The exhibition title comes from my habit of not regarding a painting as finished until it starts to tell a story or give a suggestion of a life outside of just paint, turpentine and mashed together pigments. Not being easily satisfied I like to rework paintings and drawings many times. Most of these paintings were worked on over the better part of a year. Each painting is worked on until I realise what story is being told. Some stories are as complex as the lives of the people who once inhabited the rooms, but some are as simple as a moment in time, like a film still. I used to only work from life but the paintings in this exhibition are for the most part fictitious. I hope that in viewing this exhibition the audience will imagine their own stories in relation to the works….and if they happen to differ from mine then that’s even better.
John Bokor, 2024
Image: Distant Memories 2023, oil on board, 120 x 140 cm
