Blue Self
Acryllic, Ink + Oil on Paper
Neil Enggist is a traveling artist, like a salesman without the commission. He has found inspiration across the globe, from the Southwest to the Far East. At times he has even traded his paintings as a form of rent. We asked Neil a couple (very thoughtful) questions, and he obliged, inviting us into the world of a rambling artist and the mystery of a blank canvas. Then he drank us under the table.
Uncle: To what extent is painting a necessary part of your travel experience?
Neil: When I am traveling, the urge to create is heightened as new places, images, people, languages, and color tumble into my senses. Painting always contains a degree of improvisation, but that degree is at its zenith when you are in a space that is utterly new – just you and your tools, which are extensions of you.
I remember being down on Pfeiffer Beach, along the Big Sur coast, and posting up on a massive rock jutting into the Pacific. The wind was kicking sand into my eyes and mean waves were coming at me, completely surrounding my rock at points. I had an impression that death could come as a thoughtless swell of the ocean, but as long as I was painting, I wasn't so much keeping safe as keeping alive.
While traveling you must let yourself be thrown off balance by what is unknown and disarming. Then, through the act of painting, you bring all these things into balance. I have the most vivid memory of places I have painted. Painting is my ultimate communion with the world.
Requieum
Acryllic, Ink + Oil on Canvas
Uncle: A lot of your work seems to have a mystic quality. What do you see when you look into a blank canvas?
Neil: The blankness of the beginning is complete freedom and, as a painting bears itself, you start to feel responsible for listening and helping it become what it wants to be. The mystical part can never be pinned down.
As you look into a painting, you are looking simultaneously into your depths and mine. In its terrain, we, though we may never meet, have achieved a union. This, I think, begins to speak of a mystic quality. But the blank canvas is complete freedom. And as the paint hits, freedom becomes charged and bonded to life. Life brings color. Color is a reason for life.
The Sol
Acryllic, Ink + Oil on Canvas
You can find Neil online at neilenggist.com
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