Making One Work Together: How a Commissioned Painting Comes to Be

I am currently working on a commissioned painting.

When I create a single work to order, there are a few important differences from when a client chooses a work that is already finished. Before I begin, I make sure the client understands these points, and only then do I proceed.

Because it is analogue, an identical work cannot be made

First, analogue works such as oil paintings cannot be "copied exactly" the way digital data can.

The movement of the brush, the layering of paint, subtle shifts of colour, the texture left on the surface: each step of the process changes the expression of the work. Even if the same artist paints with the same composition and colours in mind, the first work can never be reproduced exactly.

This is one of the great characteristics of analogue, one-of-a-kind work.

Also, when a work has already been purchased by someone, I cannot simply copy it and produce it as a new work. Doing so would harm the rights of the person who owns the earlier work, and their joy in "owning a piece that is mine alone".

Because "the same cannot be made", it becomes made-to-order

However, the fact that "an identical work cannot be made" is not merely a limitation when it comes to commissions.

On the contrary, this is where the great appeal of a commission lies.

Rather than choosing a work that already exists, we can think about the direction of the work together, listening to the client's wishes, toward something even more to their liking.

What kind of atmosphere do they prefer? What colours do they want? What impression do they hope to feel from the work? And where will they hang it, and with what feelings will they look at it?

Listening to each of these wishes one by one, I also consider, as the artist, "what kind of work would satisfy them more", and make proposals.

We hear the wishes, exchange ideas, set the direction of the work and share an image of the finished piece. Only once that direction is decided do we enter the actual making.

I believe this process is one of the real joys of a commissioned work.

The time spent waiting becomes part of the work

With a commission, it is not only the finished work that is special.

Before the making begins, the client imagines "what kind of work it will be", shares the image of the finished piece with the artist, and waits for it to be completed. That time itself becomes a special experience for the client.

Unlike buying a work that is already finished, it begins with imagining, together with the artist, a painting that does not yet exist.

Of course, in the end it is the artist who paints the work. But in the part that leads up to it, "what kind of work do I want", the client's feelings and tastes are certainly present.

In that sense, a commissioned work gains a background that belongs to that client alone, one the artist could never create on their own.

After sharing the dream, entrusting the work

On the other hand, a commission does not mean that the artist and the client keep deciding every detail together until the very end.

When it comes to bringing the work into being, the artist needs to spend time, move the brush, and go through trial and error to finish it as a single work.

Once we have pictured the finished dream together and its direction is set, from there on the client entrusts that dream to the artist for a while.

That is a little different from simply "waiting for what you ordered".

It means waiting for the time in which the artist gives form to the image shared in our conversations. Through that time, a painting that did not yet exist gradually turns into a real work.

Time that is born for one work alone

A commissioned work holds a kind of time that ready-made works do not.

Hearing the wishes, thinking about the direction, imagining the finish, and then being entrusted with the making. A work completed through this sequence of time contains not only the work itself, but also the feelings and time that accumulated until it was finished.

That is why, when the client receives the finished work, I think a special attachment is born that goes beyond simply "having bought a painting".

Making a single work is not something the artist provides one-sidedly.

The client and the artist think about a painting that does not yet exist, share its image, and in the end the client entrusts it to the artist. That process itself becomes part of the value of a commissioned work.

And when the long-awaited work is finally complete, that painting remains with the client as "the one work in the world made for me".

For me, commissioned work is not simply painting what has been requested. It is searching, together with the client, for the possibilities of a single work, and in the end being entrusted with it.

Including the time until it is finished, a single work becomes something special to the client. That process, too, is one of the joys of creating a work to order.

For commissions, please contact us here.