The Unwashed
Oil painting, specifically art created with oil paint, is an activity that requires the use of gloves. Close-fitting, impermeable on the palm side, and disposable when saturated with grime make a good fit. Protecting the hands is not the main object. The purpose of wearing gloves while painting in oils is free artistic self-expression -freedom from inhibition because of the objectionable qualities of the medium of oil paint.
Oil painting is, in plain words, dirty. That statement is a matter of candor because of the unmentionable nature of dirt. Much has been made of art's sublimation of that which is base. Raising the base to the sublime would justify the medium of dirt (paint), not necessarily a disqualification, as it might be in other contexts. A good analogy would be gardening. Seasoned gardeners dig in the soil wearing gardening gloves. It would not be obvious to those who have neither painted, nor gardened, that gloves are needed. Figuratively speaking, oil paint is—like the soil of a flower bed—the medium in which art grows.
By inverse analogy, oil painting is fine stuff compared to gardening soil, which is full of rocks and other coarse matter. Oil paint is like soil in density, but differs in that it is a mixture of ground minerals in a medium of vegetable oil, specifically, Linseed oil. Garden soil can be washed off with water, unlike oil paint, which requires a non-polar solvent such as kerosene for cleanup. It matters not one bit to an artist that he's handling a fine and expensive painting medium. To the master and novice painter alike it is like mud.
Incidentally, kerosene—what artists call paint thinner and is essential for cleaning-up oil paint—is extremely flammable. This is a matter of concern to would-be artists. Linseed oil is another fire hazard. Linseed oil is the vegetable oil of choice for oil painting because it dries rapidly. It dries so quickly, in fact, that it is possible for partially-dried Linseed oil-soaked rags to combust spontaneously in waste containers, leading to fires.
The toxicity of certain oil painting colors is common knowledge. It is common sense to eliminate exposure to the Cadmium salts used in these colors. Because these pigments are costly, they have been mostly replaced by substitutes, virtual colors consisting of organic dyes, so-called “student grade” products. Misunderstandings over which oil painting products are toxic is another impediment to artistic free expression.
True, the objectionable physical qualities of oil paint are less important to Art than, for instance, the blockbuster prices paid for masterpieces -another incidental circumstance. It is of concern to artists, many of whom abandon the intention of being an artist, while as yet students in an academic oil painting studio. The dirt factor makes the fastidious recoil in disgust. It is naught for blame when students wash-out (excuse the pun) because of objection to the dirtiness of oil painting. The education—even thus limited—induces a better understanding of the physical, as well as the ideal, of Art.
In my paintings of homeless people, of persons living lives in the streets and public places, I try to express something of the necessity for dirt -as they, perhaps, seek refuge in the street, escaping whatever unimaginable threat from which they flee. In such circumstances dirt is merely an inconvenience to them, while to us it is an unimaginable horror. Unlike a stain of oil paint on an artist's canvas, the homeless are immersed in the surrounding filth of the streets, if there is to be any equivalence.
One-of-a-kind works of art can be viewed at: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1840403