EXHIBITIONS: CHRISTOPHER DOYLE

Christopher Doyle: Why I am not a Painter
Mylos Gallery
21 - 30 November

The creative process is a series of chances taken and possibilities revealed. Like a painter stepping back from a canvas in progress you have to be observant and detached enough to see where the work is going and just Ògo with the flowÓ. The best expression I know of the process is by Frank OÕHara in his poem ÒWhy I am not a Painter.Ó It goes like this:

Why I am not a painter
I am not a painter, I am a poet. Why? I think I would rather be a painter, but I am not. Well, for instance, Mike Goldberg is starting a painting. I drop in. ÒSit down and have a drink,Ó he says. I drink; we drink. I look up. ÒYou have SARDINES in it.Ó ÒYes, it needed something there.Ó ÒOh.Ó I go and the days go by and I drop in again. The painting is going on, and I go, and the days go by. I drop in. The painting is finished. Ò WhereÕs SARDINES?Ó All thatÕs left is just letters. Ò It was too much,Ó Mike says . But me? One day I am thinking of a color: orange. I write a line about orange. Pretty soon it is a whole page of words, not lines. Then another page. There should be so much more, not of orange, of words, of how terrible orange is and life. Days go by. It is even in prose, I am a real poet. My poem is finished and I havenÕt mentioned oranges yet. ItÕs twelve poems, I call it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery I see MikeÕs painting, called SARDINES.

Chris Doyle