How the influential work of Francis Bacon inspired me to become a painter
As a young adult, I had lots of feelings that confused me and I often didn’t know how to deal with them, words just didn’t seem to fit. My thoughts and experiences felt on the far side of normal. Often I thought l was the only one who felt this unease. When I saw Francis Bacon’s work in a London gallery, it was a remarkable moment for me. It was the first time I had seen someone challenge the intense feelings I felt. Bacon depicted the complexity and chaos that was going on around me and inside me. I strongly related to the feelings of certainty, angst and disorientation in Bacon’s work. Francis Bacon’s paintings opened the door to a new world for me, they showed what I thought was impossible to communicate. I realised then that I could use paint to show what I saw and felt.
Stuart Bush, Hopes and Fears, Oil on canvas, 85 x 150cm. All rights reserved by the artist ©Stuart Bush
Stuart Bush Studio Notes
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I realised Bacon wasn’t only interested in directly painting a representation of life. He wanted to go much deeper; to heighten the viewer’s feelings, he used raw humanistic energy and chance. Often there is a single figure in Bacon’s paintings, an individual that creates a tremendous force that twists, contorts and stretches out.
In his works, for example, ‘Three Studies for Base of a Crucifixion,’ (1944) the power of his large canvas, put me in a trance, he had captured the cruelty of life like it was an invisible force. Bacon’s striking brushwork stirred my emotions with its immediacy. He painted people like they are nothing but wild beasts. The distorted physical bodies are painted as if they are butchered and in pain after a fight to the death. These fragments encourage you to contemplate life and death and ask what life is really about.
Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, Francis Bacon, 1953. Oil on canvas, 153cm x 118cm. Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa
How the influential work of Francis Bacon inspired me to become a painter
To learn more about Francis Bacon click here
When you consider that we are just meat, we are just primitive, fallible and weak. Through stunted limbs, teeth and torsos Francis Bacon showed me the power of the painter. His multi-layered work showed to me that with a brush in my hand, I could show what being a human is really about. Bacon captures the richness and velvety surfaces, hard and soft, roughness and rawness. l was capable of achieving great things if l put my mind to it.
Viewing ‘Study after Velazquez Portrait of Pope Innocent X’, (1953) you can see there is a power in the pose. There is a pursuit of brutish truth that I had never seen before. I can see desire, longing and anger. Bacon’s masterpiece is dreadful and momentous at the same time. Bacon grabs your attention, and you can’t take your eyes off the engrossing power in his work.
©Stuart Bush A pocket full of dreams, oil on canvas, 120.4 cm x 160.4 cm
Stuart Bush Studio Notes
Although Francis Bacon’s work had an immediate impact on me, I didn’t allow myself the luxury of dreaming about something that appeared impossible to make myself. They were so good, but even though I connected with them, his paintings also felt out of my reach. As a rational person, I have always been reasonably practical. I want to consider the myth of the starving artist and the likelihood of making a living as a painter. Through asking questions and I came to the conclusion that making a living from selling art was not tenable and was not a reliable, viable option. I knew l wanted to have what everybody else had. A car, a house, and children. A comfortable life out of poverty. For years I dismissed being an artist and looked for another solution while the elusive nature of Bacon’s work continued to sit in the back of my mind.
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944. Oil and pastel on Sundeala board. Tate Britain, London
How the influential work of Francis Bacon inspired me to become a painter
What I learnt from Philip Guston
Over the years, I kept coming back to wanting to make things and more specifically l kept drawing and painting. As the years went by, it occurred to me that art shouldn’t be about making money. That was not the reason why I wanted to do art. I took great pleasure and enjoyment in the process—the act of making, with its endless possibilities. I slowly realised that I could find my way in this world by being a painter. Success could be internal rather than external.
As an endless source of inspiration, Bacon’s paintings appeared to be the perfect way I could communicate my thoughts about being human. Leading me to consider how I could communicate my own thoughts about being human. What I liked about Bacon’s approach is that he is not trying to understand the human condition, Bacon realises he could not do that, no-one can. Bacon felt that if he could explain it, there would be no reason to paint it. Bacon was instead, trying to get you to feel what he feels. He portrayed figures, not as an educated, cultured, pillar of the community but instead as nothing but a raw piece of carcass. Francis Bacon explained this eloquently, “the job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” He imparted this in the most direct, honest and compelling way he could.
©Stuart Bush, The Kingdom, oil on canvas 150 x 85 cm
Stuart Bush Studio Notes
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Robert Hughes, the famous critic, said Bacon’s work was like, “a hand grenade on the point of detonation.” When I stood in front of his paintings, that was how my mind had felt. Through creative risk-taking, Bacon showed me a way to start to deconstruct what I saw. Through heartbreak and horror, the physical rearrangement of a face said so much more about the apprehension that I felt than anything else I have seen.
Over the years, I have kept returning to the many deep layers of Francis Bacon’s work. His work has had a profound and lasting impact on my soul. He has inspired me to follow in his footsteps and to become a painter. I am finding my own realisation of what success is—using paint to depict the truth about life, as the only way.
Francis Bacon, 1909-1992 Portrait, 1962, Oil paint on canvas, 1980 x 1415 mm, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen. The Lambrecht-Schadeberg Collection/Winners of the Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen
© The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS, London.
How the influential work of Francis Bacon inspired me to become a painter
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Untitled, 2004 mixed media on wooden panel #dapperlife #flaneurism #paintingonwood
“The biggest mistake as an art student, is to try to learn from an artist example. If you like Philip Guston, you can not learn from how a hand holds a cigarette, the motive from him. You have to learn to step one step further back. To understand the method without figures. How they do it before they do it.” Quote by Tal R. Playing around with gouache paint on paper in the studio #stuart.bush #gouachepainting #lineartwork
Oil on aluminium #oilpainting #oilonaluminum #artistonistagram
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Congratulations to Jenny Saville from London for winning my June print giveaway. The print ‘Just a feeling and not just the truth’ looks great at the bottom of your stairs, on your hall wall.
It was nice to meet you, talk, and chat by delivering the framed print in person. I hope your husbands gets better soon. Best wishes.
It is easy to feel helpless, like we are in the flow of the river. And we are looking for something to grab hold of. To pull ourselves out. This is where I think art can make a difference.
Connecting us with our sense. I hope my print can help to do that. I’m into beauty, but not pretty pictures. I want to make something that rattles you and makes you think. Art on your wall, and this print in particular, can help you to reflect on the moment, and the past and of course the present.
When you look at it once, it hasn’t sunk yet. It takes repeated viewing. When you live with an artwork in your walls and you see it everyday, the artwork slowly reveals itself. #printgiveaway #artprints #framedartwork
I don't know what it is but I am sure it is highlighting some kind of truth. ‘Great Souled Way’ #oilpaintingoncanvas #figurepainting #abstractpainting #londonart
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“Free and alone in the maze of the city, the flâneur craves a revelation that might change his life and destiny.” Quote by
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Reed Hoffman said “if you're not embarrassed by the first project you launch you're too late” I feel awkward and uncomfortable showing these new artworks for the first time. It is still #workinprogress
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Very nice inspiration, I think Bacon is a body of feelings, I love your work and the way you mix your colors .
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