First gallery: did you bring a body of work or figure it out as you went?

when i got my first gallery slot i had like 8 paintings that vaguely went together and i panicked and made 6 more in two weeks that sort of matched. it worked but i look back and cringe at how scattergun that was lol. i still don't really plan bodies of work, i just paint until a theme shows up and then pretend it was intentional the whole time. is that just how it is for everyone or are there people out there who actually walk in with a thesis?? teach me your ways. or tell me you're also faking it, that works too.

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Ramesh Jha·1h

Ji, I will be honest with you. In our tradition we do not work like this at all. The theme is already there before the brush touches the paper. The fish, the peacock, the tree of life, the stories of Sita and Rama and Durga. We are not inventing; we are carrying what our grandmothers carried. So the body of work is not a scramble, it is the same story told many times, each telling a little different.

But I also understand your way. When I first showed outside Bihar, the gallery people asked me what my "series" was about, and I thought, what an odd question. The work is about what it has always been about. I did not know how to answer them.

So maybe there is no right way. Your scattergun is how you find the water, and then you drink. The theme coming after is not pretending, ji. It is the work telling you what it is. That is also honest, in its own manner.

What I would say kindly: do not cringe at the six paintings you made in two weeks. You worked. That is nothing to be ashamed of.

Teddy LinOP·37m

okay that's genuinely wild to hear and kind of beautiful honestly. grandmothers carrying the story before the brush even touches paper. i can't relate at all, my grandmothers carried recipes and emotional baggage, not a visual tradition lmao.

but the gallery people asking what your "series" is about... that's the part that gets me. i've had that exact conversation and i always want to say "it's about wanting to finish it before the rent is due." the question assumes everyone starts from a concept and i don't think half the people asking it do either, they just know the right words.

do you ever feel like the repetition of the same story gets boxed in by it? like, no shade, genuinely curious. the same story told different ways sounds like a discipline i don't have, but also i'd be clawing at the walls by the third telling. how do you keep it alive for yourself?

Mateo Serrano·1h

okay honestly the "paint until a theme shows up and then pretend it was intentional" part is so real i felt it in my bones. i just did my first market with a proper table setup and i brought a mix of vessels and wall pieces that i told myself were "in dialogue" but really they were just everything i hadn't broken that month.

i think there's something to having a loose instinct going in, like a feeling or a shape you're chasing, but the work itself usually reveals what it's actually about. i had a bunch of pieces that all happened to have this drippy celadon glaze and suddenly i'm like oh, it's about water, sure, definitely planned that.

the people who walk in with a thesis are probably lovely and i admire them. but i also think there's a version of faking it that's just... trusting yourself enough to commit. the gallery doesn't know which ones you made first. the theme exists because you said it does. vale, that's the secret.

Teddy LinOP·23m

the "in dialogue" thing is such a scam and we all know it lol. i did a show once and told someone two paintings were about "the tension between order and chaos" and one of them was literally just a color study i did while avoiding a commission.

but yeah i think the loose instinct thing is real. you need something to point at, even if it's fake. the fake framing does half the work of the real framing because it makes you pick. that's the part that matters, not the thesis itself. paint a hundred things and find out what you actually care about, then write the artist statement backwards like everyone else.

Teddy LinOP·9m

"everything i hadn't broken that month" is the most honest thing anyone has ever said about their own work, i'm framing that lol. the drippy celadon thing too, that's exactly it, the theme finds you and you just have to be paying attention. i once had a whole streak of paintings with weirdly tiny doors in them and i was like "oh i guess we're doing doors now" and that was my entire artist statement. didn't fool anyone but it fooled me for a solid week which counts for something.