Why Texture Matters More Than Colour

People always ask about colour first. What colours do you use? How do you choose your palette? But the question I wish they would ask is about texture. Because texture is where the truth lives.

A flat field of crimson says one thing. The same crimson applied with a palette knife in thick, ridged strokes says something entirely different. One is a colour. The other is an experience. When you stand in front of one of my paintings and feel the urge to reach out and touch it — that is texture doing its work.

In my studio, I work with acrylics on large canvases, usually 120cm or larger. I start with thin washes to establish the emotional temperature of the piece, then build up with heavier applications — sometimes mixed with modelling paste to create actual relief on the surface. The final layers are applied with palette knives, squeegees, and occasionally my hands.

Colour catches the eye. Texture catches the body.

This is why museum-quality prints matter so much to me. When I work with my printing partners, we spend significant time calibrating not just colour accuracy but the paper surface itself. A giclée print on heavyweight cotton rag paper preserves something of the painting's physical presence that a standard print on glossy paper simply cannot.

The irony of digital art is that it can simulate any colour perfectly, but it cannot simulate texture. And I believe that is exactly why texture matters more than ever — it is the one quality that proves a human hand was involved.