the past about the deep effect human relationship has on your work. How does this materialize within your art?
Yes, my recent still life work explores this theme. I started setting up still lifes for myself in my backyard school bus turned studio after COVID. While my day to day didn’t actually change that much (I was already working from home in my backyard studio), there was a new sense of loneliness and isolation that I think a lot of people experienced. My husband and I also have been foster parents for the past few years and to step into someone else’s brokenness and then deal with those consequences every day that comes out in caring for children with autism, PTSD, failure to thrive, etc. can be quite stressful and quite heavy. So I found myself in this isolation and messiness focusing in my art, on the table. The table can be a place to serve or a place to contribute at mealtimes, but most importantly to me, it’s a place to come together. It represents sharing and listening, it is also a primary fixture in our homeschool life and a centerpiece of activity in our house full of boys.
This work is about belonging and becoming. And that is what good community does, it says "we love you for everything you are, even in the messiness, you belong. And you are also on the path of growth, we will support and encourage you on your way to becoming all that you are meant to be. We need each other.” And so the table, the centerpiece of a home, family, community, has become the centerpiece of my recent work.
I chose to incorporate the vintage fabrics, patterns, and china to hopefully create a sense of comfort and familiarity reminiscent of grandmas house. The flowers that are found in many of my paintings are a symbol of growth, life and death. I begin a painting with a series of rapid brushstrokes, roughly blocking in my forms. This is the underpainting. Then I start building up certain parts of the canvas with thick textural applications of paint. But I like to leave parts of that initial underpainting and even parts of the raw white canvas peeking through.The unfinished quality of my paintings speaks to the journey that we are each on, as we are all a work in progress.
Could you share with us any specific works of art, literature, music, etc that have been inspiring to you recently?
I’m very inspired by literature. The tattooist of Auschwitz was a great read I just finished. A true story of a man who survived the work camps in Nazi Germany during world war 2. It aroused a lot of questions and gave me something to think about. It certainly gave me perspective and appreciation for life. I highly recommend.
The rich use of colour in your art often seems to overflow the canvas and project outwards towards the viewer. How do you use colour to propose questions to the viewer?
Thank you. My use of color is intentional and intuitive.
As an artist I learned to turn off the part of my brain that wants to take the most efficient route and to draw what I see, not what I think I see. This is done through careful observation. There are a couple things that great art does for me as the viewer. First, it causes me to pay attention. It wakes me up, out of the trance of conformity that I think we as humans so subtly and unknowingly fall into. Then great art challenges my beliefs, my imagination, my perception.
If my art does any of these things, well, that would be amazing. A viewer might look at my paintings of pears and their brain that is wired to take the path of least resistance might tell them that a pear is green, and it is not covered in blue blobs. Therefore, that painting can’t be true. But their eye might still be attracted to the painting and the painting might arouse a curiosity. If the time is taken to look at a pear, really look at a pear, the person might see many blobs of color through the reflected light of it’s surroundings. And that's when their perception is challenged. So curiosity and openness to a different perspective are aspirations in my work.