When One Painting Becomes a Conversation: Why I’m Working in a Series

Lately, I have been thinking less about making a painting and more about what happens when one painting begins talking to the next. That shift has become especially important as I move into my newest body of work, After the Interruption.

My previous series, The Interruption, came from a place of disruption—those moments in life that arrive without our permission and change the landscape beneath us. The paintings carried that energy. There were marks that collided, disappeared, resurfaced and sometimes seemed to fight for their place on the canvas.

But something has changed.

In fact, one of the first paintings I am considering for this new body of work is titled Something Has Shifted.

And that title says a great deal about where I am now.

A Series Does Not Mean Making the Same Painting Again

For a long time, I think artists can misunderstand what it means to work in a series. A series does not mean finding one successful painting and creating ten variations of it. At least, that is not what I want it to mean in my studio.

I want each painting to have its own reason for existing. What connects the paintings may be something much quieter: a certain type of line, a recurring shape, a limited family of colors, a rhythm moving through the composition, a particular material, or even an emotional question that keeps asking to be explored.

The paintings should recognize one another.

But they should not imitate one another.

I keep coming back to this idea:

The paintings don't have to match. They have to belong.

Finding the Visual Language

As I begin After the Interruption, I am paying close attention to the things that naturally keep appearing in my work.

• Lines.

• Fragments.

• Open spaces.

Layers that reveal evidence of what came before.

Quiet areas beside more forceful passages.

Certain shapes that appear almost without my consciously planning them.

These repetitions interest me because I believe that somewhere inside them is an artist's visual language.

We often think we have to invent a recognizable style.

I'm beginning to think we may need to do the opposite.

We need to pay attention.

What do our hands keep doing?

What color do we repeatedly reach for?

What mark shows up when we stop trying so hard?

What do we keep covering—and what do we refuse to completely erase?

Those may be the clues.

Repetition Is Not the Same as Copying

One of the challenges of working in a series is learning what to repeat and what to change.

Perhaps a curved line appears in several paintings.

It does not need to appear in the same place each time.

In one painting it might be dark and dominant.

In another, nearly erased.

In another, it may exist only as a fragment.

The same can happen with shape, color and rhythm.

That is where a series becomes interesting to me.

Something familiar returns, but it returns differently.

Almost the way memories do.

The Importance of Quiet

Another thing I am exploring is space.

I have spent much of my artistic life making marks.

Now I am becoming equally interested in deciding which marks deserve to remain.

There is a tremendous difference.

Sometimes a painting doesn't need another mark.

It needs room around the marks that are already there.

It needs editing.

It needs silence.

It needs the confidence to leave an area alone.

That may be one of the biggest changes happening in my work right now.

I am beginning to understand that restraint can be every bit as expressive as gesture.

Letting the First Paintings Lead

When beginning a series, I don't believe we need to know exactly what twenty paintings are going to look like.

I actually think that could prevent us from discovering something better.

Instead, I like the idea of beginning with a few paintings and putting them together.

Then looking.

Really looking.

What keeps appearing?

Which painting feels most alive?

Which marks feel authentic rather than manufactured?

Where is the work trying to take me?

One painting asks a question.

The next responds.

Another disagrees.

And somewhere in that conversation, a body of work begins to emerge.

That is one of the most exciting parts of being an artist.

We don't always know the answer before we begin.

Sometimes we paint because we are trying to find it.

What Else Does This Idea Have to Say?

While thinking through my own new series, I realized how helpful it might be to put some of these ideas into a framework for other artists.

So I created a downloadable guide called:

Working in a Series: Using Shape, Line & Rhythm to Build a Cohesive Body of Work

It walks through the process of developing a central idea, creating a guiding question, identifying recurring shapes and marks, establishing rhythm and color relationships, and learning how to make paintings feel connected without simply repeating yourself.

But perhaps the most important idea in the entire guide is this:

Instead of asking, “How can I make another painting like this one?” ask, “What else does this idea have to say?”

That question has become important in my own studio as well.

Because the goal isn't to reproduce what worked yesterday.

The goal is to stay curious long enough to discover what comes next.

For the artists who follow me and are struggling to turn individual paintings into a cohesive body of work, I created the guide as a place to begin.

You can find Working in a Series here:https://payhip.com/b/xi60n

And for my collectors who follow along with the evolution of my work, you may begin noticing some of these conversations happening on the canvases themselves.

A line may return.

A shape may disappear and then emerge again.

A color may whisper across several paintings.

And somewhere along the way, one painting will answer something the previous painting could not.

That is what I am looking for now.

Not repetition.

Relationship.

Not another version of what I have already painted.

What comes after it.

— Cheryl WilsonThe Intentional Artist®

I paint what the soul remembers.