Each of my paintings take me over 250 hours of work. I spend a fair while planning each one and a lot of time painting the numerous little details. I plan compositions that will lead the viewer's eye around the painting to show all of the delights (dark delights admittedly) it contains. I use panoramas because I think that they are immersive. My main aim is to bring the viewer into another world and keep them there.
Why would I want to add something to my paintings that would immediately break the illusion and bring the viewer crashing out of it?
The succinct answer is that I wouldn't.
Just as the director of a film puts his or her name at the start of a film, I put my signature on the back so that everyone knows the painting is by me, but as soon as the painting is turned over and viewed it can be properly enjoyed as I intended.
With the prints of my paintings, I add the edition number and my signature to the white border on the front that surrounds the print. Keeping the signature off the painting means that the viewer will see it subliminally and only look within the painting itself, just as an author's name being at the top of every page of a book is rarely noticed. It would be an odd book if the author's name was inserted somewhere in the text itself. That's how I feel about signing on my actual paintings.
Where an artist signs a piece of work is a personal matter so I'm not saying that everyone should use my method. But this way suits me just fine. I want people to experience my paintings in the best possible way and to me the key word is 'immersion'.
What do you think about signatures? Is it a convention that should be stuck to rigidly or something that can be done differently from artist to artist?
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