Clan Destiny

Yoann Reininger & myself at work.

Recently I did something which I had never done before. Myself and my French painter friend Yoann Reininger made a painting simultaneously. First we drew on a rough chalk outline of a head and then flipped the wooden board upside down and began to paint away. The interesting thing about painting upside down is that you lose your orientation and tend to rely less on an instinctual knowledge of human physiognomy. 

After an hour or so of cursing and vigilantly watching each others moves we flipped it round the right way which then meant that we then had to paint on top of each others work. There were certain aspects of each others painting that we didn't like and we both tried, pathetically, to subtly negotiate a clandestine resolution. It became a bit of a tug'o'war. In a sense, quite a familiar experience. Those of you with siblings will probably have had to share a bed at some point and the politics were that you had 'your side' and they had theirs? This felt exactly the same, and I must say there was more than a little bickering. Despite the tensions of two grown men painting on a bedroom floor, we got it finished. Both of us sat on the couch afterward smoking and smirking while admiring our finished piece. I later elected to call him Yoann in memorium of our joint creation. 

'Yoann the Boxer', 20"x23", acrylics and chalk on board, 2011AD. SOLD