Penmen the Artist

My work begins with a camera, but happily, rarely ends there.

I work primarily from photographs, many of which I — or someone with me — simply couldn’t resist capturing. From there, things get considerably less photographic. I make multiple versions, paint and manipulate in Procreate™, crop, cut, layer, pull apart and stitch back together. Eventually it becomes a print, then a frame, and finally something I am prepared to let out into the world.

I like to hide things.

My great pleasure is the thought that someone might live with one of my works for years and then, one day, look at it and suddenly say, “Oh! There’s an orange.” Or a face. Or a doorway. Or something they hadn’t noticed before.

That little awakening is important to me. I want the work to remain alive — to reveal itself slowly, perhaps differently each time it is looked at.

Sometimes the work arrives quickly. More often, it doesn’t.

A photograph or scene might be reworked many times, while I carry on a rather long conversation with myself about what it is trying to say — or whether it is trying to say anything at all. Eventually there is a moment when the argument goes quiet, peace descends, and we can say, “Complete!”

Or I put it aside and let it be. Perhaps that is part of the fun!?

I hope you enjoy looking. And perhaps, if you’re lucky, you’ll find something I hid there for you.

Etches Penmen aka Stephen McNee