Shinnors: A Visual Analysis

Shinnors had come to the conclusion that many other artists (for example, Mainie Jellett) had come to before him, namely, that “the true work of art was creative, not just the precise representation or accurate imitation of an object, figure or scene” as that was not an expression of an authentic apperception (Thiessen 1999, 43). Bacon also stated that the purpose of art was not to ‘illustrate’ life, but to bring it closer to the imaginative and sensory; Bacon believed that “art is a method of opening up areas of feeling rather than merely an illustration of an object... A picture should be a recreation of an event rather than an illustration...” (Walsh 2009, 2). Deleuze (1981, 3) described how one of the inherent problems of representational
I wasn’t doing much for two or three months, but the answer came very quickly, which wasn’t bad you know because some painters get the block for longer than that. There was a fish shop across from the Franciscan church. I was down one Friday morning, just passing. I just stopped by the window and there was my… my… well… a revelation. The mackerel in the silver tray. You know those abstract patterns on the mackerel, those ridged shapes.
They were visually really stimulating… glistening and wet, and black and silver and what have you... I was a bit excited at the time too because I knew I was going somewhere new. I had a fair idea of what would happen, I wouldn’t be unsuccessful in making an image from them.
(Shinnors