Expensive tools

The story behind Expensive tools

At first appearance the subject is the man operating the machine. On one level that is indeed the subject. But this painting was always intended as a metaphor — specifically a metaphor for photorealist painting itself.

The image comes from Racecar Engineering magazine and shows Makino CNC machining centres at the Mugen factory in Japan, producing Formula 1 cylinder heads on a common pallet loader. The title comes directly from a reference in the original article. These are machines accurate to one thousandth of a millimetre. That precision — the absolute subordination of every process to achieving a correct result — is exactly what photorealist painting technique demands. The metaphor is embedded in the subject matter. Most viewers will never see it without being told. That was always understood, and it was never the point.

This was not painted from the outside looking in. At various points the bills were paid by running CNC machines — three axis lathes mostly, unqualified but capable. The figure standing at the control panel is not an abstraction. That was a familiar position.

The human figure is there for the same reason Charles Sheeler put figures into his industrial paintings — to establish scale, and to raise the question of what exactly mankind has created and what relationship we have to it. Sometimes the tools dwarf the maker in every sense.

By this stage a great deal of art history had been read and absorbed. The artists worth admiring are those pursuing their own vision regardless of what the market wants. The art world produces too many people treating it as a career rather than a calling.

This painting was taken to the largest commercial gallery in Melbourne upon completion. The response was one of barely concealed contempt — as though something amateurish had been brought in off the street. The painting had taken close to 300 hours.

It remains the first work where, upon completion, there was absolute certainty that something genuinely important had been made.

Source image: Racecar Engineering Vol.4 No.3

Source image of realism painting Expensive tools

Detail views of realism painting Expensive tools