RECOGNITION

When I first began painting motorcycles, my approach was relatively traditional. I was interested in capturing the machine accurately — its engineering, surfaces and details.

Over time, I began to wonder how much of that information was actually necessary.

I discovered the work of motorcycle builder Max Hazan and immediately felt a connection with the way he approached making. His motorcycles were clearly functional machines, but they were also extraordinarily resolved objects — individual, purposeful and unmistakably his.

I contacted Max and asked whether he would allow me to paint one of his builds. He had no idea who I was, but graciously gave me access to photographs and trusted me to interpret the motorcycle in my own way.

The resulting painting became important to me.

When Max saw it, he recognised that I wasn’t simply trying to reproduce the motorcycle. Detail could disappear. Areas could remain unresolved. The machine could become line, colour and movement and still retain its identity.

More importantly, someone didn’t need to understand motorcycles to find something within the painting.

I have remembered that.

It reinforced something I had been beginning to understand about my own work: representation could be a starting point rather than a destination.

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of painting several of Max’s motorcycles, and I continue to follow his work with enormous respect. Every new machine carries his hand — not because it follows a formula, but because years of making have created a visual language that is recognisably his.

Perhaps that is why his work continues to resonate with me.

For many years as a lecturer, I encouraged students to search for their own visual language. It has taken considerably longer to recognise that I was undertaking exactly the same search myself.

The motorcycles became part of that journey.

And somewhere along the way, the question changed from:

How accurately can I paint this machine?

to:

How much can I remove and still allow you to feel it?

That question continues to inform my work today.

Perhaps finding your own language is simply knowing what can be left unsaid.