Winning Shot

2024

Oil on Linwn

2m x 90cm

The highly creative individual exists in a flow state wher’e knowledge and skill has been internalized and a child like genius can appear.

Carlos Alcaraz appears like this on the tennis court.

In a split second, he observes the impact of his last shot, his opponent’s reaction and moves to execute his winner. In the execution, his mind is quiet, in the flow state. The flow state is what happens between the eye and the hand.

M’aking art can have this process it’s just the time scale is stretched. In my painting practice the brush strokes flow but inform the next move.

This painting is a response to a particular moment of the Olympic Final 2024, an attempt to viscerally feel thr.ough the paint the strain in his muscles, to analyze the exact position of his legs and feet as they plough through the clay court, to note the clear and obvious relationship between the eye and the hand which is so crucial to tennis and art. What is between the eye and the hand? God, your brain, your heart, the ball.