Art on Wheels - the paintings and drawings of Wayne Westfall

Musings

Prior to my spinal cord injury 28 years ago, I built a log house North of Kingston using mainly recycled materials with a chain saw and tractor as my only power tools. During that time, I believed that the beauty of an object was in its function. Something had to possess a concrete purpose in order to have beauty. The injury, with its subsequent limits on my physical abilities, and my journey into art-making reversed this belief. Ten years after my injury, Curiosity prompted me to sign up for a watercolour course being taught by a friend. Eight weeks of cautious tentative work produced my first painting, a bright red and blue tropical bird. It was then that I realised how essential the connection is between visual art and imagination. Art uses a small surface area, the principles of optics, the magic of illusion and drawing/colouring tools to transport both the maker and viewer deep into the inner world of imagination, into what "could be". In the process of making art, the artist becomes intimately familiar with the present or "what is." In making the contents of a world not here, the artist must become intimate with the contents of the world that is here. "Good" Art engages both the maker and the viewer; the fuller the engagement is, the more effective the art is.

I now measure an object's function by its beauty. There is a greater purpose being served by one's attempts to create something of beauty. By exploring the world around oneself, the artist learns to see more of what is actually here and suggests how it could be otherwise. The work presented here is the result of my engagement with both the real and imaginary worlds over the past 18 years. It has been a sometimes passionate, and not always pleasant, relationship. Whatever talent I possess in making art had to be wrestled from an ancient, but still active, "You can't do this" belief system. I invite you, the viewer, to explore the images here and allow them to stimulate your own personal experience, and vision, of this marvellous and mysterious world we inhabit.