Last week, we sat down with our fall instructor, Marcel Wissing Boada, and asked some questions about his studio practice...
You’ve painted around the world. What was the most challenging place or landscape you’ve worked with?
The challenge is what I look for every day, because it's what keeps me curious about
whether I'm capable of doing it or not. Sometimes the challenge is in the complexity
of the subject, sometimes it's in the environment I'm in, like the people around me or
the weather conditions, sometimes I set my own technical challenge of enhancing the
effect of the light by balancing the color temperatures correctly and keeping the colors
as clean as possible. But when all these challenges come together, that's when it
becomes more difficult.

Imagine a bustling wholesale vegetable market in Pakistan. People are not used to seeing foreigners and barely understand English to explain what you’re up to. But still they will interrogate you until they know everything about you. You have limited space to set up your easel because you don't want to interfere too much with the dynamics
of the market, and the problem is not the space you take up but the 20 curious people gathering around you and creating a huge a street blockade - a good reason for the
rickshaws and trucks not to stop honking. Now you want to capture the essence of
this dynamic scene with the crowd and the things moving around, but you know that
everything can change at any moment... This describes quite well one of the most
challenging places I’ve ever painted.
You often paint en plein air with people around. What’s the difference between
painting in company and painting alone?
In general, it is very rewarding to share my art and even my process with the local
people. In South Asian countries, most of them see a painter for the first time and the
children are usually very eager to draw in my sketchbook. Towards the end of the
painting or after painting, the neighbors usually invite me to have tea at their house,
which is a good opportunity to interact with them and learn about their lifestyle and
culture.
Painting alone, however, is a more meditative process in which I can go much
deeper. I can study the subject more subtly and understand my feelings better.
Some of your work has a mysterious, moody quality. They’re reminiscent of Singer
Sargent’s Venice vignettes. Is this open-ended aspect of your paintings intentional?

There is always a reason why I decide to stop and paint in a certain place. Probably
something caught my attention when I was passing by. Maybe it's the light effect, a
particular subject or a specific color, or even the composition in which all the elements
are arranged. Whatever it is, that's where I will focus and everything else will be secondary and will serve what I am focusing on.
How has teaching changed your own practice?
Teaching helps me to return to the foundation and begin my artistic exploration anew.
Reminding me that there are infinite different ways to go, because when I'm on track I
only look forward in one direction forgetting about all the other possibilities around
me. A good foundation is just the starting point for any artist to develop their own
artistic language.

What do you consider a successful painting? How do you know when a painting is
done?
A painting is done when just by looking at it nothing disturbs you and you don’t miss
anything. There will always be room for improvement in a painting, but I rather learn
from it and try to make it better in my next painting.
Every painting is a new challenge. So, every painting I work through till end is a
successful painting, whether the result is good or not.
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