Clifford George Studio Visit

Wednesday, October 15

I had the pleasure of meeting Clifford George a few days ago at his home and studio in Whiteway, NL. Clifford has been painting since before I was born and is full to the brim with experience and stories about painting, Newfoundland ponies, and life in general. His paintings and stories are equally wonderful and colourful.

It was really interesting to see some of his earlier work; drawings and portraits of friends and important people in his life. Clifford is, of course, known for his plein air paintings of Newfoundland, but to see the progression of his passion and art career was a treat.

I was toying with the idea of including Clifford in the next large painting about the ominous future we all face, but from the perspective of an artist whose work is being carelessly and unethically fed to an artificially intelligent beast that pumps out derivative crap, removing purpose from the very humans whose work props it up. You know the gripe; you’ve read it before, I’m sure. Anyway, as much as Clifford agrees that it’s a terrible use of technology and steals from the artist in a much different way than human artists “steal” ideas or inspiration from each other, it just doesn’t fit his personality. He’s much too cheery and seemingly optimistic to load with negative energy.

So, instead of adding all that extra weight, I painted a portrait of him looking at the future as if he were relating it to a story; giving us the serious bit before the funny punchline at the end. He uses that technique really effectively. It would also be nice if there were a funny, lighthearted punchline at the end of this AI timeline.

I tried to channel a bit of Clifford’s style with bold, colourful strokes directly applied in one go. No farting around with sketches and layers.