For me, I think differently about how I paint from one work to another. The consistency between the works is to do with the ideas - a fight, a couple grabbing each other's bums, a guitar player, a suburban beach. The works are stylistically different because the images hold the paintings together. There is a similar reality from a street rumble to a party.
FIGURES: I kind of see myself as part of all the figures in the paintings. I could be one of the people, yet I haven't painted myself consciously. The interaction of figures is enough for me to consider now. In Rumble, for instance I could have painted something in the background to state a time or place. But this scene could have happened anywhere. I didn't want to specify. To work out how to paint five or ten figures is enough.
100 BACKYARDS: The rumble is not really an Australian thing. It could be anywhere. The painting is not particularly Australian in the way it is made either, in how thin the paint is. The Party I've seen happen in a hundred backyards, people lunging towards the camera. I suppose it happens all over the world. Lots of these paintings come out of the suburbs. Amazing things happen there.
REALISM. I NEVER STICK WITH IT: In painting an essence, rather than the physical reality, I don't give all the details. In Rumble, I could have given one figure a red shirt, a blue jacket, black pants. The red sometimes describes a figure, makes a shadow, or is blood. I work almost everything out on paper first. Realism... I never stick with it. I always end up doing something different and making another picture out of it.
WORK: Most people don't like working, don't think about it much. Everything is leisure. Most people don't care about working, they only care about what they're going to do on the weekend before they start to think of anything else.
