Titles

A title for a painting is the name you give to a work.

You give value to your concept or idea.

Just like varnishing and framing, you take care of your creation.

Every story, written, painted or sculpted should have a title.

It's also like naming a baby or even a pet. With that name you give it identity.

So a title is more than just a handy thing to put on a card ... instead of painting no. 1, 2, 3, etc.

It can convey the feeling of the artist or a hint to view a work in a particular way.

And sometimes it is just the name of a specific person, an animal or the animal species.

For example, I have from the simplest ‘Kingfisher’ and ‘Baika’ to ‘Who is afraid of the big bad Wolf’ and ‘Transcending’...

and from ‘Wolves!’ to ‘Who blinks first Loses’ as titles. (Humor is also emotion)

And sometimes they are quite heavy in personal meaning.

You can do whatever you want, and there are no wrong titles if you support it.

There are also works of art without title, deliberately determined by the artist.

And there can be quite a story behind that. But something like that is a bit too abstract for me personally in my work.

I follow my intuition, emotion and feeling during the process of forming ideas.

For example, I may have the title before the painting or even the sketch.

And very occasionally, the title comes much later after the work is completed.

Or even changed after years.

Like this work in the middle.

安全 老虎 (these Chinese characters are engraved in the stone (painted) ... maybe you can see them)

(Safe the Tiger)

Years later I changed the title to ‘Tribute’

Which gives a stronger and more positive feeling to the work.

The before mentioned Chinese characters are already there.

(This is a Chinese variant of a Siberian tigress, the subspecies on a dark red list, partly because of the "medicinal" (read criminal) purposes for which this animal is hunted)