tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47233686430381181442024-02-19T00:23:08.058-08:00ARTICULATED ARTISTSArticulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-13298118634573061022014-04-11T01:41:00.001-07:002014-04-13T02:58:29.104-07:00John Mills talked to Alli Sharma at Weekend Gallery in Los Angeles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEpDCvkhsdFJhfnHxWVSST3uSJNo-6eOWxq0dyTC0gGVv4IvCRp4U8sVUFcIgSxxjfkvj7F1m1c5ox62N15qO6YxsNKGWuooiCyIJjPI-wZn79SwMPcaHiaudA2B9kQaco5QHHj1LEQ/s1600/03friedfountainJohnMillsWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEpDCvkhsdFJhfnHxWVSST3uSJNo-6eOWxq0dyTC0gGVv4IvCRp4U8sVUFcIgSxxjfkvj7F1m1c5ox62N15qO6YxsNKGWuooiCyIJjPI-wZn79SwMPcaHiaudA2B9kQaco5QHHj1LEQ/s1600/03friedfountainJohnMillsWeb.jpg" height="636" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Fried Fountain</i>, 2013, oil and graphite on canvas, 36x36"</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: When I look
at your paintings I imagine some of the marks are made from felt tip pens, is
that something you use in your drawings?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: Most of my
paintings are based on prior ink drawings. For a long time I used black ink on
paper, then I discovered coloured markers and that opened up the process
because then I could start drawing with colour as a means to create composition
and think about how shapes and colours interact on the initial drawing surface.
It was a revelation, but I have been doing this now for a long time. So the
painted marks reference prior marks that I made in a drawing process. Sometimes
they’re mediated to appear almost precisely how they were originally in the
drawing and sometimes I allow the paint to be thicker or barely there at all. I
diverge from that script often by using the tactility of the paint, how paint
behaves differently to ink.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: Do the same
motifs crop up in the drawings?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg0xpOfI65WpK_iwemjbH8WkNIJVxnOMhhvWAshyDz8NOIRhHMyLbvSdycjIynQUMtmdOPZmZ1zBOCfXB1Kb58vGXJlJQGW72k1x7bWG4ErosXyNT1xSDxZjHMZVqvDAciEU-iE6q1-g/s1600/IMG_6319.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg0xpOfI65WpK_iwemjbH8WkNIJVxnOMhhvWAshyDz8NOIRhHMyLbvSdycjIynQUMtmdOPZmZ1zBOCfXB1Kb58vGXJlJQGW72k1x7bWG4ErosXyNT1xSDxZjHMZVqvDAciEU-iE6q1-g/s1600/IMG_6319.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Detail</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"> JM: I have this
thing for loopy, curvy shapes that reference things like language. I use a lot
of signs, they could look like letters or numbers but then they can become pictures
in themselves, like hieroglyphs. It’s a distillation or meditation on language,
the language of forms in a way, but also the language of seeing in the world
and making sense of how we, as humans, come to spoken and visual language.
Writing is a visual experience and letters originally started out as these
symbolic shapes but when you learn language you forget about that. You see
words, but in reality they’re just pictures. I find that fascinating, how our
brains function and how we perceive things in space. There are forms that
coalesce, some more obvious than others. In these pictures we’re looking at
now, that one has almost a distinctive head, which is uncharacteristic
of my recent work.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: So if that
starts to happen do you do something to stop it? I can see things are rubbed
out and over.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: It’s a thin
line. I like references. I like things that look like things. I like a shape
that looks like a bird or whatever. To me, this is like a leaf. At one point I
had this painting upside down and this looked like a bird sitting on a branch
so there are these forms that happen, made by marks. I try to play it up but my
goal is often to reference things but not have them explicitly defined, so that
when you see it you don’t quite know what you’re looking at.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: It seems to
me that there are two distinct things happening with these thin lines and then
bolder filled-in forms of things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: I am trying
to create a balance between a plodding, thick approach to making sense of a
picture and then there are also lighter, sinewy lines that come in. It’s about
a nuanced, yet clumsy, way of depicting something. As an analogy to being a
person in the world, we’re imperfect and you can’t know the answers to
everything, so the imperfection of what I do is about that. It’s about trying
to be real in the sense that you accept your limitations as a conscious entity.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Calder</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: We went to
see the Calder exhibition together at LACMA and there were lines and forms and the idea
of balancing things, was that something you could connect with?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: Absolutely,
but the imperfection I was talking about is the conceptual difference. When
Calder came to the fore in the 1930s and 1940s, it was proper modernism. People
were trying to make something beautiful and transcendent, and in his case, also
surreal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess I try to do the
same thing, however, I exist in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century where all these
systems and ideas about oneness, linear progression and the abstract
expressionist sublime got turned on their head with postmodernism. Things are
no longer so certain and I think that is the precariousness of our times, right
now, the climate, everything, its all a mixed up fragile jumble. So I really do
appreciate Calder’s simplicity in his constructions. There is freeness and a
wonderful focus on a level of form that is very beautiful and poetic. I try to
go for that but, in the end, I want to include the dirt of things. These
grounds are ruddy and if you look closer often I have been scrawling-in marks,
almost like graffiti, as if I am tagging my own work.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: Sounds like
sabotage?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: I like
layers, flat layers. You see a surface on a train and one person came along and
did this then another person came along and did something else but its all on a
flat plane and there’s all this overwriting happening. I really appreciate systems
that get overwritten, like modernism being overwritten by contemporary life and
all its dysfunctions. The result I think is an existential strangeness that can
feel alien or uncanny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16Fk9ZDwg_F3y9ODmjlXY2yauhtX5Lp85YFsV45JcoBDJcQ5n-pM_BdYJUZxAr-_suTvDLrPyCmTFfAPrkDxzkRJBB4-tCq90DZnQXdJh8FO1i8sTrLzW1XdJb2fMyL2hSAY2GPrskQ/s1600/02GentleLandJohnMillsWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16Fk9ZDwg_F3y9ODmjlXY2yauhtX5Lp85YFsV45JcoBDJcQ5n-pM_BdYJUZxAr-_suTvDLrPyCmTFfAPrkDxzkRJBB4-tCq90DZnQXdJh8FO1i8sTrLzW1XdJb2fMyL2hSAY2GPrskQ/s1600/02GentleLandJohnMillsWeb.jpg" height="632" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Gentle Land</i>, 2013, oil and graphite on canvas, 36x36"</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: Like in your
work, you can see a layer of something that was there before.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: Up until a
couple of years ago all my grounds were gesso and so the marks would sit on top
of an empty plane. Then I started painting all the ground with white frenetic
brushstrokes prior to painting the coloured parts and that has become an
interesting process for me because preparing grounds has become a thing in
itself. So there is this surface that I modulate and it has become more and
more dirty. I paint this first and then I make these marks and what I’ve been
doing is taking pencils and carving into the wet paint (and sometimes later
when its dry). I do this part without the foreknowledge of the image that is
going on top. So I try to create systems that are overlapping and incongruent,
but they fit in the end. It’s a mash up.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCjlzHQP9I6UbuK7celduKUE8ki8LhERh-70lBnSX6MT9Bn4Kan2B1O06Kc_5ydoNXvSCAqDaWIBcNZYxx7XU3jLXlTNB9X_cPUOEswqy1MKODBGgtv6CiGPXegXYao_xFyZpt6FxUkw/s1600/01JohnMillsmaidstonedCrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCjlzHQP9I6UbuK7celduKUE8ki8LhERh-70lBnSX6MT9Bn4Kan2B1O06Kc_5ydoNXvSCAqDaWIBcNZYxx7XU3jLXlTNB9X_cPUOEswqy1MKODBGgtv6CiGPXegXYao_xFyZpt6FxUkw/s1600/01JohnMillsmaidstonedCrop.jpg" height="640" width="638" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Maidstoned</i>, 2013, oil on canvas, 54x54"</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: You
deliberately mess up the blank canvas and start to build using your own rules?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: That’s
definitely part of it. What I like about my process is that I do these
drawings, small scale on paper and then I translate them into a larger scale in
a painting form with a brush. A line that maybe took a second to do with a pen
takes me a while to do in paint. I mess around with how I put things down and
so my process is a meditation or investigation of my own subconscious, because
the images start out as these freeform drawings, but then, when I paint them, I
am methodically trying to get inside my own head. Why did I make this?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: So you go
back to the drawings to try to understand them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: Yes, in a way
it’s a mental analysis and I think of it as to do with the construction of
one’s identity, as a person, and what does it mean to be a conscious being. So,
looking at what I have done, this thing I have created, and trying to make
sense of it by translating it into a painting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh2cR-wzuAKXRF9u5Db4s-8DoLyzVllyr-PExxETefPiV9saw95-aO2Hn5NIhXav5zbj8lnCcXZ2VcwBVbCpxxppljbDSVJdzAV6RR5zXzgG93mgEa4EGx0CQvCp7iJrQDQQ3NG0e1Bw/s1600/prayerJohnMills2013web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh2cR-wzuAKXRF9u5Db4s-8DoLyzVllyr-PExxETefPiV9saw95-aO2Hn5NIhXav5zbj8lnCcXZ2VcwBVbCpxxppljbDSVJdzAV6RR5zXzgG93mgEa4EGx0CQvCp7iJrQDQQ3NG0e1Bw/s1600/prayerJohnMills2013web.jpg" height="636" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Just Like a Prayer</i>, 2013, oil on canvas, 54x54"</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: Like a more
conscious way of doing it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: It’s more
conscious but then I also try to step outside of the descriptive sense of
things. I’m saying ok, I’ve got this line here in my drawing and I try to do
that but then other times, when I paint this I might try to make it rougher or
different to how it was and try to subvert my own systems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQcivrq6FlQii81PpZ0xBNHvMMREBi-2ZBrocfe2PzODo2SE2ijChrXzPJvhslflnQ3xc5NVbkLY2Ov2y3ModrEiBJRKcG3thKldf9zZ7y-vA03QbcN6bC4xpngFkDU-AJcDRPw-xcBw/s1600/Shelteredlifejohnmills2013web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQcivrq6FlQii81PpZ0xBNHvMMREBi-2ZBrocfe2PzODo2SE2ijChrXzPJvhslflnQ3xc5NVbkLY2Ov2y3ModrEiBJRKcG3thKldf9zZ7y-vA03QbcN6bC4xpngFkDU-AJcDRPw-xcBw/s1600/Shelteredlifejohnmills2013web.jpg" height="640" width="630" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Shelter</i>, 2013, oil on canvas, 78x78"</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: Once you’re
into the translating phase of making a painting do you come back with the white
again and cross things out? Do things start becoming more integrated?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: There is
definitely an integration process that happens at the end, like these little
subtle shaded smudgy areas. I include those a lot and maybe go back and draw
things so I try to get to this balance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But for me, a balance may be what someone else may consider an
imbalance. I like this clumsy painting over a line where I paint white back on
top. And I put in this shading area. This painting wasn’t working until I went
back into it and did these things and I also put in these pencil marks and for
some reason that’s when it started to click for me. The space was too empty and
simple so I needed this complexity. A very different thing happens in a drawing
and in a painting. As a thing, a painting has depth, it has tactile surface,
paint, brushstrokes, subtle changes in colour, where this line is heavier here
and these are all little subtleties that make a painting a painting. A drawing
is a simple thing, that is beautiful, but when it becomes a painting then it
becomes much bigger than what it was originally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">AS: Do you have
favourite artists you come back to?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">JM: I don’t
necessarily have particular people … well I do. There’s Matisse, with his
cutouts. They have a lot of the same elements, white ground with these colours
that were cut out and placed on the surface. Also Paul Klee, I’ve always liked
his work. I haven’t focused on it, and I try to do my own thing, but I really
respond to his work. I think it is similar in the sense that he was trying to
depict a psychological state and the strangeness of being alive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><b>John Mills will be exhibiting 7 June - 5 July 2014</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><b>at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, 2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica CA90404</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://rosamundfelsen.com/artists/john-mills/">Rosamund Felsen Gallery</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.futurepaint.com/">www.futurepaint.com</a></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-82386126146040950802014-03-11T01:26:00.001-07:002014-03-11T08:30:11.958-07:00Alli Sharma talked to Benjamin Bridges in December 2013 as he embarked upon some new techniques. He will be exhibiting at dalla Rosa Gallery, EC1 from 14 March 2014. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsg6mjE81gfQJrZJ5gkh1a87WlYxcYaVnnsifz9w-e9WAnJPgNbgV3BE6tztjDr6L8opF-paSFOp_1Wp7PM6OK8Osxww5zqEu73M8-JV011LGMWZII2XyhRZ9tZ5hJExIJCYWhhHPcew/s1600/tumblr_my0zakzQKX1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsg6mjE81gfQJrZJ5gkh1a87WlYxcYaVnnsifz9w-e9WAnJPgNbgV3BE6tztjDr6L8opF-paSFOp_1Wp7PM6OK8Osxww5zqEu73M8-JV011LGMWZII2XyhRZ9tZ5hJExIJCYWhhHPcew/s1600/tumblr_my0zakzQKX1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="200" width="165" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXoYiPRSzSw-jqsRRn5Z8oUTQwg0pUcwMyKonKC5Ea3Lyl2h07Cn3deAnTWC5aqCxGZR7VThMGLUBZ8Le49Stc6ZMruaTK5vcLgVyUQAClANpELoKmaLaDkmsDhdEXzNpeGjbPXNzGHQ/s1600/tumblr_my0zhik1Us1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXoYiPRSzSw-jqsRRn5Z8oUTQwg0pUcwMyKonKC5Ea3Lyl2h07Cn3deAnTWC5aqCxGZR7VThMGLUBZ8Le49Stc6ZMruaTK5vcLgVyUQAClANpELoKmaLaDkmsDhdEXzNpeGjbPXNzGHQ/s1600/tumblr_my0zhik1Us1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="200" width="164" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLx-XYsyZP0umHjEpEC1uX2NmgNiI0TpjW9HHpujA0ntErUqSQUZL2zbomHNnMl0q7DLcA-xHLDFDns9IvS2YfQ9moh6Ic6IBsU-R5vWzN2AEiQqM065IeqvGhUElkbBLO9xRjl_eAg/s1600/tumblr_my0xv2Pt3L1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLx-XYsyZP0umHjEpEC1uX2NmgNiI0TpjW9HHpujA0ntErUqSQUZL2zbomHNnMl0q7DLcA-xHLDFDns9IvS2YfQ9moh6Ic6IBsU-R5vWzN2AEiQqM065IeqvGhUElkbBLO9xRjl_eAg/s1600/tumblr_my0xv2Pt3L1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="200" width="163" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Pythagoras</i> / </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Sandpit </i>/<i> </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Clingfilm and Foil</i>, all 2013, oil on canvas, 51x41cm</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">AS: This looks like new work?</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">BB: These are a set of paintings where I
found a new staining process. I’ve been making up canvases ready for paintings
and I’m going to stain them in different ways. I cover the surface in paint and
then I stand it on an easel with loads of tissue underneath and run stuff down.
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Is it oil paint?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">BB: Yes, and because it’s white spirit and
not turpentine, it splits like this. I have no idea what they’re about any more
than what they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghHyMhrerCz9RgbDW_ujIidAL8-nhazN0_uVhZ1sOHkK6A1BS78iKO6NezTcrcJPVVBPiSNAA4SrPjTb9GiDaShVujIpW5H5jZ6qKFhFebYHDFgVgGFaTrU-7vRnJVrTfXzBZR8rBaVA/s1600/tumblr_mprpqy3ZNx1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghHyMhrerCz9RgbDW_ujIidAL8-nhazN0_uVhZ1sOHkK6A1BS78iKO6NezTcrcJPVVBPiSNAA4SrPjTb9GiDaShVujIpW5H5jZ6qKFhFebYHDFgVgGFaTrU-7vRnJVrTfXzBZR8rBaVA/s1600/tumblr_mprpqy3ZNx1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="640" width="489" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>U-Bend</i>, 2013, oil on board, 29x20cm</td></tr>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="MsoNormal">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: The borders are interesting.</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BB: I have been doing that a lot. It seems
to lift the space. When you make a painting you start with nothing and
sometimes the underpainting is really beautiful and then it goes up and down in
waves. You try to leave the painting at that point where it hits the crest of
the wave before it drops and you have to make it into something else. It goes
from a fresh painting into something laboured, but more beautiful. You have to
go through that process. If you can get within say 20 percent of the top you
just stop because you know you can get it closer but you let the work go. So with
some of these paintings there is just the stain of the original canvas and sometimes
there are marks that keep being worked. Those pieces are often simple in the
end but there is so much underneath that makes it something new. I was trying
to stop early every time and I started thinking that I could do all of them
really light, but in a set of things only two or three might work, and the rest
don’t, so you take those further.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQxOS50h8b-b44Nt_kA2752znUJ3NfRr6rjdjPDcFb8l606N0zQOO0EyLZFNsxd59CMtBgHn75XshdTxeGePoPoRCtMH01uIGbmWjHDshGDN-eaqNLWn-SRDCdc2yjB_jIXvgI3zhYCA/s1600/tumblr_mprpnaF18r1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQxOS50h8b-b44Nt_kA2752znUJ3NfRr6rjdjPDcFb8l606N0zQOO0EyLZFNsxd59CMtBgHn75XshdTxeGePoPoRCtMH01uIGbmWjHDshGDN-eaqNLWn-SRDCdc2yjB_jIXvgI3zhYCA/s1600/tumblr_mprpnaF18r1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="272" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Lonely Chorister</i>, 2013, oil on acrylic panel, 25x30cm</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Have you moved away from the polyhedron-in-landscape paintings?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">BB:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I reached a point where there was no energy to keep making the
landscapes and they were becoming too similar. I like the idea that when I am
50 years old, I could paint whatever I want and so I decided to try it, as an
experiment, and in a way it was damaging because when I started making these
looser paintings, I couldn’t be bothered to make the polyhedron paintings any
more because they are so laboured and these are so quick. I like the freshness
of the newer works, but again, a similar thing started to happen. Because they
were so quick and fresh and fast I would make lots but there was no investment.
So they’re opposites.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0I3Y64GrF5vlXoogmA4vMFf2YsD6Y3AOTOansWxU9Ya0RiD1yj2Yjm3ViEdgvdzG8Bq9-Gkc0kPyodUIzoMmstODthg0NZzvlEWsSM57mJOLV7eNaPkPxpX5EtDGThNU1ciihNEQklA/s1600/tumblr_mnrmanrFdF1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0I3Y64GrF5vlXoogmA4vMFf2YsD6Y3AOTOansWxU9Ya0RiD1yj2Yjm3ViEdgvdzG8Bq9-Gkc0kPyodUIzoMmstODthg0NZzvlEWsSM57mJOLV7eNaPkPxpX5EtDGThNU1ciihNEQklA/s1600/tumblr_mnrmanrFdF1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Doughnut Head</i>, 2013, oil on plywood, 20x15cm</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">AS: Completely different ways of making?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">BB: The later paintings were all wet into
wet, all one layer, very fast, rubbing bits out and painting them back. These
first ones are very representational and I found this tedious. They might be a
millimetre off on one side and then they just don’t work. What I discovered
with the portraits, which I like, is that once you get the eyes, nostrils and mouth
the right size, and the general position on the head, it just works and you can
reduce and reduce and just have those pinpoints. So I trace the image on using
those pinpoints and work from that. Because it has that structure and you can
read faces so easily they just came together. In many ways it was about finding
different ways of pushing the paint around, but having a structure to draw it
all together.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiskIO1Hm9zbalfMzSEPK2O2WSoPkUabUogoW0uMiuk7ax7B_17HWXK3vG595AeVG99qiVUuVkedmIKh5WlvgTdCN8d7qqBivJ0cuySAgynzQI9ZoOA32piDj3cureagE9xHeEa0CUc0Q/s1600/tumblr_mprpdmf4g11rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiskIO1Hm9zbalfMzSEPK2O2WSoPkUabUogoW0uMiuk7ax7B_17HWXK3vG595AeVG99qiVUuVkedmIKh5WlvgTdCN8d7qqBivJ0cuySAgynzQI9ZoOA32piDj3cureagE9xHeEa0CUc0Q/s1600/tumblr_mprpdmf4g11rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="320" width="220" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Major Mellon</i>, 2013, oil on board, 22x15cm</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">AS: When you’re making a tight, specific
painting, I imagine that you have a good idea how it will turn out. Was it a
surprise to do something much freer?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">BB: Definitely. In the polyhedron
paintings, the composition was pre-determined by Photoshop with lots of layers,
choosing even where the shadows would fall. The thing I enjoy so much about
painting those is that the colour ranges would change so much and just become
so different and that became a responsive element. But I started to feel that
the way I applied the paint was quite stiff. It didn’t say anything about the
way paint is. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I started the
portraits, I couldn’t tell where they were going. That was the beauty. There
was room for that sort of experimentation, even with a structure and a guide. A
lot of them are of my boy. He works really well for this because he was so tiny
and the proportions of his face were huge. The paintings of adults are often
much leaner so they become slightly quirky characters. Then, for example, for Major
Melon, I started finding images online that had a particular feel to them. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsC9MdgeFnK7e2rJUdeVLEJue7jKcvtJ_Mb0Amv5dWopqs3H02Kf4rzd4-lSO1j_mgXLjrrtqJ4IqHdcXrhmeZ9QIPz-3DXbl3RO8IHOT5aQ3zexI5sNq3jbXY3iGww1LMo8ah77o-QQ/s1600/tumblr_me7py90Ils1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsC9MdgeFnK7e2rJUdeVLEJue7jKcvtJ_Mb0Amv5dWopqs3H02Kf4rzd4-lSO1j_mgXLjrrtqJ4IqHdcXrhmeZ9QIPz-3DXbl3RO8IHOT5aQ3zexI5sNq3jbXY3iGww1LMo8ah77o-QQ/s1600/tumblr_me7py90Ils1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="522" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Floatstickle</i>, 2012, oil on acrylic panel, 25x30cm</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">AS: Were you looking for something quite
specific in the images?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">BB: Yes, but not something I could necessarily
pin down. I have a very clear idea about what it is and why it interests me but
there are a lot of things that I am painting at the moment. I look at something
and it will seem really important. At University I had been reading books about
the sublime and Edmund Burke, who was a contemporary of Kant, who wrote about
the sublime being a dangerous immense presence that you’re able to be in awe of
at a safe enough distance. At the same time, I discovered photos of volcanic
islands forming near Tonga and I realised that when you see an explosion, it
fits those criteria. If you think about how the world has changed over the last
20 years, particularly since 9/11, our worldview has changed and it’s down to those
images. But I like the erupting volcano images because there is no malice in
them. And there is a sense of them being an incredible force but it’s not about
destruction, it is actually about creation. I have that kind of element when
I’m working on those. I have that very clearly in my mind. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some artists make the same thing, over
and over, and there are subtle differences but they choose a narrow field. I
know why people do it, it’s being specific and homing in on one thing but it
seems so strange to me that that idea remains prevalent. It seems to be such a
modernist idea of the artist genius that has one vision which has to be
revealed, particularly when people are so varied with what they do and their
interests.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8MDCTdRM0QbP62dwOvrv2Wzi2iMyv4yyzFRfMq_j6A1RYwJxCe3wq3aMPyuL2tZF4m01ULFdwsl7NuAURcPqH9hpWAuhnoQL7YMVR2eQa6xKRSjmeiRthCHXkszzSswaknVz3J2Q6tg/s1600/tumblr_mprpjaJKCh1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8MDCTdRM0QbP62dwOvrv2Wzi2iMyv4yyzFRfMq_j6A1RYwJxCe3wq3aMPyuL2tZF4m01ULFdwsl7NuAURcPqH9hpWAuhnoQL7YMVR2eQa6xKRSjmeiRthCHXkszzSswaknVz3J2Q6tg/s1600/tumblr_mprpjaJKCh1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="540" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>She Waited for a Lifetime</i>, 2013, oil on acrylic panel, 16x20cm</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">AS: As well as the varied subject matter,
there is a mixture of painting styles with the softer gestural ground and the graphic,
hard line.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">BB: One of the things I wanted to do with
the new polyhedron paintings is just use one brush mark, wiped off, and then
the polyhedron goes on top. They’re super delicate. You can scratch them with
your nail, and they don’t work bigger than on really quite a small scale
because you have to apply the paint so thin or it could peel off because it’s
on Perspex. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of the finish on
these is a super mat varnish. It makes a huge difference. It brings everything
together, particularly the blacks which are very carbon and dry. I use lamp
black rather than ivory because it’s more consistent. And I like the completely
flat finish. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_SLEjvn4OxttOCpPRIlfTfvmlYIa0eBarmWsuv2b6xYRrsJTV64-Tp7Q66ZgM3uWA9XuskC6V1ZuiCmzKFRrkRovR3n1cvC0ndIKl8LoUXuOwCkZNM4qNkvPXsJmVsCS6-st2zLXHBQ/s1600/tumblr_me7ptqh5pw1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_SLEjvn4OxttOCpPRIlfTfvmlYIa0eBarmWsuv2b6xYRrsJTV64-Tp7Q66ZgM3uWA9XuskC6V1ZuiCmzKFRrkRovR3n1cvC0ndIKl8LoUXuOwCkZNM4qNkvPXsJmVsCS6-st2zLXHBQ/s1600/tumblr_me7ptqh5pw1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="320" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Aether</i>, 2012, oil on acrylic panel, 25x20cm</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">BB: I just use very soft square brushes and
build up the layers. That sky has got about 10 or 15 layers on it, which is why
I was getting frustrated and ended up doing 20 minute portraits. I realised
recently that I just need a mix. It really helps. I like making and sometimes
if I’ve got the energy or drive to do it, I can work on something slower. This
is one of the first ones that I did. A real sci-fi moment. I like this one
because it is all imagined. None of it is from anything. I take a lot of photos
when I’m away. My family think they’re not very interesting but that’s the
point. I find a landscape where I think something is missing and I put my
polyhedron where the thing is missing. That’s what I’m often looking for, that
gap. This is Scafell Pike, that one is in the Alps.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWX35uI2x-753R43DEmTJYP8EmXJxyFsZSM6PBwEVM-l_U8HTcWQa6ORT-6ycTIBen6ZAIUAGHBXwf1T34-2CZnMXuGNSRHJD3AxKOoNXx_6YLfAzTOr30_B0vGa30aDgoNW3I94AUrw/s1600/tumblr_me7q75Verc1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWX35uI2x-753R43DEmTJYP8EmXJxyFsZSM6PBwEVM-l_U8HTcWQa6ORT-6ycTIBen6ZAIUAGHBXwf1T34-2CZnMXuGNSRHJD3AxKOoNXx_6YLfAzTOr30_B0vGa30aDgoNW3I94AUrw/s1600/tumblr_me7q75Verc1rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="534" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sca-mouch</i>, 2012, oil on acrylic panel, 25x30cm</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">AS: Are you a walker?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">BB: Yes, my parents used to drag me to the
Alps when I was younger. At the time, I hated it and now I love it. I go all
the time. I also lived in Austria for a bit, which is part of the mountain
thing. I lived in a castle on top of a mountain. That was nice.</span><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyK5ywtRQwfs26DE2TOSJQvih5fyhvvarQ3HiaM_l7jivpSiPNMIkB5IBK9R7Q9JNb7NKfMblX2lBvDyQGXnniM3Gd-CI-2U5CP4oy3dy_eTVRfY6gXs0z0yJHVQ74jh5JqZL9q-DAnQ/s1600/tumblr_mprpieZcS71rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyK5ywtRQwfs26DE2TOSJQvih5fyhvvarQ3HiaM_l7jivpSiPNMIkB5IBK9R7Q9JNb7NKfMblX2lBvDyQGXnniM3Gd-CI-2U5CP4oy3dy_eTVRfY6gXs0z0yJHVQ74jh5JqZL9q-DAnQ/s1600/tumblr_mprpieZcS71rxdkjzo1_1280.jpg" height="198" width="200" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Base Camp</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, 2013, oil on canvas over board, 20cm</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Rowan Day</i>, 2013, oil on canvas over board, 25cm</span></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Benjamin Bridges' exhibition <i>Pythagoras Adrift</i> opens at dalla Rosa Gallery, 121 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1R 5BY on 14 March - 12 April 2014</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Private View: Thursday, 13 March, 6.30-8.30pm</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">www.benjaminbridges.com</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">www.dallarosagallery.com</span></div>
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Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-81289755043340473002013-10-26T14:54:00.002-07:002013-10-27T01:20:16.885-07:00Mimei Thompson talks to Alli Sharma at Art First Projects, London W1<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRbc7fKlTAmBE3JstEoo-4ik3Whtb1ODGQcVkJIEvCnWYdQ_ghR6WMwB74jCrfTscEsiB_tiPRmwE2omWzHq73Z9lwt5bmGEhp-q8kYMrkrrdfWn_wwZIfI6j1MstSjULWNPtGH8Piw/s1600/Dead+Fly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="449" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRbc7fKlTAmBE3JstEoo-4ik3Whtb1ODGQcVkJIEvCnWYdQ_ghR6WMwB74jCrfTscEsiB_tiPRmwE2omWzHq73Z9lwt5bmGEhp-q8kYMrkrrdfWn_wwZIfI6j1MstSjULWNPtGH8Piw/s640/Dead+Fly.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dead Fly, 2013</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Alli
Sharma</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">: We’re here at your exhibition, in front of
the work. So what came first? I recognize some of the cave paintings?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Mimei
Thompson</span></b><span lang="EN-US">: The two small caves came first, and this
one of the fly. Most of the other works in the show are from the last six
months. This larger cave is a new painting but the series has been ongoing for
a couple of years. I was interested in the cave motif being connected to the
unconscious, and the idea of it being a place where you could retreat to and
come out changed. Or it could be the inside of a body.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: Tell me about your fascination with
insects.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: I have a huge interest in insects.
They’re easily overlooked, or looked at with disgust, but on the other hand,
they’re incredible. One of my main fascinations with insects is their use of
metamorphosis. I was thinking about the cocoon as being like a cave, a place of
transformation. With some insect metamorphoses, the larva will liquefy within
the cocoon, and reform from this liquid into the adult, and I think about this
in relation to painting; there is potential in the substance of paint to become
anything. So, in the works, there is this shifting, transformative matter that
can morph into different forms and blur the boundaries between animal,
vegetable and mineral.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: These marks here are literally swirling
up to form a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Green Man</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: I like these paintings together because
you can see the suggestions of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Green Man</i>
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Buddleia</i>. I simplified the way I
think about my practice recently. I identified a few things both conceptually,
and to do with the technique, that have become fixed points. Working with a
really smooth, white non-absorbent ground and working fast with mostly
translucent paint. In painting, it can feel like there are so many possible
things you can do. For a long time everything was very open, but in the last
few years I feel like I have narrowed it down a bit.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Green Man, 2013</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk7GT56_77PeQXScNjZBGtbDp7ZK_XSBhLY_Y32BzIM74GaaM6ElCI44yGLMUWTYnTqLm6Um0O0EjzXhAOrlBRfSAV_F8HOForcBcL7TIK2QKz_GHuJkU02o2OQj4ykDAxX5O6BFkGfA/s1600/Buddleia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk7GT56_77PeQXScNjZBGtbDp7ZK_XSBhLY_Y32BzIM74GaaM6ElCI44yGLMUWTYnTqLm6Um0O0EjzXhAOrlBRfSAV_F8HOForcBcL7TIK2QKz_GHuJkU02o2OQj4ykDAxX5O6BFkGfA/s320/Buddleia.jpg" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buddleia, 2013</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: I wanted to ask you about the surface
because the paint looks iridescent, almost as if the support itself could be
transparent.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: Getting the working surface right seems
to be a lot of it. It must be non-absorbent. It’s a pre-primed, thin, fine
grained cotton, primed a few times with layers of gesso, sanded and then I add
a few layers of acrylic primer to stop the absorbency. I like the almost
plastic feel. Then I use a lot of Liquin in the oil paint. It makes the shape
hold. If I used oil it would spread. So it makes the oil function a bit more
like acrylic. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgwvNn161-5KGXHwo7Xr4QX_R9632Ls3jocNP4jXXlZM6UfVJaAxH58BRYmAgVObjzeQcUpOzBW7t6Tp01rRQFHX8h0Xqr3b1kjTO4q25mJAgXhU6wbkwp7Tly0SZQSYhBmmyz12d3TA/s1600/Pavement+Tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgwvNn161-5KGXHwo7Xr4QX_R9632Ls3jocNP4jXXlZM6UfVJaAxH58BRYmAgVObjzeQcUpOzBW7t6Tp01rRQFHX8h0Xqr3b1kjTO4q25mJAgXhU6wbkwp7Tly0SZQSYhBmmyz12d3TA/s320/Pavement+Tree.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pavement Tree, 2013</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: So that’s how you get that edge to the
marks. The way you move the brush around to make organic shapes really suits
the subject matter.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MT: I was interested in the natural shape
brushmarks take, as if it they might have grown. There is a trace of something
real in the world, like the surrealists used to do with their rubbings and
different techniques, for instance, Max Ernst’s scraping technique he uses in
his forests. My marks are then emphasized because I give them highlights and
shadows, so the marks themselves, as well as being traces, might exist as
objects within a represented space.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: Do you work on a painting all in one
go?</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: I work on it in one go and then go
back, so there is one layer of working which is really fast and then I go back
to it over a couple of months, working in a detailed way, and sometimes I knock
it all back again, or sometimes it goes too far and I have to abandon the work.
I want that fresh feeling, but then you can also see that its been worked into.
So there is a contrast between something spontaneous and something studied and
detailed. I like that contrast.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: I love your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Asparagus</i>, they always make me think of Manet.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: That was the starting point, and then I
got the exhibition title <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lunar Asparagus</i>
from the Max Ernst sculpture. I can’t remember if the title came before the
paintings. Within the show, the asparagus paintings bring some calmness and
simplicity to the hang, and they have a distilled version of the mark making. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLBA3ZXXnqS2gAxuMYVEzwtlOGezDtNEr9RleHwsTv9PSvN-scVZlcJO36uJKwOrDhfmEdAwyxzyxS0p1SY7s76NkMkBGUzrwu9V_MfWADqp467_nKeExKBULKi8INgov-4dCgGFYeA/s1600/Asparagus+%2528vertical%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLBA3ZXXnqS2gAxuMYVEzwtlOGezDtNEr9RleHwsTv9PSvN-scVZlcJO36uJKwOrDhfmEdAwyxzyxS0p1SY7s76NkMkBGUzrwu9V_MfWADqp467_nKeExKBULKi8INgov-4dCgGFYeA/s400/Asparagus+%2528vertical%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asparagus, 2013</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: You seem to have also developed a
signature palette. Does your use of transparent colours limit what you can use?</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: I suppose the colours I am drawn to
tend to be transparent; I really like Hookers Green and Paynes Grey. Then in
the detailed working I do use opaque paint, too. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: Do you start with an image?</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: I always start with an image, or
collage of images. The weeds are from photos I’ve taken between my house and
the studio. I was interested in looking at neglected corners, with the idea of
finding something transformative in the everyday. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4oD19Xn5mRS1_oUQzHBI_TnAI1CsGJmVtFiv_k7u-YFRLOBvyGwRkqqd_vBvE7CWKj9MDMI-uklspMSCOfTI-ZgA8ypQ6K2C3NpTmtCd8e1WUK7W_izu4q8Fjxghwds9wqMsUlnqapg/s1600/Weeds+%2528Forecourt%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4oD19Xn5mRS1_oUQzHBI_TnAI1CsGJmVtFiv_k7u-YFRLOBvyGwRkqqd_vBvE7CWKj9MDMI-uklspMSCOfTI-ZgA8ypQ6K2C3NpTmtCd8e1WUK7W_izu4q8Fjxghwds9wqMsUlnqapg/s640/Weeds+%2528Forecourt%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Weeds (Forecourt), 2013</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: There is so much space generated in the
paintings. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: The baroque marks need to have space
around them and the very simple illusions of depth help.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: In contrast to say Andy Harper, who
uses a similar technique but fills every inch of the canvas with marks.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b></span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">: Yes, Harper uses a similar kind of mark
making, but the work is about a different kind of sublime, I think. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m often drawn to something a bit mundane.
That’s why I like the fly. It undermines certain traditional notions of romance
or nature. A sense of humour is also important to me, and I want my work to
have a bit of air to breathe. It feels good at the moment, like a pause after
many years of struggle and confusion.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>AS</b>: Maybe you just understand your own
language and recognize that.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>MT</b>: I hope so, and I’m more relaxed about
it. There are things I want to develop but I don’t feel the need to change
everything. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Mimei Thompson</b> is exhibiting at <a href="http://www.artfirst.co.uk/art_first_projects.html">Art First Projects</a>, 21 Eastcastle St, London W1W 8DD</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">until 16 November 2013</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mimeithompson.com/">Mimei Thompson website</a> </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-31698376195476091462013-05-20T04:11:00.001-07:002013-10-26T15:35:56.940-07:00Kate Groobey talks with Nick Nowicki in her Southwark Studio, London<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOh2ciqLaRdNoj0UFuEtz3-DjpMcBIAsysZyRJXTP9vcKSU4C4o1ZiBCeAeum61noWjxf89Z6mezzGY0Mj2Y9JjXzsn-a8knmwUxqE5_pD9XmaDJGZP5jm-O-ES7IcEpc-D4Fi9n-yg/s1600/photo%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOh2ciqLaRdNoj0UFuEtz3-DjpMcBIAsysZyRJXTP9vcKSU4C4o1ZiBCeAeum61noWjxf89Z6mezzGY0Mj2Y9JjXzsn-a8knmwUxqE5_pD9XmaDJGZP5jm-O-ES7IcEpc-D4Fi9n-yg/s400/photo%25281%2529.JPG" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US"><i>Bob’s Trajectory, </i>o</span><span lang="EN-US">il on canvas, 150 x 120cm</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
NN: How much do you feel drawing is
involved in your paintings?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: I don’t know at what point I consider
myself to have moved from drawing to painting. I’ll start line drawings in a
sketchbook, then I’ll add watercolour, and then I’ll chop them up and collage them.
I also photocopy some of them and chop the photocopies up, muddle them around.
Then I’ll draw back from the collages, so they all get churned up.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRpI87B5pT7aOoyStbnbbkpPXcqlhV4j3PCB7n3HNxLMkTzAhEJ9wPCRoC0sBY9-r6y5qaT-G2ggGznhW8Xhv1twKfGj5H488SMO9kcLtZwGGaTb2qCssLuLNDxSXesdimrzTicPeMw/s1600/photo(4).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRpI87B5pT7aOoyStbnbbkpPXcqlhV4j3PCB7n3HNxLMkTzAhEJ9wPCRoC0sBY9-r6y5qaT-G2ggGznhW8Xhv1twKfGj5H488SMO9kcLtZwGGaTb2qCssLuLNDxSXesdimrzTicPeMw/s200/photo(4).JPG" width="148" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: What does the collage aspect help you
with?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: It helps me to surprise myself. It
becomes more an exploratory process where I’m searching out images. Drawing an
image from scratch is not that interesting to me. When I start to chop the
figure up it becomes more exciting and interesting. I’ll start off with a
sketch of a naked character in a particular pose from pictures online, books,
magazines or wherever. I remove the clothes and put some ears on, just to make
it my character. When I was at college I found an old book of small, slightly
pornographic cartoons I’d done in my early twenties. They were kind of a joke
but two of the characters represented my boyfriend and me, and I started using
those while I was at the Royal College. I’ve kept the cat ears, the naked
figure, that weird naked cat character from back then, it’s me essentially, and
that just engages me with the work.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-G69h1qkFVAB7WLzZqJSWhcEyfhe5E483JwiInwHhYJyikLNqes6yYA8o6M48TTrlmP7jOS-8munPpmEpNs4iy2aXAVSxMahq-vRH-vp4dHG72EuHriNcYhsbtJsPO08miXtcBoKpg/s1600/photo%25289%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-G69h1qkFVAB7WLzZqJSWhcEyfhe5E483JwiInwHhYJyikLNqes6yYA8o6M48TTrlmP7jOS-8munPpmEpNs4iy2aXAVSxMahq-vRH-vp4dHG72EuHriNcYhsbtJsPO08miXtcBoKpg/s200/photo%25289%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
NN: They’re always female. Chopping up a
woman can be seen as psychotic. If it was a man doing it
there would be immediate horror wouldn’t there?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Which is why I turn it into my
character and I put these cat ears on. It immediately makes it something other
than human. They’re cartoonized because they’re a line drawing, which again
removes them slightly. When you see a cartoon character cut in half or dropped
from a great height it’s not that distressing is it? I think you can deal with
icky horrible things when you’re doing it through cartoon and through humour
and absurdity. After my operation last year to remove my appendix I got a bit
freaked out about my health so I started going to the gym and you know I enjoy
watching people bending and bulging and stretching their bodies. I’d never been
in hospital before and when I was waiting to go into theatre and lying in bed I
started thinking about really cutting the body open, and I did think about the
fact I cut these bodies up as well. I guess it’s just echoing my interest in
the human body. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WHBF4o0VQnE70mklXGoLMPVtHIh4j1YwYmQi3mGDH-N2sNZul2_cxJEGjmLkwkLq2eW4jyQJIMa4A0qPKqijy8tTYI9QzCRwxPPoCWjBDTpi3gmiScxbWohTrlT6aTRoYiZywQSVoQ/s1600/photo%25285%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WHBF4o0VQnE70mklXGoLMPVtHIh4j1YwYmQi3mGDH-N2sNZul2_cxJEGjmLkwkLq2eW4jyQJIMa4A0qPKqijy8tTYI9QzCRwxPPoCWjBDTpi3gmiScxbWohTrlT6aTRoYiZywQSVoQ/s200/photo%25285%2529.JPG" width="149" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: Has what you’ve been working on started
to change since then?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: I think it’s to early to tell, as I’m
still working on imagery I came up with prior to the operation, but it may be
interesting to see, because autobiographical details that seep in can be
traumatic ones and sometimes points of trauma are the impulse for the work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: Is the cutting, collaging and drawing a
way of building up to a painting?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Yeah, it’s scaffolding towards a big
painting. I tend to have it fairly worked out before I get to the painting
stage, so at the painting stage it’s more copied. My palette is worked out by
then. Because I paint so fluidly and loosely and quickly, if I’ve got the
basics in place that frees me up rather than pins me down, and I can move
through the painting faster.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: Is there a preferred time you like to
work on a painting? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
KG: I was thinking about that on the way
here. One painting I’ve tried about seven or eight times on different canvases,
but another painting worked first time. So some of them I give up, some of them
I’ll keep trying and keep failing and keep trying again, possibly over a year
or longer, it depends, but then even ones that I’ve given up on I’ll try again.
I feel frustrated if I’ve got a good drawing I think should work as a painting,
so it’s frustration that impels me to try again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: Are they always on fresh canvas if you
try again?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: No. I might try five, six, seven
paintings on one canvas. So there’s another image that didn’t work under that
painting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: Is it all covered? Nothing’s showing
through of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: No, under there you see the green and
the mouth and that cloud up there. You can see the teeth and the feet and the
dark blues coming through. I don’t think you’d know there was a different image
underneath, but had I done that without the image underneath it wouldn’t have
worked. The two have collided to kind of create that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6vTFRfOH20I_m6FD07nKPh5YRSjBeZCFYUko5xeI0UlnK2T9vhqlu5mLhJEnF49TrTZ0_ZVjBkIy6qculr8jDQop04kB2eTuPyPywjZJt40ekqubEBJdo8xJ2fSfpCTadb33lLv2aQ/s1600/photo%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6vTFRfOH20I_m6FD07nKPh5YRSjBeZCFYUko5xeI0UlnK2T9vhqlu5mLhJEnF49TrTZ0_ZVjBkIy6qculr8jDQop04kB2eTuPyPywjZJt40ekqubEBJdo8xJ2fSfpCTadb33lLv2aQ/s400/photo%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US"><i>Massive Bob, </i>oi</span><span lang="EN-US">l on canvas, 150 x 120cm</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
NN: They’ve been genetically spliced.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: I like that. Which is what happens at
the drawing level, because you get that cutting and rejoining of two parts, and
so it’s also happening at the painting level, which I think needs to happen for
them not to just be copies – I mean they need to be as spontaneous and as exciting
at this scale.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: So you get that spontaneous drawing
moment feeling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: But I’ve changed my working method
recently. If they haven’t worked I give up on them more easily and move onto a
different image. Before, I was getting bogged down trying to make one image and
one canvas work, and what I’m trying to come to terms with at the moment is the
things that work do so beyond your control. So as soon as you think ‘Ah that
worked, I’ll just be able to do that again!’ it doesn’t work like that. You’re
always in that really precarious place, having no control. So I’m trying to let
go, which I find quite difficult but that’s the way it is I guess. It feels like
I’m stabbing around in the dark a lot of the time. You just have to accept it’s
a one in ten or one in twenty occurrence. I guess really it’s a war of
attrition, my new method.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: What does that mean?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Well, that most of them will fail. Rather
than fiddling with one painting trying to make it work, the more that fail, I
might have twenty goes and one might work. So it’s a numbers thing. I’ve always
had the same problem. In Jujitsu the idea is when you’re fighting if you try
something and it doesn’t work on your opponent there’s no point trying to make that
one thing work. You’ve got to quickly switch and do something else to take them
by surprise, because they’re not just going to stand there while you try and
throw them on the floor in this one movement. You’ve got to change your
tactics. So thinking like that in terms of painting, rather than labouring away
at making one thing work I’m trying to switch more quickly. Every day I’m
coming in and painting a different image.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: The scale has gone smaller, more
intimate, hasn’t it? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: They’re not intimate paintings I
suppose, because of the scale, but they’re coming from very small, intimate, quick
hand to paper drawings, which I like. David Rayson said they’re big paintings
but they look smaller than they are. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: What makes you want to do them large rather
than stick with what is literally an intimate size?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: I guess it’s the physicality. I
wouldn’t say I’m a sporty person - I’m going back to autobiography here - but
I’ve always done quite a lot of sports. So I think physicality is quite
important to me and it’s perhaps why I stick with the figure as the base for
the work. At a large scale it allows me to bring that physicality into the
work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: How do you paint them?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: They’re painted on the floor so it’s
quite a physical job to lean over and actually make the things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: It makes it like drawing again if
you’re on a horizontal surface.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Yeah, and because I start with
watercolour, in order to recreate in oil what happens with watercolour I make
the paint quite turps-heavy and you can’t do that with it upright because it
just drips. That process of translation from watercolour to oil only really
works for me flat. For ages I was trying to do them upright and then suddenly I
did them on the floor and it was like ‘Yes!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihG7P3SuwAc-Yn7SoXMhwQHIDspV4b50TbyoGAVwbS1jFs_a-bgkpdn6eU_O5gv4teINIGCjqAGVcPpxv6LjUv46xeqCsfsuwBblDf7MU7qrxjQjMOHa74nCrzAXtqMHmRhFT4uDDVhA/s1600/photo%25288%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihG7P3SuwAc-Yn7SoXMhwQHIDspV4b50TbyoGAVwbS1jFs_a-bgkpdn6eU_O5gv4teINIGCjqAGVcPpxv6LjUv46xeqCsfsuwBblDf7MU7qrxjQjMOHa74nCrzAXtqMHmRhFT4uDDVhA/s200/photo%25288%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a>NN: You’re actually in those contorted
positions when making them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Yeah, so there’s this weird echoing of
the imagery in the making.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: I can’t help but link it back to the
very beginning when they were the little drawings ...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: ... of the cat woman. I find those
little connections pleasurable. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgc5VeEvDJRgXy0moyl3Dsq2aLDVTU_pBhCXZzOUgXj_fFR9GhIdVCQ4-N_Rn8MqxuWINpWAVGTQhCBgyw4Z-rDT6l1Ca25rQrCImJDfXfm-64qy1EfBI3cCjtVMm-uDQzKYp76r8ZWg/s1600/photo%252810%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgc5VeEvDJRgXy0moyl3Dsq2aLDVTU_pBhCXZzOUgXj_fFR9GhIdVCQ4-N_Rn8MqxuWINpWAVGTQhCBgyw4Z-rDT6l1Ca25rQrCImJDfXfm-64qy1EfBI3cCjtVMm-uDQzKYp76r8ZWg/s200/photo%252810%2529.JPG" width="149" /></a><span lang="EN-US">NN: The figures are almost like a
decorative motif. They stop being a figure and they are a figure. They’re in-between.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: The figure dissolves into design and
motif.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: It could be a tail or it could be a
penis, that’s recurring quite a lot. Is that because of the collage process?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Yeah. I tend to work in series. With my
new studio I’ve got a bit more space so I can put them all out. I like the fact
that you can see these motifs occurring, so the mouth there become the piano
keys here. They all relate to each other because these motifs have been cut up
and rearranged. I tend to think of these paintings together in my mind. This
new studio’s quite good for being able to see them as a whole series.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: It just makes it so intense. You’re
making a statement having them that way, that they are all interlinked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: I’m spelling it out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: It makes the being in the paintings
more real to me. It becomes a physical thing because I can see the changes. It
hasn’t just occurred in one piece of work and that’s it, it’s a real thing
that’s changed. So it’s like seeing it in different seasons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: I think it’s the same for me, like a
story. I like that idea of bringing these characters to life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIsx-U3BkAPuPz7ExlAt8YEXTfCHipTOdlqi0tnunbs26bpfO_aOvpXnLRsdbkAhiZde5W5otm_xNtsxe4c237-hOwnNlB0oBzocNcjL_iKZyBM4q6MoKQAFqljqSpNhS6moOiCqBn7Q/s1600/photo%25283%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIsx-U3BkAPuPz7ExlAt8YEXTfCHipTOdlqi0tnunbs26bpfO_aOvpXnLRsdbkAhiZde5W5otm_xNtsxe4c237-hOwnNlB0oBzocNcjL_iKZyBM4q6MoKQAFqljqSpNhS6moOiCqBn7Q/s400/photo%25283%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: But they’re slippery. You still can’t
really see them exactly or figure out what they are. They haven’t cheery faces
or anything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: No, but the fact that they’re slippery,
perhaps that helps to bring them to life. In real life things are slippery I
think. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: And then also there’s the background
which could be representational of tiling and a laboratory space, or could be
again an abstract formal thing of crosses. That recurs a lot in everything from
the drawings onwards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: That cropped up in my first series, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cutting Mat</i> series, and I kept it because
it’s a useful device and...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: ... it’s an echo of the cutting mat as in
collage. I’m sorry. That kind of limits it doesn’t it? If I start saying ‘That
means that and that means that.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: It doesn’t. It’s a continuation, as it
all is. Elements of the figures have come from the drawings from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cutting Mat</i>, so there is a
continuation with some of the motifs and imagery. I took one or two of those
drawings and I kept collaging and added new elements, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bobs Trajectory</i> is the same with the arm bending over as one of my
first series ones. And then that arm and those bulbous round things were
carried over, so there’s quite a few things that have been taken forward, but
that’s how I work, things get recycled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpKwUO-n_s4IWjeR8XHXlZZ5j7S8s-XBzFENEYi8ryJVeGLqkPKIpnhFXyfe1pRJ7SaZhH-brNVpUxcA-eav0ML1s9VsXvhGf8LtEdr0yKdnX5R4MAdOvEkRapyeZKV0Mm4jM_yA4xA/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpKwUO-n_s4IWjeR8XHXlZZ5j7S8s-XBzFENEYi8ryJVeGLqkPKIpnhFXyfe1pRJ7SaZhH-brNVpUxcA-eav0ML1s9VsXvhGf8LtEdr0yKdnX5R4MAdOvEkRapyeZKV0Mm4jM_yA4xA/s400/photo.JPG" width="343" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span lang="EN-US">Half Lord of the Fishes</span></i><span lang="EN-US">, oil on canvas, 150 x 130cm</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: And new things pop in?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Yeah, so this thing, well I don’t often
say this …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: … the trumpety thing …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: ... it was a saxophone from when I went on a
residency in Italy and I became friends with a saxophonist. I did a sketch of
that, and then brought it in as a new element, but it’s not interesting to me
to see a saxophone. That’s why it gets chopped up - the same as with the human
body, not that interesting - but once you start to chop it all up and mix it
around I stop thinking of it as a saxophone. I think of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bob’s Trajectory</i> as being a mad chef in a kitchen and I think of
that as being a knife, and that’s not a saxophone anymore, it’s a plate or something.
I enjoy bending my imagination with them, but often there’s an autobiographical
moment that’s a trigger for the work and then it moves on from there, but I
think having that moment – that’s what engages me initially with the work and with
the imagery.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBRRagqGu7NnAPafnmcUi-I9KzV-hIPU87z3JAlJX6JXd6MLuiv9KnMxRGYFv25BZvb-VDgMGpvuC0nxw_o5pdiUZ8hdDak7qByVn4sTsNEW6iPRMUzXMnNUP7n_z59d0AzcfYcamWA/s1600/photo%25286%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBRRagqGu7NnAPafnmcUi-I9KzV-hIPU87z3JAlJX6JXd6MLuiv9KnMxRGYFv25BZvb-VDgMGpvuC0nxw_o5pdiUZ8hdDak7qByVn4sTsNEW6iPRMUzXMnNUP7n_z59d0AzcfYcamWA/s200/photo%25286%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: How important is it that the viewer
picks up on the personal and autobiographical?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Oh its not and I usually wouldn’t
mention it. That’s a kind of insight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Hopefully the work is convincing and the
viewer is compelled or won over by it for reasons they can’t put their finger on.
It’s as open for me as for a viewer. There’s no one interpretation that’s
decisive. Everyone has their own take on it, me included, and often the artist’s
opinion about their work is the dullest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: The titles of the work also leave it
open.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">KG: Purposefully. Quite often the titles
I’ve picked from books I’m reading. So they’re notes to self really. Kind of
private thoughts I suppose on how I view the work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">NN: Yeah, I think that’s a nice way of
putting it. It returns to the idea of looking in the sketchbook and being
intimate and you come across a little note in a corner like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bob.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHth3iaTM04tHjCGYxclWfm_LlBVMwQn6s8S8sMxTH5L4Iczu5qFyjsBPzBrFsH622nCADW1eWkS7D6_SUP5WzprOYI1Aarlht_OouSm0k-imjZYN5S-93eOSMzABtrCIFRTSaOK1Kw/s1600/photo%25287%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHth3iaTM04tHjCGYxclWfm_LlBVMwQn6s8S8sMxTH5L4Iczu5qFyjsBPzBrFsH622nCADW1eWkS7D6_SUP5WzprOYI1Aarlht_OouSm0k-imjZYN5S-93eOSMzABtrCIFRTSaOK1Kw/s200/photo%25287%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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KG: Also Bob in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Adder</i>. They had that character and she was called Kate and
they dressed her up as a boy and called her Bob. That’s a private joke to
myself.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">NN: You know, that’s funny, because I was
thinking how your figures start off as women, but by the end they sort of look
more like men.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">KG: Sometimes men, sometimes animals. Maybe
its because they’re standing with their legs far apart in unfeminine poses. The
reclining nude, the demure female nude. They’re not that. Because they’re
bending, stretching, they look more active. I think that’s why. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Massive Bob</i> reminds me of Elvis Presley
in his later years in his white all-in-one outfit with the collar up ...</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">NN: ... and the sideburns.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">KG: And had he got a bit overweight at that
stage? I was a big Presley fan when I was young. But really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Massive Bob</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bob’s Trajectory</i> are connected to pendulums, the bob’s trajectory
is the swing of the pendulum, and a massive bob is </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the
weight that swings on a stick to make up a pendulum, maybe a clock pendulum, so
in a grandfather clock it's the massive bob swinging to and fro that's making
the thing tick tock.</span><span lang="EN-US"> That whole series had time as a
title theme. Sometimes I’ll google something and find titles that way. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm1HaD0UBodItuXBFUXUnTYE9Cwl2EGByq8h02Ko7JGOcqzRBpaD0LuEsayynOlgiGPw5D_0tBipEioHzSK6j1DfxtpI2mg47IeELT9d6Vhsl572OloIrauQO-VcAshJXZnOiqIF4K8Q/s1600/Pendulum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm1HaD0UBodItuXBFUXUnTYE9Cwl2EGByq8h02Ko7JGOcqzRBpaD0LuEsayynOlgiGPw5D_0tBipEioHzSK6j1DfxtpI2mg47IeELT9d6Vhsl572OloIrauQO-VcAshJXZnOiqIF4K8Q/s200/Pendulum.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">NN: What made you google time?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">KG: One of the images looked like a juggler
and I googled juggler and one of the juggling moves was called Pendulum and at
that point I looked up pendulum. So it was stumbled upon. Again my titles
happen a bit like my collaging, they’re exploratory ...</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">NN: ... like a collage of perceptions or
thought.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">KG: I like that, and I think that’s how my
brain works.</span></div>
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<b>Kate Groobey is currently exhibiting at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.creeksideopen.org/">Creekside Open 2013 Part 1</a></i>, selected by
Paul Noble, APT Gallery, Deptford until 26 May 2013, Thurs-Sun, 12 noon-5pm</b></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-46773184624984430772012-06-07T05:02:00.001-07:002013-10-26T15:36:17.068-07:00Kim Baker talks to Alli Sharma at her studio in Bow, E3<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Garden 5, 2012</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: A lot of my work
is in Newcastle so what I have here are new paintings, some still in progress, for
a touring exhibition, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/needles_eye.html">Needle’s Eye</a>,</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> which
was at Transition, London and will open at </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.bayart.org.uk/programme/programme.htm">BayArt</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Cardiff in September, which
is my hometown so I’m quite pleased about that.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Do you work on
lots of things at the same time?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: You have to be
careful, sometimes you can spread yourself too thinly and everything gets
watered down. Often I have to put things away and focus on one piece to resolve
it. But I like it when you’re making works together and they leapfrog over each
other. Like this one; I realised that I need to work on the background; it’s
too thin and unfinished. The second one is similar but I prefer it because there is
more of a sense of space. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: When did you start
painting flowers?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: I started doing
landscapes, and they still are landscapes actually, in 2007 with the whole dark
garden idea. I showed the first painting in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/painting_room/thepaintingroom_home.html">The Painting Room</a></i> at Transition, funnily enough. It’s all part of the same
series, but I’m simply trying to explore different elements. I like dark and magical
things, not witchcraft, more folklore. I look at a lot of films and I have lots
of different ideas and influences that I try to pull together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dark Garden, 2007</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: The way you talk
about dark landscape, I’m immediately thinking of forests, literally dark
spaces. But when I look at the paintings, I think of roses that have been
plucked and displayed, but that’s not how you want them to be seen?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: I don’t mind so
long as people don’t see them as simple flower paintings. In my head, I have an
image of a painting I want to do and quite often it doesn’t end up like that.
In fact, the way I work is that they often don’t work for quite a long time. You
can see I scrubbed most of that one off last week because I’m going to start
again, just keeping elements of it. I think paintings tend to work when they
take on their own life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Is that how some
parts of the paintings look more developed and others blurred and left open?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: A lot of my works
are painted over previous paintings so I’ll hold onto a work if I’m not too
sure about it and pull it out a year later. I like that you can see the other
painting coming through. What I realised is that I can keep this one-go,
gestural, sweeping mark-making, and the painting underneath gives it more
complexity, which is all part of the finished thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: The large gestures
give a lot of energy and movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: I’m trying to link
everything that makes me want to do these and again, when I was young I was
going to pursue a career playing violin in an orchestra and then I had a change
of heart and decided to pursue art instead and I studied <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=kandinsky&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=0pXQT6-xFMeXhQfciqn3Cw&ved=0CGoQsAQ&biw=1028&bih=826">Kandinsky</a> and the
colour theories and movement and all that. Kandinsky’s quite basic, the
theories aren’t exactly rocket science but it made me think about rhythm and
colours and often, paintings that interest me are paintings that dance with
movement, rhythm and a pulse of their own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Did you move into
more specific flowers from those earlier landscapes?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: I started looking
at 17<sup>th</sup> century Dutch flower paintings. I came across a female Dutch
painter called <a href="http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-2338?lang=en&context_space=&context_id=">Rachel Ruysch</a> and started some small studies. For me, art
history is important and relevant. I enjoy these small paintings because
whatever you do that’s more or less it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Your flowers could
also be funerial, maybe that’s an intention, so it isn’t too pretty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: That was exactly
the intention. Although they’re paintings of flowers, they’re quite angsty to
make. There are still the same concerns whether flowers, birds or whatever. To
me, painting is painting. It’s not what you do, it’s what you do with it. I’ve had
reservations about using flowers as a motif for painting, but I love colour,
and they are just part of my exploration. It became a challenge to do something
different and I thought to hell with it I’m going to make them my own and eventually
it turned out that I actually enjoy doing them. I saw the <a href="http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/february-12-2009--cy-twombly">Cy Twombly</a> exhibition
at Gagosian in 2009 and it reinforced my belief that you could do massive,
brilliant roses. I loved it. But I was disappointed that they were quite flat
in the flesh, they looked matt. He was using acrylic and I thought they could
be jucier. My absolute favourite artist is <a href="http://www.howard-hodgkin.com/">Howard Hodgkin</a>. I prefer his smaller
paintings as they feel more intense and intimate. I like the way he paints the
frames and incorporates them so that the whole thing is quite exciting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Memento Mori 1, 2011</i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: I can see how big, colourful blooms have obvious appeal for a painter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: The use of colour in nature and flowers provide fantastic contrasts so you’ve got a murky dark green background, then you’ve got these big flashes of colour coming through and to me that’s really exciting. I’ve also got drawings of trees with sweeping branches so I’m interested in incorporating all these different elements. Last year I made bird paintings, I’ve only got one here to show you. I’ve always liked the idea of a portal, especially with the bigger paintings. When you’ve got a big painting, the idea for me is that it pulls you in, or at least it makes you move naturally around the whole image. So the idea with the woods, which I did with the birds last year, is that they pull you in so you have the feeling of some creepiness of what the hell is that in the background.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: You initially focus
on the bird, the colourful part, then you’re led into the painting. It’s a device.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: That’s exactly what I’m doing. It doesn’t matter to me what birds they are. In fact, the reason I chose the birds was for the colours.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Bird Painting 2, 2011</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQf5VjUxzEuNZYs0CFYgoIrLAzZ_ApOG42oSMZHzBvZ_fgVf2cESH6RPgT4eSab7sHL5Bzla2rrIOl1jjvi-ZGsECpyXPJjiF-36rcNuClqtvet5mAILgLVoRGDpirg9uPwnY-E8LSMQ/s1600/bird-painting-1-sfw-85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQf5VjUxzEuNZYs0CFYgoIrLAzZ_ApOG42oSMZHzBvZ_fgVf2cESH6RPgT4eSab7sHL5Bzla2rrIOl1jjvi-ZGsECpyXPJjiF-36rcNuClqtvet5mAILgLVoRGDpirg9uPwnY-E8LSMQ/s200/bird-painting-1-sfw-85.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Bird Painting 1, 2011</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Is it a challenge
to keep the colour fresh? You could easily end up with all that gesture, energy
and colour in a sludgy mess.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: I admire artists
who work wet on wet. I’m not so happy doing it. I work in stages, I do an
initial sketch, leave it to completely dry then work on it again, let it dry
and just keep going. Having said that, I’m actually quite brutal and
aggressive. I think there comes a moment with painting sometimes when you need
that aggression to do something drastic. You can pussyfoot about with it for a
year and it can still annoy you. Then one day you come in and put everything
you’ve got and just whack it and quite often that is how I get them to work.
But, you need to know in your head what it is you need to do to that painting.
So, although I might not be painting, I’m still thinking about how I am going
to resolve things. I don’t do sketches or studies. Again, I think it dilutes
what goes onto the canvas. For me, part of a successful painting is when you
can actually see a struggle, it makes the painting more interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Because you want
things to dry quickly, presumably acrylic would be ideal?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: It’s too flat and
synthetic. It’s taken me many years to get to the point where I know how to mix
my oil paints, and to make it dry quicker I use siccative. You have to be
careful because if you mix too much in it will keep drying and crack your paint
over time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiji362BKEBpG8r3GAcGcBBY5pQIRWBze9YRq6-fFwRQIj-6JKsUJl3SOaW-rSSrwLJ_YhItA4HLkP1NpxFhJxLIw08S1z6zNogMBG_StBAqldg1xPdsk5FZbg8H9TmqFWdlmohRVmzUg/s1600/memento-mori-13-sfw-86.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiji362BKEBpG8r3GAcGcBBY5pQIRWBze9YRq6-fFwRQIj-6JKsUJl3SOaW-rSSrwLJ_YhItA4HLkP1NpxFhJxLIw08S1z6zNogMBG_StBAqldg1xPdsk5FZbg8H9TmqFWdlmohRVmzUg/s400/memento-mori-13-sfw-86.jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Memento Mori 13, 2011</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: So what's your own relationship with landscape and nature?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: When I was a kid I
used to do a lot of walking in Wales. Then, in my foundation year, we drove up
to a quarry in the middle of some woods and you’ve got these great big craters
of rocks going all the way down and its quite dramatic. I think that sparked my
whole interest in shapes and rocks, landscape and trees. It felt secretive; you
could disappear for a while, and quite creepy because the holes were deep. I’m
not sure what it was for to be honest. All I remember are four or five
different big, massive holes in the ground and then all these trees everywhere,
very dramatic. I like drama. I’m not what you could describe as a quiet
painter. I do love subtle quiet paintings but I accept that my paintings are
more of a performance. I look at everything, landscapes, flowers, anything with
shapes that suggest movement and random things like dresses. Bernini’s
sculpture, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Saint_Teresa">The Ecstasy of St Teresa</a></i>; it’s beautiful because it’s flowing but
marble and there are all these folds and its quite sensual. When I paint
flowers I often think of <a href="http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/dekooning/archives/category/themes">de Kooning</a> and abstraction and even <a href="http://www.gagosian.com/artists/cecily-brown/artist-exhibitions">Cecily Brown</a>. I
like the idea of the flowers being fleshy because they are quite sexual in some
ways. I went to Kew Gardens last year. Did you see the tropical garden
exhibition? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9U7yZNIPRF13cCV9iq01cCNmSy1vgI-MVQzwNukOBJ5kXR3RRNqftABVogrNaDSKEDKWT3JlGklGuZKr0c6EyyayAGlzBaFj0_pJRsa-aceULw7G3FQ2Fss7T-_aVNjfSgpKzYVUhw/s1600/IMG_5361.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9U7yZNIPRF13cCV9iq01cCNmSy1vgI-MVQzwNukOBJ5kXR3RRNqftABVogrNaDSKEDKWT3JlGklGuZKr0c6EyyayAGlzBaFj0_pJRsa-aceULw7G3FQ2Fss7T-_aVNjfSgpKzYVUhw/s320/IMG_5361.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Was that in one of
the glasshouses? I wish I’d seen it. I like the idea of glasshouses where
things are forced and grown artificially.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: To be honest, I
didn’t like that idea. I thought things should be natural but when I got there
it was all set up and I thought, hang on, this is interesting, you’ve got a man
made thing and nature working together. There were spherical bouquets and shapes
with arches of flowers. Again, for me, it was movement, because a lot of my
paintings have this arch going on. The thing is with nature, there is so much
scope, it’s really exciting, different ideas and ways of doing things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHN0P_wvkXyvw8Jc2eiHdylzQBv4kcXTwaiAlliEW_y8kNSrkocJzbwiv2Ue3R9WVRDIsuJBcFHMbZHRMM-QzK0cjQjsjNowWal4ks2paDoV7bw1DF0qiisKkDgRZ6tFME5YvMOIeHDQ/s1600/untitled-48-sfw-750-43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHN0P_wvkXyvw8Jc2eiHdylzQBv4kcXTwaiAlliEW_y8kNSrkocJzbwiv2Ue3R9WVRDIsuJBcFHMbZHRMM-QzK0cjQjsjNowWal4ks2paDoV7bw1DF0qiisKkDgRZ6tFME5YvMOIeHDQ/s400/untitled-48-sfw-750-43.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Memento Mori 6, 2011</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Have you got a
garden?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KB: No I don’t and I
love gardens. I think that’s because I live in such a concrete environment,
it’s like a release and a way of trying to balance things and bring a little
bit of life and nature into London. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kim Baker will be
exhibiting in <i>Needle’s Eye</i> at <a href="http://www.bayart.org.uk/homepage.html">BayArt</a>, Cardiff 22 Sep – 19 Oct 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also see <a href="http://www.opus-art.com/artists/KimBaker">Opus Art</a> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.kimbaker.co.uk/">www.kimbaker.co.uk</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-39903405244140297442012-02-01T02:13:00.000-08:002012-02-01T06:38:01.135-08:00Miho Sato talks to Alli Sharma at her studio in Bow, London E3<div style="text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpaDqYjDhKNBaNetgtByYmx1tyNbjNqn4arYqt6qS8x157QZaGQPOQEhedZl-kqA7Ul-1rTQ50YvHk37nT02jCLn0eBO8f4s3tNCuDdyqN_BZ0s2EI_TrMyulAOoXbwJISohvVasdQhw/s1600/russian+actress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpaDqYjDhKNBaNetgtByYmx1tyNbjNqn4arYqt6qS8x157QZaGQPOQEhedZl-kqA7Ul-1rTQ50YvHk37nT02jCLn0eBO8f4s3tNCuDdyqN_BZ0s2EI_TrMyulAOoXbwJISohvVasdQhw/s400/russian+actress.jpg" width="366" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Russian Actress, 2012</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: It’s interesting how little detail is
needed to recognize your <i>Moomin</i>. I guess that is the theme of the exhibition,
<i>Minimal Excess</i>.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXneRrmKe9tFR5NiV48oXmui86qn-cP-hD8Dz-Cfz7vLQJAHLP0YMk5SHFJ_M3Lu4jylZBD9mJJusVBSCHj_vgT686wlFUAQelWC_1_i5T_7lGWkjxHMQQbxUBDQYz-a9mNCCwfiSeQw/s1600/06_Moomin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXneRrmKe9tFR5NiV48oXmui86qn-cP-hD8Dz-Cfz7vLQJAHLP0YMk5SHFJ_M3Lu4jylZBD9mJJusVBSCHj_vgT686wlFUAQelWC_1_i5T_7lGWkjxHMQQbxUBDQYz-a9mNCCwfiSeQw/s200/06_Moomin.jpg" width="144" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Moomin, 2005</i></span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: Yes, I have made three <i>Moomins</i>, all
different sizes. The first, in 2003, was bigger and on thick paper. For <i>Minimal
Excess</i> I have a new painting, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Russian
Actress</i>, and a slightly older one, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Complexity
of Adulthood 3</i>, 2009.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I had the image for </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Russian Actress</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> for quite a long time. The actress and actor are together in a romantic scene from an old film. I have never watched the film but I saw part of it and I wanted to use it. I just found the image again a few days ago. She has this covering, like a Muslim lady. The focus was on the actor, so maybe she was not so important, but I just picked that up. I often choose things with a covering. I like something hidden, or hooded. I tried many times to paint a nun. I have been interested in this image since I was a child, but it is most difficult, so I keep collecting the images.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrB4qw21Er8Co8toxbRRJSqMt1oP9qwjW-ieIZFsHZxsJ4hupqD0528fwjvYytxEBesDM9Evhkz_zEWgn4eZkT8jlTb-z0xOytyKrOBHwCw0FrwHDP0tJVLSTPm8_O-4kDpnBEpIwgeA/s1600/comlexity_of_adulthood3%252Cjpg-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrB4qw21Er8Co8toxbRRJSqMt1oP9qwjW-ieIZFsHZxsJ4hupqD0528fwjvYytxEBesDM9Evhkz_zEWgn4eZkT8jlTb-z0xOytyKrOBHwCw0FrwHDP0tJVLSTPm8_O-4kDpnBEpIwgeA/s200/comlexity_of_adulthood3%252Cjpg-1.jpeg" width="150" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Complexity of Adulthood 3, 2009</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Is Complexity of Adulthood 3 painted from a model you have made yourself?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: No, it is from a children’s Ladybird book. The book was about how to make a rabbit. It had lovely illustrations. I have used one before for a girl skipping. It doesn’t look like the actual illustration, but the colour is something I pick up. At the moment I use more green and grey, which is a lot of colour for me.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: It looks like you build up layers in the painting. I can see in there was something quite dark underneath?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: I always use a dark background then paint over.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Is there something in particular that you look for in images? There is blankness in the paintings, and lack of detail.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: Oh, they had more detail. The rabbit in the book had eyes and a pocket so I reduced it to get it how I wanted.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Are these ideas for paintings? </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Troll</span></i></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: I started this a while ago when I was a
student at the Royal Academy. It is called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Troll</i>.
It was a fire that I picked up from a Magritte painting. There was a flame and
I cut it and used it and changed it to the troll. Last year I wanted to look at
it again. I’m interested in the image so I keep trying it out, like with the
Moomins. It is not so successful yet so I will try to do something another way.
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: The trolls, moomins and gonks link with
a Western idea of Japanese artists looking at cute, cartoon types of imagery,
like anime or kawaii. Do you see any connection?</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju47J9hxtplZLdOcml3zoPkIhvzjWhNRIexi34k9M-2Y-Za45O0HVKwvL3qmkMWYuIvq-PS63SJh_QLBWsaI8EtuOkw8s6DKwWuGrk-CyVsIGnxj1YdumSF0ekQATzFmVf92vWie-NuA/s1600/girl_with_white_dress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju47J9hxtplZLdOcml3zoPkIhvzjWhNRIexi34k9M-2Y-Za45O0HVKwvL3qmkMWYuIvq-PS63SJh_QLBWsaI8EtuOkw8s6DKwWuGrk-CyVsIGnxj1YdumSF0ekQATzFmVf92vWie-NuA/s200/girl_with_white_dress.jpg" width="138" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Girl with White Dress, 2008</i></span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: I’m sure there is a connection but not
on purpose. For my generation in the 1970s and 1980s everything was
Americanised. I grew up in Japan with Tom and Jerry, Sesame Street and American
animation programmes. When I was a child, the bank gave you a souvenir calendar
every year and I found a similar kitschy calendar in Slovakia recently. This
kind of thing was given free in Japan and it gives me a nice feeling. I used to
collect them. I grew up with these images, yes images with big eyes. But I
don’t paint eyes. It’s not about that. It would become obvious, that is why I
reduce.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: I like these short-haired, flat
brushes, are they traditional Japanese brushes?</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: Yes, they are for DIY, for sticking
glue on Japanese paper doors. When I was a child almost all families had these,
so they are very comfortable for me. I think it is natural brush. It works well
with acrylic and water. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglsp_xorw3t_Ogu6WRA92o08gJo8uoFK47gMor17dLMH6y6I3JlAyi2eGQvyvW-r5bil2ZBwTnxNrhBfBToOLVqZKyTIK0N2NdplOHJWwkYp6roXDnIGq_T8Tc9EeBcPztSis91PdaVw/s1600/paperwristband.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglsp_xorw3t_Ogu6WRA92o08gJo8uoFK47gMor17dLMH6y6I3JlAyi2eGQvyvW-r5bil2ZBwTnxNrhBfBToOLVqZKyTIK0N2NdplOHJWwkYp6roXDnIGq_T8Tc9EeBcPztSis91PdaVw/s200/paperwristband.jpg" width="131" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Paper Wristband, 2009</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Do you have a regular working pattern?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: I draw first. Sometimes I have images
for a long time that I can use, like the Russian actress. But sometimes, like
the Moomin, I know that I want to paint it so then I try to find the image.
Normally I use images that already exist but last year I painted <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paper Wristband</i>, and it was an abstract
image that I took on my phone. When I go to the gym, they give you a paper
wristband. I had seen Man Ray’s lampshade painting and I was interested in the
shape. Also, in Slovakia, I showed a painting called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ceiling</i>, which came from a photo of a lampshade in my flat and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Holes</i> is from my studio wall, so that
kind of thing.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisr1b_PUhXaql08WOuuDEamPFMbZRZ8_Qjkify_4-wkR2Hl2kEcCI2K-iMdQ-5m88bNelKFzd69eRe5W6I17nC_liJsu9n9HZ0e0mdIUOBRSVYAxmBC5Zouy9RMAxsaZqjroOerNsl2A/s1600/holes2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisr1b_PUhXaql08WOuuDEamPFMbZRZ8_Qjkify_4-wkR2Hl2kEcCI2K-iMdQ-5m88bNelKFzd69eRe5W6I17nC_liJsu9n9HZ0e0mdIUOBRSVYAxmBC5Zouy9RMAxsaZqjroOerNsl2A/s200/holes2012.jpg" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Holes, 2012</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: Shape is important?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: I don’t know what I’m interested in
because each thing is different and something I want to do. I’m not interested
in figure. It’s more abstract, searching for what I want in paint. I think
everything is related in how I paint them. The lampshade was something I
wanted, so is it shape? Somehow, it is those things altogether. When I paint,
there is something I want to make fit, but it doesn’t quite match, and I’m not
satisfied so then I have to do it again and again. Sometimes, when I concentrate,
without thinking so much, it works. When I get more logical and think back, its
not so satisfying. So it doesn’t come all the time. I struggle then I try
again. Sometimes I spend a lot of time, then I do the same painting with
another board and it works.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: I wonder if it gets harder, to get into
that spontaneous position, because you know so much about how you work.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfgPddwNNfujiRrX2-aU9EFRfmsGPNGtGCWPj0rJCksHtppJuX1Pr6G0jpvGzCoAlRWEDR32yoQUTGmhLKRtW8IBJct2kj_Kbtgx5T6SBKbY5lEaDfFc3r27rHjbnxaoIqcTLYz0KWgg/s1600/ms_%2528aunt%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfgPddwNNfujiRrX2-aU9EFRfmsGPNGtGCWPj0rJCksHtppJuX1Pr6G0jpvGzCoAlRWEDR32yoQUTGmhLKRtW8IBJct2kj_Kbtgx5T6SBKbY5lEaDfFc3r27rHjbnxaoIqcTLYz0KWgg/s400/ms_%2528aunt%2529.jpg" width="328" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Aunt, 2008</i></span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: That is why, when I start working on a
painting, the image is always more strange, because I don’t already know anything
myself. I want to have that kind of fresh spirit. I work on one painting at a
time, but sometimes I struggle so then I start another and come back later.
This painting is called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aunt</i>. It is
from a magazine photograph of an Italian grandmother, but she looks like how I
imagine my grandmother.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AS: So there is a very personal connection,
like the things you grew up with? </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MS: Yes, definitely there is something. It
is always a personal thing but there are different elements as well, mixed
together. My friend gave me this old fashioned Japanese cloth when I went to
Japan. The pattern is probably 900 years old. It’s quite amazing, simple but
good. It is probably the most Japanese thing I’ve done but it doesn’t look very
Japanese does it?</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB4gK7HbvrUZpvgsJgVJawpHVEsbDw7t7KLGyKWU6KjqRJQ-C6OU8V085uIMKBrqlYhtMDyzpO8XyTjF4DaI5cieVefMCqU2SR45ExoqLDiLYrAuEHzOod-V_VqVpDdd0rTK7IZK3mAA/s1600/japanesetowel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB4gK7HbvrUZpvgsJgVJawpHVEsbDw7t7KLGyKWU6KjqRJQ-C6OU8V085uIMKBrqlYhtMDyzpO8XyTjF4DaI5cieVefMCqU2SR45ExoqLDiLYrAuEHzOod-V_VqVpDdd0rTK7IZK3mAA/s640/japanesetowel.jpg" width="444" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Japanese Towel</span></i></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.openealing.com/exhibitions/">Minimal Excess, OPEN Ealing</a>, London W5, 3 – 24 Feb 2012, private view Fri 3 Feb<o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.mihosato.co.uk/">www.mihosato.co.uk</a></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.domobaal.com/"><i>www.domobaal.com</i></a></span></div>
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</div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-78803186331591914602011-06-23T04:04:00.000-07:002011-06-23T05:25:57.396-07:00Sigrid Holmwood talking to Alli Sharma at her studio, Streatham Hill, London<div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJDe0kYvx3z3NSDCb8IvSWCkZXiblWb06P91QQjhqTfoYokv7R-94idFMqsosyyZAPwNCcooyCrHgJCqyVBP2QumrNJAilkyX2twsj5DV65KLZzjk6kDKqVH8Uk8UpmtFfepPy00RWw/s1600/SH0104.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 220px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJDe0kYvx3z3NSDCb8IvSWCkZXiblWb06P91QQjhqTfoYokv7R-94idFMqsosyyZAPwNCcooyCrHgJCqyVBP2QumrNJAilkyX2twsj5DV65KLZzjk6kDKqVH8Uk8UpmtFfepPy00RWw/s400/SH0104.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621378792570355458" /></a><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><i>'Figure Painting', 2010, caput mortuum, gofun, lead-tin yellow, ochre, azurite and slate in parchment clipping distemper on kozo paper with tengujo tissue on board. Courtesy the artist and Annely Juda Fine Art</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: You spent your weekend at a Tudor Group re-enactment event?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Yes, we were doing a banquet in Haddon Hall, Derbyshire. I was working in the art department of the kitchen. On Saturday we made a pie in the shape of a castle with turrets and different fillings, like pork, pink custard and a strange 16<sup>th</sup> century pesto. Then on Sunday other members prepared a pig’s head by slicing off the face from the skull, sewing it back up, stuffing it and then boiling it for 3 hours. I then painted the head black with lard-bound charcoal and finished with marzipan tusks, eyes and a bristle brush comb so it looked like a wild boar. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">AS: It must be amazing to have access to fantastic Tudor buildings.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Yes, and we stay the night after the public have gone. So for breakfast this morning I had a lovely sour bread baked in a 16<sup>th</sup> century oven, actually, I think it was a 15<sup>th</sup> century oven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">AS: Are there lots of artists in the group?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: There are crafts people and photographers but then there are also accountants and IT people. And loads of kids because there are lots of families which is really great. People become expert in baking, leather work or ironmongery, all these things and, much like my approach to painting, they’re experimenting with materials, looking at what’s written at the time, but also by the act of doing, finding out what actually works.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2zp6kwV3A-IIDsKTs2lA0YH-MGv7ePuwa-TkKxeYsrCy0Z01GGUwtcs0Mu3KQfZERorS2g-oocwYFRB5K90PkDQQ9_1x8SAPdLvFyhHOztjJFb5FAZD9tMb9Sa51fgH5_TbPI60cZiw/s1600/P1010600.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2zp6kwV3A-IIDsKTs2lA0YH-MGv7ePuwa-TkKxeYsrCy0Z01GGUwtcs0Mu3KQfZERorS2g-oocwYFRB5K90PkDQQ9_1x8SAPdLvFyhHOztjJFb5FAZD9tMb9Sa51fgH5_TbPI60cZiw/s320/P1010600.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621378410810165666" /></a></span></b>AS: You make your own paints from pigments?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: I don’t make my all own pigments. I don’t make vermillion because it’s mercury sulphide. It can be synthesised but is also naturally occurring. You need a kiln to heat it, so in this period it would only be made industrially, not by artists themselves. That would be something they would go and buy. But yes, I make all the paints and all the pigments that artists would have made in the studio. Here I’ve got some madder, which is a pigment. I can pour that out so you can see it better. It’s made from madder roots.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: What is madder?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: It is an uninspiring looking plant but you grind up the roots and soak them in water. Heating it up turns it brown so I do it by soaking it in water with lye over a period of days works and you can see the dye coming out. These are birch leaves, they have their own smell. It smells tobacco-y. This is weld. It smells a bit pissy. My dress is dyed with weld so I like that the dyes used in the clothes are the same colours as one would use in some of the pigments. That’s fascinating. The world joins up.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: How authentic are your socks, did Tudors wear knitted socks?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Yes, they wore knitted socks. There are all sorts of inventories. They also wore sewn fabric socks but I prefer knitted. You do find examples of things although socks don’t massively survive because they’re a bit throwaway. I didn’t knit these but knitting is one step too far for me. I sewed all my clothes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiHyOXHAxEb_FJzLCuTGFSPbxArOt0usPiwvazI9pvRl6ZDtFG3MTb8x-zjMgAdMFOOa0UCHjyt6KekD65qNm-2sOZafW2JDH5uz4kJQIXIaASgSYwukzTktoiKLhIJ_LMLzRJ1cc-QA/s1600/IMG_4871.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiHyOXHAxEb_FJzLCuTGFSPbxArOt0usPiwvazI9pvRl6ZDtFG3MTb8x-zjMgAdMFOOa0UCHjyt6KekD65qNm-2sOZafW2JDH5uz4kJQIXIaASgSYwukzTktoiKLhIJ_LMLzRJ1cc-QA/s320/IMG_4871.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621377841718692098" /></a></span></b>AS: You hand stitched them?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Yes, no machine stitching allowed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Who makes your shoes?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: In the world of re-enacting, you get people who make shoes, or pottery and they supply re-enactors from all periods.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Do you need help putting on the corset? You’ve been trapped in there all weekend, was it uncomfortable?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: You get used to it but if you eat too much you suddenly want to get out. The key to wearing a corset is that you shouldn’t lean onto it. You should avoid it pressing onto you. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t always worn by working women. Trying to ascertain Tudor working clothes is a lot harder in Britain, than in the low countries, because there wasn’t the interest in painting them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: You mean peasants?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Peasants or even just working class. I’m not interested at all in the gentry with all their silks. I find that the least interesting.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: And well documented?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Yes, they’re the ones we have paintings of in Britain. In this period in the low countries, there is an explosion of genre painting and it’s all linked-in with the birth of capitalism. The merchant classes and the stock exchanges began there and they were the new patrons of art. Before that, it was just aristocrats and the church interested in mythology, the bible and history painting. With the new middle class merchants, the new patrons of art, you get landscapes, peasants, still life, domestic scenes and artists specializing in different niches. It’s the predecessor of the art market we have today where artists have to specialize and find an original niche, which is their selling point and where art is about ourselves. So that’s part of my reason for painting these images. It’s actually the root of contemporary art. There’s a great irony, artists painting peasants only because of urbanization.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWopSlG-VaE-cDJemGH-bkveFwiAiIOaPcrgKPEvwU9Hk2tgWfixnlS8CbqfhfOrzBhBJNjKSqunvcyY9eKUe5zKd2_XLVkJd0exF7Llhd1s3LhdLFmiLITqgTIyCVoxlEOpLN5kACQ/s1600/P1010596.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWopSlG-VaE-cDJemGH-bkveFwiAiIOaPcrgKPEvwU9Hk2tgWfixnlS8CbqfhfOrzBhBJNjKSqunvcyY9eKUe5zKd2_XLVkJd0exF7Llhd1s3LhdLFmiLITqgTIyCVoxlEOpLN5kACQ/s320/P1010596.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621377359605466178" /></a></span></b>AS: You’ve just given yourself an extra bum bit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Yes, the bum roll, because in Tudor times, the question of ‘does my bum look big in this’ the answer you want is ‘yes’. You might have to give me a hand with tucking in my partlett. This was made of fine linen and used to fake being clean. You would have lots of linens but only one set of woollen clothes, and a Sunday best. These knives are my eating knives. You don’t have forks, that was a poncy Italian thing. So you cut and spear things and eat off your knife. They’re hand made by a guy in the group. So the final bit is my coif and then we’re done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Did you dye the fabric?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: I didn’t, that was a member of the Tudor Group. The thing about dying is that you need large facilities so that the wool can turn around and not get streaky so it requires a lot of space and drainage and some heat underneath it. However, someone in the group is setting up one in their garden in London so I’m hoping to go and dye some stuff so I can do it myself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Are you busy at the moment?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">SH: Yes, I’m going to a gallery in China in August, I’m working with Vitamin Creative Space. They’ve planted Chinese indigo for me so hopefully when I get there that will have grown and I can harvest it to make some pigment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s in an urban farm in Beijing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><b><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sTLB_Q6LwCNm9_twrWvupzpmBJUnKkPZA8IQlfTR6zsP-xTBAy_YnikDSKmgWdjZagh4jg2pTuj4PDCsiwTOR0MlfMVF1jtwJa17R96Oi3Rt9h2Wgdx3nDAVGDpu3n3eULhdQpcMdQ/s1600/P1010607.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sTLB_Q6LwCNm9_twrWvupzpmBJUnKkPZA8IQlfTR6zsP-xTBAy_YnikDSKmgWdjZagh4jg2pTuj4PDCsiwTOR0MlfMVF1jtwJa17R96Oi3Rt9h2Wgdx3nDAVGDpu3n3eULhdQpcMdQ/s320/P1010607.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621376755909933570" /></a></span></b>So, this is some gorgeous looking Madder. The crimson draperies in old paintings would be made with this.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: It’s a beautiful pink. It doesn’t look that colour in the tube?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: You get different shades. This was an experiment where I put in alum first, and then added potash. That means you get a warmer colour. I’ve made madders where I’ve made a cooler colour by putting in potash first and then added alum. They’re the two ingredients that you can play with when you’re making Lake pigments like this. Potash is alkali so it would be made with wood ash but it makes things cooler. If you think about litmus paper, the acid colours are red and yellow, and the alkali colours are blues and greens, purple so it works like that with these natural dyes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: So what will you do to this madder now?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: I’m going to let it dry out completely and then I’m going to grind it up and wash it to take out any excess alum.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-l4Csv1mcIG00tt9-TyxK9DlSN9fg82nZ1oVDy_DDpiqKyEmIOirLjub3jIXG1iNziyePOCWqEaarx67Uk38hVgCKqQhq0ljKACsTAAaDnDXMBwsZbFor-HH5ujh3wemf3RQw1623g/s1600/P1010618.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-l4Csv1mcIG00tt9-TyxK9DlSN9fg82nZ1oVDy_DDpiqKyEmIOirLjub3jIXG1iNziyePOCWqEaarx67Uk38hVgCKqQhq0ljKACsTAAaDnDXMBwsZbFor-HH5ujh3wemf3RQw1623g/s320/P1010618.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621373591153703090" /></a></span></b>AS: You’ve also made your own paper from sheets?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Yes, I have some here, with printed woodcuts. So the paper is made from my bed sheets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I burnished it but it still smells of my sheets.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: How do you go about making paper?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: First I cut up the sheets into one inch squares. You need a beating machine. In the 16<sup>th</sup> century you would have had large water powered ones where a big wheel powered by water sets off a trip and a big log comes down and pounds rags to a pulp. 16th century paper was made from the rags and scraps from linen and hemp fabric. Much like the pigment made from scraps of wool, you make use of a left over material. Once you can’t repair the linens any more they might as well be made into paper. Rag pickers were making a living by collecting rags from people and selling them to the paper mills. They were worth quite a lot in the end. Since I don’t have a beating machine, I send my rags off to a workshop in Glasgow and where it is beaten for me and the pulp sent back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve got vats and felts and a friend who is also making paper to collaborate and share materials. We’ve made a press out of an oak frame and a hydraulic car jack because you need to squish all the water out to get it as smooth as possible. Then dry it. Because I was doing woodcuts I needed a smooth surface so I burnished this particular paper with the back of a spoon. I do have a burnisher at home which is agate but just rubbing a smooth hard thing across the paper will give you a bit of a sheen.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PouRpm1BvBGhanp5od1Ddrs9NaTFlsZ58KRpH7YOc3-BQOVE7869mRyx8wwCmQisTtmYw7uL_hHm9DlF-igKFXON84tt98BruU2jIz-E0BinB5IBTjvwdUnXNPE1mc6VhbCMtabkhw/s1600/IMG_4873.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 334px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PouRpm1BvBGhanp5od1Ddrs9NaTFlsZ58KRpH7YOc3-BQOVE7869mRyx8wwCmQisTtmYw7uL_hHm9DlF-igKFXON84tt98BruU2jIz-E0BinB5IBTjvwdUnXNPE1mc6VhbCMtabkhw/s400/IMG_4873.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621372745843214354" /></a></span></b>AS: Are these drawings on paper of people in the Tudor Group?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: Actually this is my apprentice. I’ve been inundated with offers from interns, which I think is indicative of young students these days feeling pressured into doing internships. I didn’t think I needed an intern because I like doing everything myself but then I thought it might be quite a good idea to play with the idea of having an apprentice and that relationship could be a body of work.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: She looks pretty fed up in this one. I wonder how many students imagine interning would involve stirring a pot in 16<sup>th</sup> century costume.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_8p9SAN6JJceTpIolFD3sw65NTc6tqMXQ8dnf23rDNrkERnvOZ4fMOw4D2hY5fJDVHAQNloqcrdAAyWeUWgX8eNVcVdmfe0rZs_sS-16lJFFv4otvLbGhSJS8n80POm5ZqiwM3BXEg/s1600/IMG_4875.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 294px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_8p9SAN6JJceTpIolFD3sw65NTc6tqMXQ8dnf23rDNrkERnvOZ4fMOw4D2hY5fJDVHAQNloqcrdAAyWeUWgX8eNVcVdmfe0rZs_sS-16lJFFv4otvLbGhSJS8n80POm5ZqiwM3BXEg/s400/IMG_4875.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621372184320038114" /></a></span></b>SH: I did explain! But yes, I think what has come out of the experience is a series of drawings that show the difficulty of the relationship. This is another student from the Ruskin and we did a painting circle, she grew up in Japan so she wore her kimono and we all painted each other. The idea is a women’s painting circle. The kimono is a lovely thing to draw. It’s more interesting to draw a kimono or Tudor clothes than jeans.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: It’s interesting, how artists choose to present themselves, as artists.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: It is, and the mystique of the studio.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Most artists are open about their practices, but I can imagine some wouldn’t want us to know their secrets, and why should they?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">SH: For me that’s quite important, I like to share recipes. It very much relates to movements such as relational aesthetics, where it’s about making work that deals with social exchanges that go on around art. Painters can seem isolated, stuck in their studios on their own and I think of my practice as fighting against that a bit, making it a more social practice. I also know other pigment freaks and we swap pigments... I’m not the only one!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNks1EVb8eKxVLPPkFTqlWpz1ml7QF6M0-SYyxQMqTqVWGSfATmddmM1NEu3JlHXJuf2zOnj6bcHWSLb8ZqEUS2Hx939xQzP_hWGX8pp2J3lEfsUvsIG5QxNDqMvU5yrvPWbcUqhQOA/s1600/IMG_4872.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 282px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNks1EVb8eKxVLPPkFTqlWpz1ml7QF6M0-SYyxQMqTqVWGSfATmddmM1NEu3JlHXJuf2zOnj6bcHWSLb8ZqEUS2Hx939xQzP_hWGX8pp2J3lEfsUvsIG5QxNDqMvU5yrvPWbcUqhQOA/s400/IMG_4872.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621383463464038242" /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Sigrid Holmwood's drawings can be seen at <a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/mock_tudor/intro.html">Mock Tudor</a>, 60 Ravenscourt Road, London W6 0UG (open Fri-Sun, 12-6, or by appointment 07885 222409) until 10 July. She also features in the forthcoming issue of <a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/garageland.htm">Garageland magazine</a>, which will be launched at Mock Tudor on 17 July 2011.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Sigrid will be working in The Pavilion at <a href="http://www.vitamincreativespace.com/">Vitamin Creative Space</a>, Beijing from 29 July - 27 September. For more information, follow <a href="http://vitamincreativespace.blogbus.com/c3820068/">The Astonishing Adventures of Lady Indigo</a>. Resulting work will be exhibited at <a href="http://www.annelyjudafineart.co.uk/">Annely Juda Fine Art</a> next year.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-Times New Roman"; font-family:";font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-25940519547874931922011-05-23T14:39:00.000-07:002011-05-23T15:25:40.296-07:00Jeff McMillan talks to Alli Sharma at his studio in Shoreditch, E2<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiodLRT_35UANmNyyRbvvh3GaPVuERCGZ5CEAWvF-DQc7PB67ECOw2H7ojQLa6juSIGxW9Ur0YFTzwpV0bxwvvvH7Ik-nTaO8S_tR3DhYJZLrnihuuUYpVGOEKhU-BcYgT8j0WzjT1bBQ/s1600/IMG_0873.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 278px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiodLRT_35UANmNyyRbvvh3GaPVuERCGZ5CEAWvF-DQc7PB67ECOw2H7ojQLa6juSIGxW9Ur0YFTzwpV0bxwvvvH7Ik-nTaO8S_tR3DhYJZLrnihuuUYpVGOEKhU-BcYgT8j0WzjT1bBQ/s400/IMG_0873.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610039967287997010" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: Where do you find your drawings and paintings?</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: I go to car boot sales or sometimes to antique fairs, there are a few good ones in the south of England. Recently I was in Belgium and went to a couple of great flea markets there. I found a trove of one woman’s whole school career, which included her primary school drawings all the way through to her high school algebra. I think they’re from the 1950s and her name, Monique, is on everything. The drawings are a bit awkward, but in a good way, though her geometric drawings are very precise.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: Is that what you look for, an awkwardness?</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: I’m just looking for potential. It’s hard to explain exactly what that means, but I make that assessment and decide whether it’s any good for my purposes. With this show in mind, I was specifically looking for works on paper to go with a number of drawings I’d already collected over the years. Certain things strike you as having real potential, whether it’s something in a figure’s eyes or a certain juxtaposition within a work, and I particularly like coming across works that are not really finished in the first place. Two of the Belgian schoolgirl’s drawings are of a woman, in one she has no right hand and there’s an ‘x’ marked on her shoulder where the teacher has ticked off that it has been drawn incorrectly. Most of the drawings have comments and grades in red ink over the top of them. In another the woman is in a position of lifting her arms in a way so that after I have immersed the paper in a container of ink, she looks like she’s floating or trying to escape.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: Or drowning.</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: That’s the sort of potential I suppose I am looking for, as though the drawing is asking for an intervention to become complete. At times it feels like a collaboration.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVfQ4QSSAvj4Ma3jqZ620RSrpitvdjhcx-FUR487dDM4F4PxcFU_nE2-QrDiuhRxNPyd7Ombj8oCvySx3cGOwwld8ZCFKTIrcqOlZvZ-b4qPyPtJvyWWw3hudMz0pI2D79xhbIbpdqg/s1600/IMG_4916.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 242px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVfQ4QSSAvj4Ma3jqZ620RSrpitvdjhcx-FUR487dDM4F4PxcFU_nE2-QrDiuhRxNPyd7Ombj8oCvySx3cGOwwld8ZCFKTIrcqOlZvZ-b4qPyPtJvyWWw3hudMz0pI2D79xhbIbpdqg/s320/IMG_4916.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610035935426975378" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: Do you know what the geometric drawings are?</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: They’re old-school geometry, along with the pages and pages of equations and calculations to plot them out. I think a French curve and a ruler were used to make them so precise. They’re very technical but still beautiful drawings.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: And beautifully presented.</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: Yes always drawn in with this double line border. I’m sure they’re all done by hand, and she always puts her name, written very neatly. There are some funny ones where she’s got bored and worked out who was dating who on the back of the drawings, some with love hearts. I was glad to see that, you can imagine it must have been pretty rigorous.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: The dipping line works well with the geometric look.</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ay6dPYDQ0htK4hdVWuAFb65Tiedhb5c58VR6wj3Ii2yeFu_oRlXymF9ulpgjsmiNei11JVfa1LIv4ikaOQC45PTcF_q3ii7zCDKDLvPZb7GDsrfLDsQQm2k04EBBIyu8h0TTMqO0_A/s1600/IMG_4926.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 244px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ay6dPYDQ0htK4hdVWuAFb65Tiedhb5c58VR6wj3Ii2yeFu_oRlXymF9ulpgjsmiNei11JVfa1LIv4ikaOQC45PTcF_q3ii7zCDKDLvPZb7GDsrfLDsQQm2k04EBBIyu8h0TTMqO0_A/s320/IMG_4926.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610036145205468322" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: I became most interested in what colour adds to them, particularly when the inks bleed into each other, they remind me of 1960s film strips or at times they become almost Rothko-like. The effect changes them from something dry and analytical to something with more of an emotional content. Just coincidentally the basic half-dozen ink colours are very similar to the colour scheme of a series of cardboard box paintings I made a few years back.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: Is it important to use hand-made works, you haven’t used prints or photographs?</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: It always has been in the past, but I’ve worked with a few engravings for this show. Some are anatomical studies that have been cut out from a medical textbook from the 1800s.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: I wanted to ask you about using old things. You might be seen as destroying something but at the same time you have rescued them in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: I’m ambivalent about it, and I hope the work remains ambivalent too. It’s a fine line, I’m obviously the one making the decision about whether they stay as they are or become something else, but I like to think there are other anatomical prints like these out there but these are the only ones dragged into the contemporary world in this way.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5d7mhR0hjdK1x6qmwS3GKS54LdxwnVERHHwSVw09vgNyLpXCaC3VBol13FbEkdOfQZGX-V0v2cGbAfO6NgKJZZFueOYaCLlpaFf7bWYjPP0x2W9lehVvxMI-u7VEP6mH_cexJq_nYA/s1600/IMG_4940.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 245px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5d7mhR0hjdK1x6qmwS3GKS54LdxwnVERHHwSVw09vgNyLpXCaC3VBol13FbEkdOfQZGX-V0v2cGbAfO6NgKJZZFueOYaCLlpaFf7bWYjPP0x2W9lehVvxMI-u7VEP6mH_cexJq_nYA/s320/IMG_4940.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610036340470372210" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: The Chapman brothers make a deliberate point in defacing old Goya prints, but that’s not your concern?</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: No, but then their work is more about being provocative. In fact I tend towards the other end of the scale, I love coming across a painting that’s not got much going for it, that only costs a fiver but I know will be great for what I want to do. And actually I’m not that interested in appropriation either. What I do is probably closer to a form of recycling - I sometimes think all the painting techniques and brushstrokes have all been made before, all that is left now is how we re-configure them. Which is the idea of the re-mix I suppose, there really isn’t much new under the sun.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: Is there something in particular about working with drawings that differs from the paintings?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: One main difference is that with the canvases, I only ever work with oil paint. I think in my very first painting class I was taught that you couldn’t put acrylic over oil or it might crack, but you could put oil on top of anything. So I have always thought of oil as the final paint, the ultimate material. But by working on paper I was able to re-look at that and none of these works are done with oil paint. Some are made with acrylic paint and some with ink. Ink is a great medium because it has different properties like the fact that it’s so much thinner than oil or acrylic and also its not totally opaque.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: The transparency doesn’t obliterate the image, like in the paintings. Dipping paper seems to emphasize its fragility. Some look so delicate, like a thin leaf of paint.</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: The ink has dripped off the bottom edge and become more intense in colour and slightly brittle where it has accumulated. Some of the engravings have been dipped two or three times in ink so you end up with this strange thing where two inks overlapping almost create a black, though a ghost of the original image can remain as well. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: I bet it’s great to watch the ink soak in.</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: The old engraving papers are 150 years old and bone dry. They are so absorbent that the colour ends up being deeply saturated so they become darker than works on a thinner paper. I’ve also been working with a vinyl paint called flashe, which is actually a sign-writers paint. It looks like a pure pigment or something, so a sign writer would paint with it and the brushstrokes would disappear.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: It’s very flat, but you’ve still got some bubbles in it, where it’s been dipped.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: I like when a work reveals its natural physical properties. In fact, all the work is what it is, and it is quite simple to see how it is made.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQqGt1y9ecanCNbdwzoHL0kxd25iZKdqsiEam6mOflx68U1V5o7WZU3DUXE-tkGZyb0LtLyP4iaIu5gIIqwPh7a1KUmf-6K5rWyw99N29p9J34q-E-j70hTJmOgoMcMCHZiTdwOyQe6w/s1600/IMG_0886.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 306px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQqGt1y9ecanCNbdwzoHL0kxd25iZKdqsiEam6mOflx68U1V5o7WZU3DUXE-tkGZyb0LtLyP4iaIu5gIIqwPh7a1KUmf-6K5rWyw99N29p9J34q-E-j70hTJmOgoMcMCHZiTdwOyQe6w/s400/IMG_0886.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610037551545358498" /></a><br />AS: So what decisions were you making about colour choices for </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Untitled (Man with necktie)</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, with the black and the vermillion red.</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: It’s a strange mix of intention and intuition, I was interested because it’s a portrait of a black man, which is rare, and I wanted it to have some gravity so I used the black colour along the top. I was intrigued by his necktie and how it is not flush with his body, and it was just one of those things that is not easily explained. I think the brighter vermillion makes feel more exotic.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: It looks like a flag but I wouldn’t know what country.</span></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: I don’t know either.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: So it’s not political.</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: No, it’s not. Not for me. I think it has sinister overtones if you want to read that into it.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-eB7CBAQ4jZ_KSU_ryHdPOA-jOLDd5rLG-qfglldgmbL3c_wOBzXJyUqyOo5BwIhVoaHG31tVv8ruRR2-R6lCA6izqNh2quRZIQr5N9Srwumn_lQepCtt8biz8JEWOsgZGPHy79kx0g/s1600/IMG_0894.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-eB7CBAQ4jZ_KSU_ryHdPOA-jOLDd5rLG-qfglldgmbL3c_wOBzXJyUqyOo5BwIhVoaHG31tVv8ruRR2-R6lCA6izqNh2quRZIQr5N9Srwumn_lQepCtt8biz8JEWOsgZGPHy79kx0g/s320/IMG_0894.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610036728981887186" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">AS: Tell me about this one which looks like a blind boy with pointed ears, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Untitled (Boy).</span></i></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">JM: If you saw the original image you would see it was just a portrait of a young boy but there was something about it once I started to take a piece of paper and obscure the lower part of it. There was this strange thing in that it wasn’t quite finished in the way the pupils had been drawn and then, for me, that was everything, an amazing point that makes it become something else. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Interview continued in </span></span><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/garageland.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Garageland magazine</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, Fake issue 12.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Jeff McMillan's drawings are at </span></span><a href="http://www.fourallsaints.com/fourallsaints/mcmillan_exhibition.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Consequences</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, four all saints, London W11, by appointment only, 25 May - 2 July 2011.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">He is also exhibiting paintings at </span></span><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/mock_tudor/intro.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Mock Tudor</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, Transition Gallery Offsite, London W6, 18 June - 10 July 2011.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-61627710494568825682011-05-09T12:45:00.000-07:002011-05-09T13:51:08.375-07:00Claire Undy talking to Alli Sharma at her studio in Hackney Wick, London<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Eu6UW99VVsL2akH-hDpWfZ_WOtDRtwzKEb0CvX6VKZy4W7kN93ZQx46SyiyqeOeG5q5O7pN6rQ_gXUGiYTYWAXg06WQXYnjZQe6NcAUjei6Asr0iCgA9tZEwqfRUvAwhWfPAlBQT0Q/s1600/S5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 335px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Eu6UW99VVsL2akH-hDpWfZ_WOtDRtwzKEb0CvX6VKZy4W7kN93ZQx46SyiyqeOeG5q5O7pN6rQ_gXUGiYTYWAXg06WQXYnjZQe6NcAUjei6Asr0iCgA9tZEwqfRUvAwhWfPAlBQT0Q/s400/S5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604811782111047490" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: This new work looks very different to what I’ve seen before.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: Yes, I’ve recently made quite a big change in my work. It’s been two years now since I finished studying at Wimbledon College of Art, and I felt I had reached an impasse with my practice - I was refining it rather than developing it.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbjjaNti0VgE5f9oKrMSAE9DziNyYNsj1BiIOSqrswBTzW5UVT-k3h1aWBA4D0KN5MYEkbV4tBcmBSpwBnn8l2v3B2SYl9mgV2xFv15JosiQzCjQnm8wh_CEBy4Uu0_x-E6EWE0MMY0A/s1600/S7.4.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbjjaNti0VgE5f9oKrMSAE9DziNyYNsj1BiIOSqrswBTzW5UVT-k3h1aWBA4D0KN5MYEkbV4tBcmBSpwBnn8l2v3B2SYl9mgV2xFv15JosiQzCjQnm8wh_CEBy4Uu0_x-E6EWE0MMY0A/s320/S7.4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604811538056154322" /></a>AS: Did you feel that you’d exhausted your enquiry with the paintings with the gestural marks?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: I felt like I was polishing it, I’d got to the point where I was experimenting with something so tiny. I was using different pigments to catch the light in a certain way, and the only thing I could achieve would be to work out how to do it and get it right every time. All I was doing was increasing the success rate of making these same paintings.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The gestural mark represents the act of painting. I was trying to put drawing in the process at different points, as I don’t like the idea that a painting is simply the final top layer and that everything else is hidden workings-out. I wanted to acknowledge the process of making. I don’t like the idea that as the artist you choose what to reveal and what to conceal, when it is the act of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">painting that I’m interested in and the process of putting it together. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Calibri;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCcLK2e2AKEiqiY14ZzCZSo8aHqVt9eS5JSsvNPGsW4ihufr4WRLUo4rWdJPJ3mZj7Uwejc_ehcXHO3wXp0AJOavqizb0llAkD7gm6w_YIugZiOlNxUIVPBKQafpkRpVQNr9v8k2Ekw/s1600/Undy_Claire_Trouble_2010_oiloncanvas_40x50cm.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCcLK2e2AKEiqiY14ZzCZSo8aHqVt9eS5JSsvNPGsW4ihufr4WRLUo4rWdJPJ3mZj7Uwejc_ehcXHO3wXp0AJOavqizb0llAkD7gm6w_YIugZiOlNxUIVPBKQafpkRpVQNr9v8k2Ekw/s320/Undy_Claire_Trouble_2010_oiloncanvas_40x50cm.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604820949212966050" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I started by stretching a canvas and then I used tape and paper to mask off the shape of a gestural mark. I built up a gesso ground over the entire surface so that when I took off the tape there was an area of un-primed canvas left in the gesso. When I pulled the paint across the whole surface, the colour changed on the different grounds. I was using transparent iron oxides, so that the bits that would soak into the fabric would be dark and the bits that were on the white ground would be really bright.</span></span></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">A</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">S</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">: When you say pull across, what did you use?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: A wide brush because I like the marks with the brush. They emphasise the act of applying the paint, rather than giving a perfectly uniform surface. Then I used a smaller brush on the top layer of wet paint to indicate another gestural mark, which slightly mis-registered the first.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: So it looks like there are two marks.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: Yes, but neither of them were painted, they were made by breaking the surface at different points. The gestural mark is blatantly a gestural mark because I didn’t want it to be a shape or to have any deceptive space to it. I wanted all the visual components to be about painting: brush marks; or the visible application of paint.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: So you’re getting new ideas out quite quickly?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: Yes, I’m aiming to make a lot of these new works, hopefully around 100 this scale. They’re all quite rough and different. They’re numbered; eg S1 (S stands for studio). So if S1 leads to others they become S1.1, S1.2 etc so they break up and then I can experiment further into an idea. It’s like research. I like this one. I’ve been moving the weave of the fabric to make the image.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKossDLbSJFRF4Hf8aHKMKJoBem8qNtpAfNjrSXtXuJFbP2I2ypDuMfhjloLJnRmnQ5I5ffX06S1VygI5M6bg38b1hnGqeR2wWnIV69MFEiAHGOC0Q7fywNpvT8yLbOJI-FjqUnvx3wg/s1600/S7.1.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 269px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKossDLbSJFRF4Hf8aHKMKJoBem8qNtpAfNjrSXtXuJFbP2I2ypDuMfhjloLJnRmnQ5I5ffX06S1VygI5M6bg38b1hnGqeR2wWnIV69MFEiAHGOC0Q7fywNpvT8yLbOJI-FjqUnvx3wg/s320/S7.1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604808046194678530" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: Breaking the surface again?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: Yes, drawing with the components of the painting, with the fabric. I went to Amsterdam recently and there was a market selling fabrics with really wide weave on them. With this one, I’ve pushed the weave of it and then set it with size. I’m just playing really with different ways of trying to show their making.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: It sounds investigative.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: I’m interested in finding a way of communicating that’s not via language. I think that this could be possible through making a painting, which doesn’t discuss things outside itself, and so talks very directly. A hole is a hole and a mark is a mark and they only attempt to communicate their hole-ness or mark-ness and not any other kind of coded message from the artist. I think the only thing the artist can communicate is the act of painting, so if I made a mark like that [gestures], you can sense that’s how it’s been made.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9noHq_0vp4Ol4WOnvDqZjjOIHSR8ErvBxQKtvEIJpV0XiNYYkm1L9FNOAkHvwIHgpgW8i8cUTUlz39yNZp_BIq1hJAOyPtRs11JWUtIo9iBIb2XAkeCVdpjPQ9-K49cLHh12r0S6WIQ/s1600/S7.5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 326px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9noHq_0vp4Ol4WOnvDqZjjOIHSR8ErvBxQKtvEIJpV0XiNYYkm1L9FNOAkHvwIHgpgW8i8cUTUlz39yNZp_BIq1hJAOyPtRs11JWUtIo9iBIb2XAkeCVdpjPQ9-K49cLHh12r0S6WIQ/s400/S7.5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604808397676256658" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: You’re communicating the action.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: Yes, that’s one thing I can communicate truly. Quite a few people have said that you’re only talking to a painter in that respect, perhaps this is true - I hope not. As a painter, you see a gestural mark and you can really sense how it’s been made, I hope that non-painters can relate to that gesture too.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: Getting something across without reference to an illusion, or trying to convey something without describing it.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: I want to talk in a way that anyone can understand. I don’t want to use art historical, or other cultural references, as then you’re speaking in a certain language to a specific group of people. I feel like this is quite elitist. If that’s all we can do now, where can we go from here? Some people believe you can’t make a gesture now without referencing something else, you can’t make any paintings now without referencing what’s gone before. I don’t believe we can do that indefinitely. Eventually it will become a dated idea itself. There’s a lot of interesting work that references other ideas, other art, but it’s also a barrier to discovering anything new. I think that we need to look within the medium itself, not through a series of changing subject matters to find out what painting can be or do in the future.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggIJ3r3wh4OfNSH3tXC4Qo4785_z-h4xVFkpAkSLlUJiSNFFFJVJHFfY46hSmCnbsqChyphenhyphenqvisdrBoD3NsErCojzAZcNONv8IgooREd3EHY9uBxABLQvFGOVOriq4WQJr1Qmurz_r02TQ/s1600/S7.6.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 261px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggIJ3r3wh4OfNSH3tXC4Qo4785_z-h4xVFkpAkSLlUJiSNFFFJVJHFfY46hSmCnbsqChyphenhyphenqvisdrBoD3NsErCojzAZcNONv8IgooREd3EHY9uBxABLQvFGOVOriq4WQJr1Qmurz_r02TQ/s320/S7.6.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604808676991531730" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: That sounds like a pure way of thinking about painting, like it’s coming from a very particular history?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: Most people would say it comes from a very old fashioned idea, from Modernism; wanting to be self referential with the meaning inherent within the work and not referring to anything. But equally I think, for me, there’s a lot of idealism to that which I don’t have. On the one hand I share the aspiration to make objective art, but equally I think my work is quite realistically aware of its futility and it doesn’t have grand ideas of being a pure or absolute idea. It’s about its materiality and what it physically actually is, rather than a bigger notion about painting.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">There seems to be two ways you can approach painting today, which is either to ignore postmodernism and cynicism towards painting by going ahead and making geometric patterns, or gestural expressionist paintings or whatever, or you can be ironic, referencing the idea of painting itself as an ideology. I think I sit somewhere between the two in that I still have quite a lot of faith in painting and its possibilities but I think it has to be a realistic, grounded approach where you can talk about universal ideas and communication through the language of painting, but without having an unrealistic expectation that they are possible. I’m more interested in discussing the ideas rather than believing that they are true. I think that just because something has been proved to be impossible, it doesn’t mean the entire subject is worthless. Simply being an atheist does not mean that you can’t learn a great deal from religion.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: Are you keen on art history.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_V1bRmcswPYeXPcaq6u8HpZPTKjudeXvC-h6ZM3mSgFWLCzDZvHrkzZt9i3JZHgFK57C_mqkD4axCs_9seXEvczHYZJUqj_OHQLSwZPGZJqVJabe7DkUh6lq2DgTkYBG4YgJELxtAUQ/s1600/S9.2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 274px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_V1bRmcswPYeXPcaq6u8HpZPTKjudeXvC-h6ZM3mSgFWLCzDZvHrkzZt9i3JZHgFK57C_mqkD4axCs_9seXEvczHYZJUqj_OHQLSwZPGZJqVJabe7DkUh6lq2DgTkYBG4YgJELxtAUQ/s320/S9.2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604809066282094754" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: It’s not something I’m particularly keen on. Making abstract work at College means that you have to be aware of it because the criticism is that making purely abstract painting is a naïve thing to do and you either don’t care about it or you don’t understand it. I think a lot of people wonder how you can do it without being ignorant, or how you can do this with conviction. I really feel that you can do it with conviction and understanding of what you’re doing. It’s hard. There have been over 60 years of history in this area I could spend a lifetime studying and I wouldn’t ever feel knowledgeable enough to make a genuine contribution to the discussion. But I do feel I have something that I want to add to the discussion of painting and I think it has to be possible to make abstract work today without having to answer every question of the last 60 years in every work.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">AS: It’s weird when you start thinking like that, how difficult it is to continue, despite the desire to engage with something, like you have to keep one eye on the past and one on what your doing.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CU: This is what <a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/Fade_Away/hm.html">Fade Away</a> touched on. I think this is why lots of people make work within that bracket between abstraction and figuration because there is still an interest in abstract painting but if you make a purely abstract painting you instantly take on this huge burden of history. However, if you make an abstract painting and work something vaguely figurative into it it’s suddenly free from so much theoretical baggage because it’s no longer aspiring to this pure idea. There’s less to answer, you’re not adhering to an old fashioned school of thought. There are an awful lot of abstract painters my age but it’s hard to relate to an older school of thought about abstract painting. It’s a hard discussion to be part of. You’re an outsider, and although the work looks visually similar, in your heart I think it comes from a very different place.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Qe9I1mekV0xV2Hpii7YANP_KSA_K9l3ckC-sP8-bUYhTlziYRorDoGQ6x0J_kRazvOA5RcNy-ZS-Zo-WP__9szXhctVymOQcaZqpihFla8f3kyN7KeYJj0OkREfu0fUmc_nE_YUa3Q/s1600/S13.1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 344px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Qe9I1mekV0xV2Hpii7YANP_KSA_K9l3ckC-sP8-bUYhTlziYRorDoGQ6x0J_kRazvOA5RcNy-ZS-Zo-WP__9szXhctVymOQcaZqpihFla8f3kyN7KeYJj0OkREfu0fUmc_nE_YUa3Q/s400/S13.1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604814516862734066" /></a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Calibri;"><i>List of works: S5, S7.4, Trouble, S7.1, S7.5, S7.6, S9.2, S13.1. All 50x40cm.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Calibri;"><i>'Trouble' 2010, by Claire Undy, can be seen at <a href="http://http://gn.northumbria.ac.uk/gn/exhibitions/f_Away/">Fade Away</a>, Gallery North, Newcastle Upon Tyne from 5 - 26 May 2011, with free symposium/publication launch 3-6pm on 26 May 2011 and reception afterwards.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi- font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;font-size:15.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-30810988266631338532011-04-17T00:10:00.000-07:002011-04-24T02:56:08.552-07:00Phoebe Unwin talking to Alli Sharma at her Hackney studio<div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbGcuhxajRZp-wf_kDcX6NydL7uMTk_N6lHwqx1Rs1zOuezEIO_YwolPoome_IdBzuy_bWY9G49mPRqHcZIu2HPQ3An1VPS0L4X0dk9HRsoW5nT-WCmZ3amwC73cw7R1xVZz5IG_-VFQ/s1600/SpongePalette2010.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 367px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbGcuhxajRZp-wf_kDcX6NydL7uMTk_N6lHwqx1Rs1zOuezEIO_YwolPoome_IdBzuy_bWY9G49mPRqHcZIu2HPQ3An1VPS0L4X0dk9HRsoW5nT-WCmZ3amwC73cw7R1xVZz5IG_-VFQ/s400/SpongePalette2010.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596461356483894130" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: You’ve been busy this year with a solo show at </span><a href="http://www.wilkinsongallery.com/exhibitions/53-PhoebeUnwin">Wilkinson</a><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"> and the </span><a href="http://www.britishartshow.co.uk/">British Art Show 7</a><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">. Do deadlines affect how you work?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: I find that it’s important to put deadlines out of my mind. I mean they’re there, but I don’t make work specifically for a show because I make what I make. But, as it gets nearer, you can’t help looking at what you have and what would go where and those kinds of decisions.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: I imagine the way you work can be unpredictable. You don’t use images. It’s all coming from your own experiences, from what’s in your mind, looking at things and seeing opportunities for paintings.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: That’s true, and because I don’t know what any of the paintings will look like when they’re finished, that’s part of it. I like that working process of being surprised by how something might look but that also means that it’s important to be comfortable with failure in the work in terms of making something, looking at it and then thinking it’s not quite right. It might be an interesting idea but the size is wrong or something, I really respond to how it looks in the studio.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: What do you do if you see something failing, do you try to make it work or do you scrap it and try something else?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: Sometimes I try to make it work. Sometimes I try for months, and then it’s scrapped. Or I try for months and it works. I might think at the time that it was a bad idea in the first place, so it’s never going to work. But then I find I might be drawn to the idea again and have another go at it a year later. There’s enough tension to get an image to work so if you’re getting too self-conscious and wound up, then that’s not helpful.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: The painting ends up looking too fraught or contrived?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: I think there’s an element of tension in all of them. They’re not completely relaxed paintings but if there’s too much tension then I think a painting can look nervous. And then it’s not doing the job of communicating something. I mean it might be interesting to make a painting about being nervous but then it has to communicate that well, rather than be apologetic of itself. That’s when they get scrapped; if I feel they’re like that.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOBgeX3hie3_m8tLfWNWnUWswyWfRurZDgvmQgYPsa3OTf1CJP1XAT8W2owMAfnl-zUW8BsDmJO45BZ8uTjr9eHzUCJhtg8593S2nBDMYDEW6xEsOuVPGoliYx-WLpY7lNOamLqCOnGw/s1600/Girl.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 269px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOBgeX3hie3_m8tLfWNWnUWswyWfRurZDgvmQgYPsa3OTf1CJP1XAT8W2owMAfnl-zUW8BsDmJO45BZ8uTjr9eHzUCJhtg8593S2nBDMYDEW6xEsOuVPGoliYx-WLpY7lNOamLqCOnGw/s320/Girl.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596455541910453202" /></a>AS: I’m looking at the girl figure in your earlier work, is it you or is that too obvious?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: It’s not meant to be, none of the people I paint are portraits. I think of them as being portraits for feelings rather than portraits of a particular person. But all of my paintings and subjects end up being things that I’ve experienced in some way. They’re not personal stories, but in order for me to explain what something might have felt like or a relationship to an object, in terms of space or colour or scale, then I need to have experienced it. There’s nothing fantastical about them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: Are you losing the figure more, moving in an abstract direction?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: I can’t imagine ever being completely abstract because the aspect I’m most interested in is the relationship between a visual world that everyone experiences and how that is explored through materials and marks.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: You need something recognisable?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: In order to communicate this subject, yes. So the subject is actually really important. For me, it’s not a pure interest in paint and colour and painting. It’s also about these relationships. For me it’s a springboard into different atmospheres or moods or tensions.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: And they are invisible things.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: Yes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Self Consciousness </i>is very much about painting a feeling. Or the subject of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Brick Wall</i> was the everyday but also the formal qualities of painting because it’s a flat painting about something flat. So I’m interested in these subjects that explore a visual everyday world but also the world of the painting and the object itself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_CFblfrHrnu3ysY0zaHTxQ_fqIuFh3kCo3ejENZmEvLya-bSMfT-Ipoxewl7lgT_VZ4djvWK-SDXvJvfcrJa0ylyQP6NKvjrw6U3VfmEY6E8JPZ5voLluVzum9dARPUz6mwi_PbvDMw/s1600/Sketchbook.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_CFblfrHrnu3ysY0zaHTxQ_fqIuFh3kCo3ejENZmEvLya-bSMfT-Ipoxewl7lgT_VZ4djvWK-SDXvJvfcrJa0ylyQP6NKvjrw6U3VfmEY6E8JPZ5voLluVzum9dARPUz6mwi_PbvDMw/s320/Sketchbook.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596458174160273538" /></a>AS: How do you keep your ideas for paintings? Do you have a sketchbook?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: This is one book. It’s falling apart. When I work here I put in lots of different coloured papers and respond to marks and colours and so on in an intuitive way. I’m not working in the book from beginning to end. It’s developed as a whole. I have to feel excited or engaged with the page and if I don’t then I just move on. </span>I’ve worked on these for a while and the only rule I have is that anything can go in them. It can be an insignificant thing like a note of a couple of colours that I like or it can be something about an actual place or an image that has been layered and built up. I describe this as somewhere to be really gentle with ideas so they don’t have to stand up for themselves yet. They might never be used for a painting. I like working with this size. I’ve tried working in smaller or larger books but this size is just right. I also like that they’re quite thick because they start to build up a rich body of images. This is where I begin with all the different types of materials. I use acrylic, graphite, pastel, ink, and printed papers. And using coloured papers gets away from that feeling of a white, empty, blank page.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: When it comes to a painting, is there a white blank canvas or do you have to mess it up first?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcOaS5RFsbB8UIcmXKHYGbt014lAYLSkOpxjgdPN8rzEdaPu7RQVnXEZ8efdzXXRCjSmVtV15J4DVAFx3POWZ2JuORTQeoV-z-LHuUlJudUYKeFdk4CuFiIqqoo7XYP_AKernq0POifQ/s1600/Self-Consciousness2010.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 262px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcOaS5RFsbB8UIcmXKHYGbt014lAYLSkOpxjgdPN8rzEdaPu7RQVnXEZ8efdzXXRCjSmVtV15J4DVAFx3POWZ2JuORTQeoV-z-LHuUlJudUYKeFdk4CuFiIqqoo7XYP_AKernq0POifQ/s320/Self-Consciousness2010.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596458607747935874" /></a>PU: I think I need to mess it up but I’m not intentionally messing it up. I’ll think I’m just starting a painting but at every stage I’m looking at that and responding to the scale and the way the colours are because they’re not planned. Whatever I feel the subject demands will change my approach. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Brick Wall</i> started in a relatively controlled way by making a background of bricks, almost like creating a space to work within and respond to. So I knew I was making a painting of a brick wall and I knew how I was going to begin, but I didn’t know what it would end up looking like or how it would feel working within that pattern or that scale or combination of colours. Something like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Self-Consciousness</i> was started by putting colours and textures together, especially the oil paint which was quite impasto, and seeing and feeling where the painting would go. So building up to the image, rather than beginning with an image and working within that. They each have different approaches.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: You’ve used patterned papers in your sketchbooks, like the chequerboard. What does pattern do for you in a painting?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipzm9hLBw_ilk_wmeWgQwt9Mh7GaXj6rd4Wxwttrs7gOYEiEjUhWY3iEJg6d7if23jPt1-HjSwQ2LlOTQh8XuMmuisMmwMbFdDBNI2gk80CnZLpRjSFTvA_khaOg6GfQw33wYyFMchQw/s1600/ThreeBananas2010.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipzm9hLBw_ilk_wmeWgQwt9Mh7GaXj6rd4Wxwttrs7gOYEiEjUhWY3iEJg6d7if23jPt1-HjSwQ2LlOTQh8XuMmuisMmwMbFdDBNI2gk80CnZLpRjSFTvA_khaOg6GfQw33wYyFMchQw/s320/ThreeBananas2010.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596459109989035026" /></a>PU: I used a lot of pattern in the last show. The printed chequerboard and brickwork papers in the sketchbook, is where I first thought of it for painting. The pattern I have been using recently is about exploring a certain sort of rhythm in the paintings. I describe it as a constant hum or drumbeat. It’s a space to work within, which then gets interrupted or, like in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Three Bananas, </i>it’s reversed because the background is stronger than the subject on it. The banana shapes are like stains, almost like something has been taken away. So the movement and the focus of the painting is the chequerboard which is also a hand made mark, it’s not really a neat chequerboard so that was important. And then with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Brick Wall</i> there are elements where I’ve masked off the pattern which is much more graphic and controlled but then that pattern is echoed and mimicked in handmade brick marks using the different reds. So sometimes its about interrupting something and also an echo or reverberation of a mark or colour.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJyxuLwOxLvXWprOqxh0pkZcahv5UQo9eRLjliO1bAzlVK1f2IZO1youFwT1HD29pwzneC5iOrOoJAbqRZBgFM0dHSEWNoWxHAn7ycsXqLWPjbFy0PWTqJSJoY1q87gqc9DLne3aLCg/s1600/BrickWall2011.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJyxuLwOxLvXWprOqxh0pkZcahv5UQo9eRLjliO1bAzlVK1f2IZO1youFwT1HD29pwzneC5iOrOoJAbqRZBgFM0dHSEWNoWxHAn7ycsXqLWPjbFy0PWTqJSJoY1q87gqc9DLne3aLCg/s320/BrickWall2011.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596459752863402786" /></a>AS: Do the same motifs crop up?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: They do but in the sketchbook they’re not judged too much, they just live there. Elements of them are used when I’m ready to use them but very rarely are they scaled up from here. There might be an element of a composition that I take from the book but usually it’s a material element.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: There doesn’t seem to be any hierarchy with the different materials.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFJG4JctT9CjnmOJxpgPK0C-GC0a8MD7fVUBPYoQfm3xBlqvcL4lnvgUIhej85mytQ38RqZIh8tz6BzV8s9JZCYU7AjUet9xhYeBmKgXIKouL5S8y5uISOFljrGc8mjQjq1-OT1_ZVTQ/s1600/SketchbookTable.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFJG4JctT9CjnmOJxpgPK0C-GC0a8MD7fVUBPYoQfm3xBlqvcL4lnvgUIhej85mytQ38RqZIh8tz6BzV8s9JZCYU7AjUet9xhYeBmKgXIKouL5S8y5uISOFljrGc8mjQjq1-OT1_ZVTQ/s320/SketchbookTable.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596460161544601858" /></a>PU: That’s really important. One of my main reasons for using different materials is colour, because I feel that a colour is different in say an oil paint, spray paint, acrylic or pastel because they have really different surfaces, qualities and connotations. An oil paint mark might seem more controlled than a spray paint mark. It’s got a different speed to it. A spray paint mark, especially with the fuzzy edge, records what it was like to make it, which is quite magical. You press the top of the can and you can just keep going. It’s fast and it covers everything in an opaque way. Whereas there is a very different relationship with making, in that sense, to then being with a brush and a more gentle type of mark making. So I like using both of those languages, and all different types of languages with marks. With this page, there are so many elements in it. I’ve got this table from above and the carpet. There might be just one element of this that becomes a painting. And different viewpoints are important in the work.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: I’m surprised you said that was a table, it’s looking down from above.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiAyjRYuThzdjQ5yFYugxuK9I_NJVB5NOzN4dn6BESetLN_Bx61wuabxLQJ6GDNIFm1c6gtufQY1Ey4mMHpfrswrYg9q67b_dglbW_oavZrUbnAuQkKUgYSsdBBhNwTFn1izscAnG_yA/s1600/SpongePalette2010.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 294px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiAyjRYuThzdjQ5yFYugxuK9I_NJVB5NOzN4dn6BESetLN_Bx61wuabxLQJ6GDNIFm1c6gtufQY1Ey4mMHpfrswrYg9q67b_dglbW_oavZrUbnAuQkKUgYSsdBBhNwTFn1izscAnG_yA/s320/SpongePalette2010.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596460687179352434" /></a>PU: That’s like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Sponge Palette</i> in a way, it’s a palette with the thumbhole, and so you’re looking at it from above. Again, there’s pattern, and the sort of echoing of that background pattern and also a combination of colours about painting itself. I called it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Sponge Palette</i> because one aspect is that colour and form, for me, are indistinguishable from the subject when they are worked up. That’s my aim in a painting, to achieve, if I feel that I can, the colours and forms to be just those ones necessary for the painting, not to have any that don’t need to be there. So in a sense, the subject of the painting is as inspired by the colour and form. I almost see a subject in a colour combination in a painting in the way that it almost feels like a sponge or something, that the painting becomes saturated with these feelings or atmospheres.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: It’s an interesting way to describe a painting, like a sponge, like it sucks in all this stuff, ideas and materials, and becomes visible.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: I’m making it sound quite mystical. There are definitely a lot of felt qualities that are really important to me. And it is that thing about a sponge of sucking things up, the subject becoming really imbedded and saturated in the painting itself and in the colours and shapes, but there’s another element. The rigorous editing and appraisal of the work is really important to me. There are real formal aspects that come into play, especially as the painting gets further on, where I’ll be really thinking is it working in terms of subject, is it working in terms of scale and in terms of the painting itself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: It sounds like you’re very controlled about what goes in.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: I am but when you speak about paintings in retrospect, because you’re talking about all the ideas, you can’t help but make it sound like ‘when I got to this point I was thinking this …’. But, when I’m actually working on a painting, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to put into words why I chose to get rid of a whole section or decided a painting failed, because I’m working really close to it, and working very quickly, but also so close to instinct and response.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">AS: Can you describe the process for making <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Sponge Palette</i>?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">PU: The ground of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Sponge Palette</i> is made with an acrylic medium called crackle paste so it’s breaking up the surface. It’s meant to and it makes the surface very spongy. It feels absorbent. Because of the little cracks, the paints run into each other. Different surfaces in paintings are as important as marks because it completely changes the marks on top. I find that quite fascinating. Again, the pattern was made first so I’m working on something that is already visually dense. This palette shape, almost like a picture frame, is translucent so that the pattern is visible almost all the way through it. There would have been, in this painting especially, a real interest in layering and communicating the kind of time and visual conversation that happened in the painting. Some of my other paintings are more sparse and economical in line so they don’t have that sense of layered time. They would be about some other atmospheres or moods or tensions that I’m interested in exploring.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><i>Sponge Palette</i>, 2010 can be seen at <a href="http://gn.northumbria.ac.uk/gn/exhibitions/f_Away/">Fade Away</a>, Gallery North, Newcastle, 5-24 May 2011</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Images courtesy the artist and Wilkinson Gallery</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Images:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Sponge Palette, 2010</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Girl, 2009</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">studio photograph, 2011</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Self Consciousness, 2010</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Three Bananas, 2010</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Brick Wall, 2011</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">studio photograph, 2011</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Sponge Palette, 2010</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-15560873029485653322011-01-17T07:11:00.000-08:002011-01-29T08:36:03.437-08:00David Wightman talking to Alli Sharma at his Hackney Wick studio<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIUolW6No8pSfF3MNVtDaxe1INoGRjBGodUC4HYFkXOvZWW1CG5JFajDdf4oN5-NO8VaXKaOrvhTbzVPi-fMKq_CDDtaYAbRzsaW_hGzMm4ZeRt9SevryDyhEqGyvxrXiRGtkruZTHGw/s1600/David_Wightman_M.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIUolW6No8pSfF3MNVtDaxe1INoGRjBGodUC4HYFkXOvZWW1CG5JFajDdf4oN5-NO8VaXKaOrvhTbzVPi-fMKq_CDDtaYAbRzsaW_hGzMm4ZeRt9SevryDyhEqGyvxrXiRGtkruZTHGw/s400/David_Wightman_M.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563180188457196962" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">DW: People hesitate to call them targets but that’s what they are. When I first started doing them a few years ago, it was an attempt to mock formalist geometric abstraction. So I took on different abstract motifs, like the target, square, and stripe.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: I don’t know much about geometric abstraction, who are you referencing?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcKJ6CgUWg0QQ4MqVXaqIuMnpxj69WvtJogvFyrqqBVYN-2T-NLXXi4b46Aj5U7-KExQWd7RAIKnk6VPrCbKnOiF185hpCtP7FesL3GcbE_P9Cl9I1NMvxG8vVG0RnUi4JTCs2mIAzg/s1600/David_Wightman_Mater_Dei.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcKJ6CgUWg0QQ4MqVXaqIuMnpxj69WvtJogvFyrqqBVYN-2T-NLXXi4b46Aj5U7-KExQWd7RAIKnk6VPrCbKnOiF185hpCtP7FesL3GcbE_P9Cl9I1NMvxG8vVG0RnUi4JTCs2mIAzg/s200/David_Wightman_Mater_Dei.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563182713484164418" /></a>DW: The most obvious would be Kenneth Noland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was part of the formalist Greenberg school in America, which has now been utterly rubbished and no-one talks about those artists any more. The Last Stand of Modernism is how I like to think of it. I looked at different painters within the geometric abstract movement, going back to Albers and Mondrian where its all about colour and form and shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You know, someone will spend their life painting targets or squares or all-black monochromes. A mix of purity and weirdness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Are there any contemporary painters you look at. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">DW: There are people like Peter Halley. He makes abstract paintings but they’re symbolic as well. I like the idea of abstraction having all these kinds of concerns attached to them, like hard-line abstraction, geometric abstraction, post-painterly abstraction, colour-field painting, and the difference between them is whether someone is using masking tape or not, little things like that.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: So you started with an ironic intent.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFXgiwzIJS2uCST2wEZnR0wdprntzEF5KgDgTKy_aE97U0sdVCMogVmHp163n88vgLOvkMh29rvtIuj9mosvLMJW-i2bxk8AkBlVnNikSPPx9UwSiuskJdEaeU2CqJa6SGaH03UAca0g/s1600/David_Wightman_Amelia.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFXgiwzIJS2uCST2wEZnR0wdprntzEF5KgDgTKy_aE97U0sdVCMogVmHp163n88vgLOvkMh29rvtIuj9mosvLMJW-i2bxk8AkBlVnNikSPPx9UwSiuskJdEaeU2CqJa6SGaH03UAca0g/s200/David_Wightman_Amelia.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563182795057400290" /></a>DW: I suppose I used typical art school irony where you look at the past and make fun of it, but it slowly turned into more of a lament.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Was there something in particular that changed your perception?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">DW: I had an idea of what I wanted to do and what I was making fun of (or ‘critiquing’ is what I would have said at the time), but the more I looked into it, the more I began to feel sorry that that endeavour had ended and the pursuit of abstraction had come to an end.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Do you mean the seriousness about what painting could be?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">DW: Yeah, at first I found it overblown and pretentious and then I immersed myself in it and I wished I could carry it on. I wished it was still up and running and I could be part of that lineage of abstract painters. It wasn’t until I really looked at that kind of work that I realised something was missing. Something had been lost, maybe a sincerity or a seriousness or some kind of aspirational quality to that kind of work had been put aside or had been trumped in favour of irony or something like that.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: Did you come to that realisation at art school or later?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4JzYs31megUOt6ofnIXIKzjuU-e5O4UgWX6f2OihInyotp3yDlcQpKH80oykmYDW0XyppPYt1alGLZq-D7O-xs6j-U9G4asM6PLRZALmtuqmYhHxWQQkKot-Lif_Y66xtyA-tuXiSQ/s1600/David_Wightman_Secret_Name.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4JzYs31megUOt6ofnIXIKzjuU-e5O4UgWX6f2OihInyotp3yDlcQpKH80oykmYDW0XyppPYt1alGLZq-D7O-xs6j-U9G4asM6PLRZALmtuqmYhHxWQQkKot-Lif_Y66xtyA-tuXiSQ/s200/David_Wightman_Secret_Name.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563184755101436498" /></a>DW: Once I’d left art school and stopped explaining things to other people. Once I was in my own studio and I could have fun and things didn’t necessarily have to make as much sense, I started to think differently about my work. Justifying things endlessly at art school can close down what you want to pursue. Can I really explain this kind of weird pink? I mean there’s more to the work than that, but for me it’s rediscovering something that’s lost so that’s how it started and so I began to see it more as a lament; a lost idea of art. Maybe that's pompous or just a bit silly, or maybe I’ve got my own idea of what it is and it never really existed. It does seem that formalist abstract painting was the last time painting took itself seriously. After that everything was different – and a lot of it is fantastic - I’m not wanting to return to the past.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: I like this one, it makes me think of the Tudors.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDzSF5dQ9ugbDOa0y5hQj-Rn7uTh0UQChy3XKIpBz2vDuh50P0g3WePm_sGVLKv0AktPboC4cuP-pAoPhyXLJfoqF5RHtFYZQ_eNW5lurLSTfETEn0H02UMii-c4D4oPaXwoZ59QYWg/s1600/David_Wightman_Term.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDzSF5dQ9ugbDOa0y5hQj-Rn7uTh0UQChy3XKIpBz2vDuh50P0g3WePm_sGVLKv0AktPboC4cuP-pAoPhyXLJfoqF5RHtFYZQ_eNW5lurLSTfETEn0H02UMii-c4D4oPaXwoZ59QYWg/s400/David_Wightman_Term.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563175947010055554" /></a>DW: Yes, it has references to non-art historical points but you can see it as a weird take on Ad Reinhardt which was the intention but it became something else, especially with the texture, it changes everything.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Tell me about the wallpaper.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">DW: The wallpaper was chosen for being cheap, tacky, un-aesthetic, something disregarded. That’s how I felt about abstraction at the time and this was me thinking I was witty. So the paintings weren’t dissimilar to what they are now but the intent was profoundly different. I was painting with household emulsion, in magnolia and cream and those clichéd household décor colours so everything made sense and I could talk about them very well. The wallpaper was critiquing pattern and design and abstraction and the decorative nature of what it may become or what it may mean. But they were ugly paintings and there was no real sincerity to them. They made sense and my tutors thought they were interesting. But I didn’t enjoy painting them. I could say it was a critique of colour painting and formalism but it wasn’t really, it was just an empty shell of a bigger idea. And, like I say, they gradually became something else; I started to miss the intentions that I’d mocked. Then I started to explore colour, slowly and tentatively, but only after I left college. I felt I couldn’t justify it there.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: Really, because colour is vulgar, or tasteless?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">DW: There was always the notion at art college that colour was seductive and therefore should be ignored or used sparingly.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: You mean an easy hook?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenGBTxHHmEbFFYRP0hMrwBkmVWmhKRvrozn46ARA9MlHI-Hf6o6IM2Zx2W-uaaitnEmwsUFfe0Xp1sNJ7zA-fwPgrmGZw1eLk8pYvfC3qZjtnMRT4KNy9RjMJ-PaIGgIgfk_c3E0WuQ/s1600/David_Wightman_Theia.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenGBTxHHmEbFFYRP0hMrwBkmVWmhKRvrozn46ARA9MlHI-Hf6o6IM2Zx2W-uaaitnEmwsUFfe0Xp1sNJ7zA-fwPgrmGZw1eLk8pYvfC3qZjtnMRT4KNy9RjMJ-PaIGgIgfk_c3E0WuQ/s200/David_Wightman_Theia.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563178243382707858" /></a>DW: Yeah, but I don’t really agree. I think that’s a narrow view of what colour can be. It seems to be such a shame that a massive aspect of painting, probably the most important, immediate aspect, would be so thoroughly disregarded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I was at college everyone would make purposefully ugly paintings, and I did the same. So when I left, I felt amazingly free to start exploring colour and using acrylic and to look at art in a different way, without being as prejudiced. So the wallpaper stayed and colour came in and the wallpaper, like the abstract motif, was used mockingly. I hated it, in a sense, because it was so cheap and tacky but I gradually grew to love that and I became a connoisseur of wallpaper and started to think about what it meant to me. I started to think about the house I grew up in that was full of this wallpaper and what it was supposed to mean back in the late 1970s. I felt that I had been working with two things that were very similar; abstraction and some sense of aspiration. But ultimately they had both failed or gone awry or been prematurely ignored. I like the idea of failure being inherent in abstraction, at least in modernity and the same sense of failure embodied by wallpaper.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: You mean wallpaper in your home was aspirational?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">DW: DIY became really big in the mid to late 1970s when my parents decorated their home. It was about trying to aspire to something else, either some strange mock stately home or a weird contemporaneous vision of design. A weird blend of different elements thrown together and ultimately it’s just paper on a wall, and you don’t live in a stately home, it’s a small house in Stockport. But that sense of aspiration is still there, even if it’s failed. When I was at the Royal College, Lord Snowdon, who was the Patron of the College, came to visit and he loved the wallpaper and he was saying how he had it in his home. I had to explain to him that the wallpaper he was commenting on was actually the imitation of what he has. This is the cheap alternative, this is what people, who can’t afford what he has, buy to try to signify something else.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: There is that familiarity about the wallpaper, so I wonder if they speak of a particular decade.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8n4Rrm5twx1khqI354rMV1-BHz8wLTYKWQsYBrEcj7CCtwrf7-cgzptmrXp9mrHhzTHa3DC1F-AuhlKMrfJT5pyqnOW8gW7Mu5e6J6VN6tyye0dEvRjSKVXdbNd66KzUgGkuB1vJSYA/s1600/David_Wightman_C.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8n4Rrm5twx1khqI354rMV1-BHz8wLTYKWQsYBrEcj7CCtwrf7-cgzptmrXp9mrHhzTHa3DC1F-AuhlKMrfJT5pyqnOW8gW7Mu5e6J6VN6tyye0dEvRjSKVXdbNd66KzUgGkuB1vJSYA/s200/David_Wightman_C.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563178334447354850" /></a>DW: To me, it does, of growing up in the 1980s. My house was out of date by a decade. People say the patterns and textures are 1970s, but we were just ten years out of date. So I have these two elements, the wallpaper and colour and a different way of how I was looking at abstraction, I had a technique as well, which was quite laborious: collaging pieces of wallpaper together.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: How are they made up?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">DW: Every piece is separate and they’re all cut to fit like a jigsaw, almost like marquetry.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: How do you cut them?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">DW: Just with a scalpel – a surgical knife.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: Although they look slick, they actually involve a very hand-made process. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlb1REZz3nCqLlBsgzK63mJ1KQRAfeEDyDXyYFLqqOYQToAev6EqLGDwlq_ZVM4MUeFXsKnPgSP0hfku2gIwVq2h_p6stnVFcRzMR_5bEPtp8yVxGc31cQtvuVaxjvOslNU4oxxEFtw/s1600/David_Wightman_Behemoth.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlb1REZz3nCqLlBsgzK63mJ1KQRAfeEDyDXyYFLqqOYQToAev6EqLGDwlq_ZVM4MUeFXsKnPgSP0hfku2gIwVq2h_p6stnVFcRzMR_5bEPtp8yVxGc31cQtvuVaxjvOslNU4oxxEFtw/s400/David_Wightman_Behemoth.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563181316801771810" /></a>DW: Yeah, you could say they’re too perfect, but they're as perfect as I can possibly make them. Every single piece is an individual piece of wallpaper. Nothing overlaps. The abstract pieces are simpler, but the landscapes become quite complicated and there could be hundreds of pieces so they are very hand-crafted which is something else I wanted to elaborate on, rather than being against something that is hand-made and beautiful and textured and all those things that you’re not really allowed to do now. I stretch a canvas, put the wallpaper on, so they look quite scrappy at first. It takes a lot of scrappy preparation to make them that perfect. Then they’re sanded and primed and then I start painting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: So they’re painted afterwards.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9Q08KRJicD1OvhyphenhyphenuxT1txOPyrrwaJr_XvyzuTYp4ywqv1mZkc4iB-owS4IocW5bQbZG-z_5f4kkoEGFIl7SiEeGU_KDIjKFjX1MWP6e7wULcDbP7CFKOmt_Xkq_xq9GMr-hny3zRFw/s1600/IMG_4688.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9Q08KRJicD1OvhyphenhyphenuxT1txOPyrrwaJr_XvyzuTYp4ywqv1mZkc4iB-owS4IocW5bQbZG-z_5f4kkoEGFIl7SiEeGU_KDIjKFjX1MWP6e7wULcDbP7CFKOmt_Xkq_xq9GMr-hny3zRFw/s320/IMG_4688.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563189114637410418" /></a>DW: Yes, and I paint from light to dark. But with the abstract pieces I usually try to work out the colours with these small modelli on paper. It’s just a way of working out colour and form, some of them I don’t even use. It’s far more labour intensive than I think the end product suggests. It’s a shame in a way because everything looks so perfect; it's easy to think the process must be quite simple.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: So how do the landscapes fit with the targets?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">DW: I wanted to do what I was doing with abstraction and wallpaper but with something figurative or using a landscape. So I started to look at landscape imagery, especially clichéd mountain images you might find on a chocolate box. Images that seem familiar and beautiful but ultimately banal, which I think relates to the wallpaper. Something that is quite attractive but so commonplace it’s easy to overlook. I wanted to take another look at landscape painting and see if I could do something with that, reinvigorate it or see if I could use a similar technique to the abstract paintings to create an entire surface out of wallpaper.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"></span></p><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><p class="MsoNormal"><span>AS: You limit the colour in the landscapes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZ1CE5am_KTnd9mvtER8hO669_7RYzJAbfF1ViM__-952it0neu5e9pHNZCN7-PVA7-9SI1tma2lh-5KFqX3Ty6jSJrBZLfn1xsQvZuBKX1WWApp5BdAI0CuVoc3Ss7YoQ03JGLu2Tw/s1600/David_Wightman_Lorelei.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZ1CE5am_KTnd9mvtER8hO669_7RYzJAbfF1ViM__-952it0neu5e9pHNZCN7-PVA7-9SI1tma2lh-5KFqX3Ty6jSJrBZLfn1xsQvZuBKX1WWApp5BdAI0CuVoc3Ss7YoQ03JGLu2Tw/s400/David_Wightman_Lorelei.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563177217076553890" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 235px; " /></a>DW: I think the pink is brighter because the rest is greyscale. I like the idea of the greyscale standing in for a photograph. It’s quite documentary-like. The landscapes are a new thing. The first ones I painted using the original colours of the photographs, bright blue skies, green grass, white mountains. It quickly became tiresome and I missed the freedom of abstraction where you can use any colour combination you want. So it was an attempt to try to utilise that, especially with colourful skies and heavily floral wallpaper.</span></p></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: They’re graphic, less about material.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhurMPRvK-xV1nHF3xhpKpFwQI6KSsTmzJQSDl5Svmyyl2I91bgtlc-cJxRx61BPypj7satI67-hGPpAQCBdixqehy4PL643nYiJGyApimloRgD7c6ONJtKwUa6DMoRolX9t7-rkfreLg/s1600/David_Wightman_Homage.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhurMPRvK-xV1nHF3xhpKpFwQI6KSsTmzJQSDl5Svmyyl2I91bgtlc-cJxRx61BPypj7satI67-hGPpAQCBdixqehy4PL643nYiJGyApimloRgD7c6ONJtKwUa6DMoRolX9t7-rkfreLg/s200/David_Wightman_Homage.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563176851781555954" /></a>DW: They’re graphic in the way Mondrian, Ad Reinhardt or Frank Stella are graphic. I’m making work about the geometric side of abstraction, it’s not expressionism or gestural mark-making. The squares are based on Josef Albers’ ‘Homage’ series but his are very placid, light yellows and cream or slightly greyish colours - subdued. I tried to do the opposite of that, bright and camp.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: You embrace the camp or kitschness of the work?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">DW: I think it’s inevitable with the wallpaper; it’s impossible to avoid. Camp in the sense that it tries to be serious but it can’t take itself seriously, not just something that’s tacky or bright and brash, but something that has an intent and fails. It’s not that they fail because they’re bad paintings, they fail because abstraction, or this kind of painting, or even mountainscapes, don't seem to exist as a serious pursuit any more. It’s just me doing it on my own and the wallpaper is something you’re not supposed to use in serious art-making. So I’m making what I think are very serious paintings using two monumental things, mountainscapes and abstraction, out of wallpaper and bright colours. The subjects themselves are almost too big so they have to fail, or they have to have failure built in otherwise they’re pretentious and overblown.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: I try to get my head around kitsch but it’s a word that is bandied about but can’t be pinned down.</span></p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-oIvQ0ZvAbJP0oiwVpdbHMp4yjhHcaI3D1g7mLnVjo2V-e1XQZX5Z3kQ4-V4w1uXRLUg7M4lN5h57pdnBKYhHOAdC7H2YerJKi0zMS7PWSdgJK8AjYrSLBTljZeOKLFTkDEVxoCSVg/s1600/David_Wightman_Nicola.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-oIvQ0ZvAbJP0oiwVpdbHMp4yjhHcaI3D1g7mLnVjo2V-e1XQZX5Z3kQ4-V4w1uXRLUg7M4lN5h57pdnBKYhHOAdC7H2YerJKi0zMS7PWSdgJK8AjYrSLBTljZeOKLFTkDEVxoCSVg/s200/David_Wightman_Nicola.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563179552069598178" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px; " /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">DW: People ask me about that. It’s not something I think about that much or purposefully try to take on, but I think it's implicit in the work. It’s not kitsch in a Jeff Koons sense. It’s not really celebratory kitsch, it’s more sad or melancholy kitsch. It’s the kitschness of a beautiful Alpine landscape on a cheap box of chocolates. Koons deals with a bigger, brasher, louder, funnier form of kitsch. I think if you try to incorporate kitsch in your work, it instantly stops being kitsch. Self-aware kitsch isn’t kitsch.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: I was thinking of a sad, sentimentality related to the wallpaper.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">DW: There’s always that sense of nostalgia, which is different from sentimentality. I think for sentimentality, it has to be based around an object or thing. I think nostalgia is just a feeling, which is evoked by wallpaper or landscapes but you can’t clinch it, it’s not <i>this</i> object or <i>this</i> thing, it’s more <i>these</i> objects or <i>these</i> things. Perhaps that’s the difference between sentimentality and nostalgia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All those words are hard to talk about because we know what they mean but there’s something about these words (nostalgia, sentimentality, kitsch, aspiration) that when you try to define them; you lose the quality of what they represent.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAMRAH1dHL2g2wetr7vej8PVYmd7vO98bPimTGiStP94ocZ6wNEK60zyXi07fV-Mh73-YQ-SCFYr68uTKWmcC3YhxiQB_DAG2EWqJdPS0PH0-elNNXvb0-Mi1WTwiumVF8y6azycOlA/s1600/David_Wightman_Pieta.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAMRAH1dHL2g2wetr7vej8PVYmd7vO98bPimTGiStP94ocZ6wNEK60zyXi07fV-Mh73-YQ-SCFYr68uTKWmcC3YhxiQB_DAG2EWqJdPS0PH0-elNNXvb0-Mi1WTwiumVF8y6azycOlA/s400/David_Wightman_Pieta.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563190188817971778" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">David Wightman is currently a fellowship holder at the Berwick Gymnasium Arts Fellowship, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland until April 2011.</span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-52503550488122128562010-11-08T02:53:00.000-08:002013-10-26T15:36:30.398-07:00Laura Lancaster talking to Alli Sharma at Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle Upon Tyne, about her concurrent exhibitions at Workplace Gallery and the Laing<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv0xtubcxgha9NVbChZvy4DIXsic0tZ7Kvo7_cwv0A96FfCTs8giAiUh7AYZxnvGNEDZJa4EXVkhNmt9zsiuSM_r3jknSGpwtcNOtBLqomjULMv1_d6rgcH_e5KanoKGphxNWUREj57A/s1600/IMG_8976.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 307px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv0xtubcxgha9NVbChZvy4DIXsic0tZ7Kvo7_cwv0A96FfCTs8giAiUh7AYZxnvGNEDZJa4EXVkhNmt9zsiuSM_r3jknSGpwtcNOtBLqomjULMv1_d6rgcH_e5KanoKGphxNWUREj57A/s400/IMG_8976.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537155704426861298" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial;">AS: Your paintings and drawings work well in Workplace Gallery, particularly upstairs in the attic.</span><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: It’s quite ghostly up there and suits the imagery. I work from photographs and slides of strangers that I find on ebay or at Tynemouth market. Sometimes I find batches of photographs or a whole album or one half of a photograph where the other half has been torn off and thrown away. It’s the idea of rescuing and putting them back in circulation again.</span></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZVa4R5rYwTIXcN41JRJTRrk9YMh_t6_Mzhyx8pPyLTRZScMWkX4KAnuhPjEaE3wt1EzH5u3dDLoDRpByXDbVZZENnSoF-9AhnnlqJbgmrCJTHdw1ICjKFqbeGJXHVZs2S7mzl6Pc9g/s1600/img_0798_-_version_2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZVa4R5rYwTIXcN41JRJTRrk9YMh_t6_Mzhyx8pPyLTRZScMWkX4KAnuhPjEaE3wt1EzH5u3dDLoDRpByXDbVZZENnSoF-9AhnnlqJbgmrCJTHdw1ICjKFqbeGJXHVZs2S7mzl6Pc9g/s400/img_0798_-_version_2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537138020497248434" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: Are you quite detached from them, as it’s not your own family?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: They’ve been taken for one reason but then thrown away so there’s a redundancy or failure about them, because they’re not with the right people any more. They remind you of something but you don’t really know who they are. I’ve done a series of about 200 drawings from one photo album. It’s one woman’s life from when she was 2 until she was 60. It’s a really odd photo album. I made the drawings on the blank pages from old books. So I was using two found things at the same time and just concentrating on that. I wanted to make a piece of work that took a long time to finish. My paintings are fast so I wanted to make something that took a long time and I spent more time looking at the images.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: How do you make choices about the images you work with?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: Sometimes I try to paint an image and it doesn’t work, then I’ll try a collage and it works. Particular imagery adds something. I think it must be to do with the colour or composition. Sometimes I get it wrong and think ‘that was a really good image, why did it not work’. I like the process of discovery rather than illustration. Francis Bacon talks about the nervous system. It’s more direct than the concept. The concept comes after. It tells you what the concept is. You can’t ignore more conceptual work, but it’s finding that space that is particular to painting. It’s reactive, you react to something and that tells you something, and you react to that and it’s like a big snowball. It’s an exciting way to work.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_fDO_9vtlA7438pJuC3YXguEGgTpx8oBH-Op3GnTfrGB9-xv6URF9sGB8wTMp5VbmCJLOqXvdDXHfi-mTq3rfgSFMg12oNJRBtxCHsdQdWQC4YqdzC06I53jsRbO4uIErlV1l2bQxA/s1600/IMG_8980.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_fDO_9vtlA7438pJuC3YXguEGgTpx8oBH-Op3GnTfrGB9-xv6URF9sGB8wTMp5VbmCJLOqXvdDXHfi-mTq3rfgSFMg12oNJRBtxCHsdQdWQC4YqdzC06I53jsRbO4uIErlV1l2bQxA/s200/IMG_8980.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537142107637992562" /></a><br />AS: The text paintings could have been the backs of photos?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: That’s where the images came from. It was the idea that you could view the images like that, just like a statement. What if you could just do a painting of the statement?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: You could have just written it out, but you’ve spent time going over it, crossing something out, going over the line on the bottom, smudging that, pushing the paint around and getting it right in paint.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: I think it’s quite intense, because lettering is a fine line and you need to be able to read it to some degree. I can strip it down but then I’ve got to get it to do this thing that looks like an ‘r’ but then it’s doing it’s own thing and you coax it round a lot more. An image can be more of a mass than a line. Also, there is more of the idea that the reader ought to be able to read it, whereas with an image its more guess work and it could be something else, more abstract, so there’s a different relationship there about precision. But then you’ve still got the same gloopy paint that you’re trying to get precision out of. It’s new territory, so they’re exciting to make, when you don’t really know how you’re going to do something, because there are no habits there. Like the pencil drawings, but then it’s also quite scary because it could look terrible. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLpBxLbnReFHfojibDn70k6d-Xzuxhdo_627-5jCqKFHgmjQNBvJ3rqmES980U1EzvFu2TDszQ1PLcVbF3uUbF7_aVVu1FCEdK8gLAsPWdid35rwoGddRpcwpmR7gpOpG0YDxousP8QQ/s1600/IMG_9025.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 341px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLpBxLbnReFHfojibDn70k6d-Xzuxhdo_627-5jCqKFHgmjQNBvJ3rqmES980U1EzvFu2TDszQ1PLcVbF3uUbF7_aVVu1FCEdK8gLAsPWdid35rwoGddRpcwpmR7gpOpG0YDxousP8QQ/s400/IMG_9025.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537149740517201906" /></a>AS: The painting of the bus reminds me of going on a trip to Blackpool. There seems to be a social history documented in the work.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP29INKvWcmsw40EnMutAVSGAx5_SKmDKdpKcAJMyOzRcBArrbNDTd4-uJq9T9amoROVBtgzVXStKh0nlZAnRYdmoIhG-mz3YGnaUsQfneui4JLYERDPyFio455tuxf6MhCDugEfvpkQ/s1600/IMG_8979.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP29INKvWcmsw40EnMutAVSGAx5_SKmDKdpKcAJMyOzRcBArrbNDTd4-uJq9T9amoROVBtgzVXStKh0nlZAnRYdmoIhG-mz3YGnaUsQfneui4JLYERDPyFio455tuxf6MhCDugEfvpkQ/s200/IMG_8979.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537157759091456498" /></a>LL: They do remind people of their own things. People respond saying ‘oh I had that jumper’ or ‘that’s like my dog’ that kind of thing. I thought it was interesting that a lady is standing by what looks like the Acropolis, a really old monument, with it’s own history, and then this person is making a claim on it by having their photo taken with it. It’s a really odd thing that people do. There’s also an odd sense of scale in those paintings, which I enjoy. The people are quite small.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: You’ve increased the scale of the paintings themselves quite a lot.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: I was aware that the space at the Laing is big and that my work might get lost in there, even though you need a certain amount of space around the work. And I had some funding towards it, which helped. The timescale was short so I worked quickly and didn’t have time to be precious about it at all. It can be difficult to know when you’re finished. Sometimes, you can do just a little bit more and it can make the painting feel a lot less fresh. The Laing paintings erred on the side of under-doing it. It took maybe two sessions for each one. I spent a long time mixing up paint in big pots, probably about 20 or 30 different colours. The actual painting was quick.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: Did you have a few things on the go at once?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: I did one at a time, because I needed so many brushes and pots. I have a big studio but they need to dry flat. I want it to feel like it’s all come out at once. It’s hard to describe. But almost like it’s made itself and you get all of those lovely accidents. Once it’s dried, you basically have to paint it again.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 282px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAMDVwAFW4bCz9BzT9St_v_7XmW3lrfHAY9E_Q-S4tZhD6L75_lP15JCVwNNWl5Qh3_x6n_fduZz3y_vDkZspheW5S_sTtZw6ldBiwhhNsl0ZIiNPU1dGt1qNbOKrjtwfa5SOtm_4gQ/s400/IMG_8984.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537152152144912482" />AS: The painting of the skier is a strange one, with the goggles.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: Yes, in the paintings downstairs at Workplace, the eyes of the subject look back at you. Usually, in my paintings, the subject is either looking away or is less defined. I’ve been drawn to images that are looking back. I don’t know why. The graphite pencil portraits are about that gaze. I don’t etch like that much. They’re different to my normal drawings. They look like they’re the opposite of what happens in the paintings.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2rU5gACzEUgbzqxjwDTTBU-ckj9J1mHeQtiDNyheDLZqVfYrsJDz3E9_dNDtYWrBJmX4vl-sLNKwQHF6Zm7iurbVwjMb2CsgsJ8Tofyxl5fuiXaCQteBCswnxMZGbTt7Qoj0X7n4P-g/s1600/IMG_9014.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2rU5gACzEUgbzqxjwDTTBU-ckj9J1mHeQtiDNyheDLZqVfYrsJDz3E9_dNDtYWrBJmX4vl-sLNKwQHF6Zm7iurbVwjMb2CsgsJ8Tofyxl5fuiXaCQteBCswnxMZGbTt7Qoj0X7n4P-g/s200/IMG_9014.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537153870345250370" /></a>AS: Your drawings are very precise and obsessive, whereas the paintings are fast and loose?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: Again, that idea, wanting to draw in that detailed way, cross hatching, it’s about using the same mark, it looks quite soft but it’s the grade of the pencil. Using cross hatching instead of thinking, ‘that’s hair I’ll use this kind of mark’. Chuck Close talks about painting being like knitting a sweater, where each mark is the same, making something with the same unit. It’s quite different to my painting. It’s like doing something opposite in order to see what the connection is. It opens the image out and makes it 3D again, like you’ve removed the photograph and gone into the image. And being life size, it’s weird when you’re drawing and you realize the drawing is looking back at you. I think they’re more about my experience of making the drawings, whereas the paintings are more in relation to the viewer.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCUdsJviCqpi8Hq_V9xQS5veHhGj8i2lMrFFgZ9kayZRXiB-7WRPnpDdRBBm7OT20jmiiF5ihFLPJuw33o1Kw1vdijZ5F0I4pJGFCjCwD3kxEtGGgkcpPNQco6SGbXsFSXqFMjveAlw/s1600/IMG_9009.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCUdsJviCqpi8Hq_V9xQS5veHhGj8i2lMrFFgZ9kayZRXiB-7WRPnpDdRBBm7OT20jmiiF5ihFLPJuw33o1Kw1vdijZ5F0I4pJGFCjCwD3kxEtGGgkcpPNQco6SGbXsFSXqFMjveAlw/s200/IMG_9009.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537154288166657954" /></a>AS: So your relationship to drawing is quite different to painting.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: The drawings are obviously more slavish to the source. The painting is more about the push and pull between the paint and the image and that classic thing of it being two things at once. I’ve been making the drawings for 2 years but I couldn’t work them out because you have an idea of what you’re doing as a painter, and then this throws you off course. Maybe it gives depth and in the long run it will come round and make sense.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: It’s interesting about time issues between the two ways of making. Once the painting is finished, there’s nothing more to do with it. It can be made in a few brushstrokes which can be incredibly satisfying and then nothing.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: Maybe the pencil portraits are a way of extending that. Then you’ve got a weird relationship to time because the photograph was taken in an instant and you’re spending hours trying to recreate that instant but it’s odd because the person is sitting still, so there is a lot of different time going on. It’s interesting when you do something and surprise yourself. It tells you to do it and it’s good to follow that. Sometimes you have to work your way through things.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: Do you apply that way of working to your music and song writing.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: I’ve only been writing songs in the last 8-10 months but I’ve been in instrumental bands for the last 10-12 years. <a href="http://www.myspace.com/meandthetwins">MeandthetwinS</a> are my sister, Rachel, Paul Smith and Narbi, the drummer. Paul has been working with his band, </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Maxïmo</span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Park and doing his solo stuff, so the rest of us formed another band, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/chippewafalls">Chippewa Falls</a>. I’ve just started another band with my boyfriend and the fourth is <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wearesilverfox">Silver Fox</a>. Each one fulfills a different side of my personality. It’s like collage, drawing and painting.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: Do you do different things in each band?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: I sing in Silver Fox and play guitar in the others but they’re all different styles. Silver Fox is new. It came out of a semi-drunk conversation about there being no bands that were all women. So we formed a band and did a fundraising gig for the Star and Shadow Cinema in Newcastle. We did cover versions and thought that we should write our own songs. It just sort of happened. It’s more collaborative than painting or drawing because you can take a little seed of an idea and give it to someone else and it changes, it seems to inform itself. You each chip in your ideas and it becomes a whole new thing. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveRHml403o3ZnKQUq0WlFrLb1QVdM2bVJukkv8Pb004coG8Pu7cXxPOfTx2aNSeHhpisyXC135KHXCVwEOtq5xMKQ92P1QfQVyKCQkjdng_Zk3CxyivuJlKwYCfYBpRU0XnkE14aFTw/s1600/IMG_9028.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 321px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveRHml403o3ZnKQUq0WlFrLb1QVdM2bVJukkv8Pb004coG8Pu7cXxPOfTx2aNSeHhpisyXC135KHXCVwEOtq5xMKQ92P1QfQVyKCQkjdng_Zk3CxyivuJlKwYCfYBpRU0XnkE14aFTw/s400/IMG_9028.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537161029980155714" /></a>AS: Your playing tonight? Is it local?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: Yeah, at The Head of Steam, opposite Central Station. That should be fun.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: You enjoy performing?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: I used to find playing guitar nerve-wracking but somehow singing is less so. You’re so busy doing it, you don’t have time to register people looking at you, whereas when you’re playing guitar you can look around. It’s scary but exciting. And the audience response is direct. You don’t often see people looking at your paintings.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS-UtLlOGe7ocfHM_kqCPpkXK93FhIpJygtwuCkQJsv4FxmganFwLi1SgxvP6Wj3y3a7JTmn7TfDz9683Hubvf-UBnzSX6slID8fJKOUw4hpowmIY-YlDUTPFDH2MdZEqhpSkNKLCv1A/s1600/IMG_9026.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 142px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS-UtLlOGe7ocfHM_kqCPpkXK93FhIpJygtwuCkQJsv4FxmganFwLi1SgxvP6Wj3y3a7JTmn7TfDz9683Hubvf-UBnzSX6slID8fJKOUw4hpowmIY-YlDUTPFDH2MdZEqhpSkNKLCv1A/s200/IMG_9026.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537162132181011250" /></a>AS: Does the title of your show ‘We are A Movement’ come from a song?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: It’s from a Young Marble Giants song called Constantly Changing. I was going to call the exhibition Constantly Changing but I thought We Are A Movement sounded stronger, yet more open.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: But you don’t title your paintings?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: Generally no, I want them to feel open, rather than vague, so I thought if I titled the whole thing then it’s more about the whole practice than the individual pieces of work, a kind of overview. There’s the idea of things being quite fleeting. I like a title that brings people in a bit.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKEU3wzsXobLdIBQ-Juhlq2U67_6fol6Gwb_M5Slolf6-ra4WcU50XFkzgJss3kr5Dp3bbOjiHSf6dAIxpeLr4yoEszauK7cDS02KVW2nPNt5WaD-uviA1KDuKMChklRtGH_zGftZ0-Q/s1600/IMG_8996.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 162px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKEU3wzsXobLdIBQ-Juhlq2U67_6fol6Gwb_M5Slolf6-ra4WcU50XFkzgJss3kr5Dp3bbOjiHSf6dAIxpeLr4yoEszauK7cDS02KVW2nPNt5WaD-uviA1KDuKMChklRtGH_zGftZ0-Q/s200/IMG_8996.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537161643236571698" /></a>AS: Is it important, to you, to make the work accessible?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">LL: I want to invite some sort of reaction, but not necessarily the same ideas that I have. That’s where I get lots of ideas from, how people misread things. When I’m doing the songs with the band, I find it really easy to write lyrics. I don’t have to think about it, it comes quickly, but it’s different when titling the paintings. It feels like you need more reasoning behind it, whereas the music is more of a feel. I write lyrics on my phone all the time, and put it together to make songs. It could be interesting to bring the two approaches together, perhaps being a bit more instinctive.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial;">See Laura Lancaster's new work at:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing/thingstoseeanddo/exhibition/2010/09/24/laura-lancaster/">Laing Art Gallery</a>, Newcastle Upon Tyne until 30 January 2011</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.workplacegallery.co.uk/artists/_Laura%20Lancaster/">Workplace Gallery </a>until 13 November 2010</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-75623449984218785422010-10-14T14:52:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:48:29.222-08:00Jake Clark talks with Nick Nowicki in his Camberwell studio.<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRzuWzFZuIqEDniuJkcYTSjFpQu1nN4PKlsU8_isK9qXfa-pCpmz7fAXgHiYnCT9kjY4_piW3lZL9aQ5ScCB_PhA4QF23iwztq3l29Z3KSDV7Qi1HkuQIzdRN0zVVjA6VtII1duDhMag/s1600/Swimming+Pool.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 316px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRzuWzFZuIqEDniuJkcYTSjFpQu1nN4PKlsU8_isK9qXfa-pCpmz7fAXgHiYnCT9kjY4_piW3lZL9aQ5ScCB_PhA4QF23iwztq3l29Z3KSDV7Qi1HkuQIzdRN0zVVjA6VtII1duDhMag/s400/Swimming+Pool.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528029461992542706" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial;">NN: Have you specifically referenced imagery to get a particular palette?</span><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: I go to seaside towns in England, and take pictures. There are certain colours I’m after which are to do with being by the sea. They’re more faded because of the light and salts, and also slightly decayed and rusting. I bring the photos into the studio and then into the paintings. So I combine images from different sources, posts from Margate and a house from Cornwall.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: Do you ever do any painting in situ?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoGDTRayRLmZygz6lAYVizw9LBwJaKDRn_6OVEXrliGmhq1ahBFtWJEM_tp4ZX5kzEqkZJ0CgNipePS1WzwOWcj36zMp3wL7YZpr6FqoXGZR2lYCnVrA2SH5Tjx1w-t6SZqoLHQ0ywSA/s200/Photo.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528023467548266386" /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial;">JC: Never, but sometimes the photographs I take don’t have the colours I want and I realized by painting the colours I want onto the photographs I can trick myself and make a painting from that. A drawing or painting from a place, wouldn’t be the same as the photograph. It’s got all the tone and the structure, the realism that I can then use. Painting photographs has been a big thing for me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: You could still paint over a painting that you’d done on location.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: I think it’s to do with the fact a machine has made this thing and it's concrete – it's there. And you know the source material actually exists. And it’s the quality, the tonal thing. It’s always about the harsh light. The strong shadows make the light even more obvious. Edward Hopper often used a diagonal shadow moving across to suggest the idea of time passing, a clock moving round.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: Is the Lino usually around the edges and at the corners of your paintings?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: It goes to the painting edge, nearest the wall, so you become more aware of it, as well as relate it to domesticity. When I’m painting, the canvas is on the floor, so I’m aware the Lino is where it might have been originally. Lino has a history. People have walked on it for fifty years. It's been in a flat or kitchen and when it becomes part of a painting it gets thrown into a different scale. There’s an intense, domestic pattern and then a tiny figure next to it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: What do you think is the result of that contrast of scale?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: Playing with scale is to do with confusion and fragmentation. If you’re hot and hung over and look up at a hotel and then down at your flip flops and up again, that jump of scale is to do with the way your eye and mind work in that sort of experience.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdIfLc-rFzLTNFb73PzCvVuarVUFVH6IBcBgZvqAlWyQKugtMJ1619zx8wJjGlF01DTPQoPuJOPCaFMkscn_0zkzrfHUFTaTeTesFVn2cgNhBvaS9kjbJy-Qdz3s_alPWF2zotcS0dw/s1600/Ovals.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdIfLc-rFzLTNFb73PzCvVuarVUFVH6IBcBgZvqAlWyQKugtMJ1619zx8wJjGlF01DTPQoPuJOPCaFMkscn_0zkzrfHUFTaTeTesFVn2cgNhBvaS9kjbJy-Qdz3s_alPWF2zotcS0dw/s320/Ovals.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528025637943122402" /></a>NN: Every subject in your work is bathed in sunlight. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: Harsh light, strong shadows, and with the figures I’m trying to get the idea of everything vibrating, everything shaking, with the denseness of people and the heat, all moving together.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: It’s not the colours doing that, because your palette is muted and grungy. You’re getting the sense of this more from how it’s been combined.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: Those juxtapositions are what I’m trying to do with the Lino, that idea of something ridiculous, that counters the setting, undermines whatever you’re representing and plays with and against that. Sometimes it can suggest architecture but it’ll always be a ridiculous pattern. The word ridiculous is important. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: Why’s that?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhugB-N8Z_pQ7cl4paRwND33aqQMbggWwI_M8ahdMVg6gJ1pnGXXMMZJWR5b6V_xFXNQ_f_RBsvK9mgNRKcz49Qxs5E8ItQOKNQuWC0R1BtKNYlGAyuUOd-B-OxOlYCzoc-k5FcAGFzRg/s1600/Paper.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhugB-N8Z_pQ7cl4paRwND33aqQMbggWwI_M8ahdMVg6gJ1pnGXXMMZJWR5b6V_xFXNQ_f_RBsvK9mgNRKcz49Qxs5E8ItQOKNQuWC0R1BtKNYlGAyuUOd-B-OxOlYCzoc-k5FcAGFzRg/s200/Paper.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528023824509311490" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: I like ridiculousness as a thing in life, contradiction, counteracting something, laughing at something, revelling in melancholy. I find it positive. It’s not about celebrating the past. It’s about revelry in the misery of it. I like going to Southend because it’s miserable, but exciting as well. It’s charged and feels very much on the edge. You get the train to Great Yarmouth and it’s the last stop, and there’s all this flat land and it’s quite nondescript and then you get to this full-on resort on the edge of Norfolk and suddenly it’s really exciting. Someone asked me about Martin Parr – is he mocking the people that eat ice creams in New Brighton? But I like to hang out in those places. The sea erodes as well. All these bungalows have painted gables, but they’re faded by the sun and rusted by the sea salt. It speeds up the aging, an anti-polished, anti-newness. Shabbiness is interesting. Maybe paint is like that. It’s shabby. I’m interested in the shabbiness it can capture. The medium is quite dirty. This is my palette. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirmEVmBCzYm4XiPOqrrk0F-T7p2OLtU7rq1TYm5XBXCNwSvER4nUzZlvWl98qG1h9A8-cXK0M4-dnxyY0RvXQ22Yi68TxdZclGYhLdHOYXJ1tMn1ZYELeObQG1rRdI1FVH9UZoAodtDg/s1600/Palette.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirmEVmBCzYm4XiPOqrrk0F-T7p2OLtU7rq1TYm5XBXCNwSvER4nUzZlvWl98qG1h9A8-cXK0M4-dnxyY0RvXQ22Yi68TxdZclGYhLdHOYXJ1tMn1ZYELeObQG1rRdI1FVH9UZoAodtDg/s200/Palette.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528024419100791506" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: That cup sums up why I want to paint these subjects and not just leave them as a photograph. After the Rubbernecking show at </span><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/rubbernecking/intro.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Transition</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, LondonPainting did a blog about it and someone asked, ‘Was gestural painting the right sort of language for this sort of subject matter?’ I was interested in that comment, because for me it is important that they are paintings, gestural, layered and visceral. I think they were saying that someone like David Rayson or George Shaw, paint houses blandly and it’s about emptiness and photographic stillness. I’m interested in the emotional impact and how the house has history and all this stuff has gone on in it. Although it might be empty now, the paint rejuvenates all that, and I thought why couldn’t my house be painterly? Why couldn’t something that’s meant to be quite bland, still, flat and static be rejuvenated? By painting a house like this, it's trying to access all that emotional memory of people that lived there in the past – or also the idea of the perception, as I’m running round with a camera on a hot day and it’s all shifting about - what it's like to be there.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibRfJSpI9ToBbnjN9XKZRAglvzn8wQdK0GrvaRffaBGhe4feJS5wHW6BkY54G0Y2zZTzVDT_4TxiC8jhDbSkzArY22dNasdNuO-C1HJrqTVcYjkqWBigqhj-E4TK0px6Wd5731XZ3U_w/s1600/Climbing+Frame.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibRfJSpI9ToBbnjN9XKZRAglvzn8wQdK0GrvaRffaBGhe4feJS5wHW6BkY54G0Y2zZTzVDT_4TxiC8jhDbSkzArY22dNasdNuO-C1HJrqTVcYjkqWBigqhj-E4TK0px6Wd5731XZ3U_w/s320/Climbing+Frame.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528024723495567938" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: A brushstroke seems like a simple thing, but it’s loaded with the humanity of doing it. But I can see what you mean about being in a suburban place and even if there’s no one about, it never feels completely still, because of the awareness there might be people inside going about their own private lives, and the sense of people that have been there in the past.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: Also you’re moving around it. A lot of these houses have been built for the car.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">These suburban places can’t exist without the car. This is not a townhouse, it’s not a Georgian house in Islington, it’s an isolated house in a cul-de-sac where the car is how you get to it, and so most people see them from a car anyway.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: I wonder if there’s any other sort of ways in which the presence of an abstract pattern works that we haven’t got to yet.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: The punk thing of rejecting convention and wanting something annoying, disrupting the picture, something that shouldn’t be there, that most people think of as ugly, an ugly/beautiful thing. Most lino has a disgusting pattern. There’s been time enough for it to become aesthetic again, but at the time it would be seen as naff and a lot of people still see it as ugly. The painting shouldn’t work because often a quarter of it is a pattern, but for me the challenge is in trying to find the image that will fit with that domineering, nasty pattern. It might get buried slightly but its always going to be there, part of the painting. As the Lino is the first thing I glue down, it’s like an anchor to the painting that I’m always referring back to and fighting against, and it’s important to me to have that kind of tension, rather than just the white canvas. Most important is the atmosphere that comes through. The Lino starts that journey of suggesting the atmosphere I’m trying to get by being from those places, from that period of history. Also the Lino or the posts become part of that trippy perception of a place and how, if you look at the sun and then you look back at something, you get all these funny prismatic things going on, sort of flashing like a migraine. The patterns function that way too, like a vision thing. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtW0UBK8VsrAl06r6dsadVZ3beQjvA-AUKDwTVe_krz3ByQwOl-eP1PA1mCRJrXJ4QbIHBRZzUIZAS1mgfBpG1_0YEeowI6LN539oN9nBTvW1dSKCAasW4U195fmpYn04aKVNh9OHGew/s1600/Fence.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtW0UBK8VsrAl06r6dsadVZ3beQjvA-AUKDwTVe_krz3ByQwOl-eP1PA1mCRJrXJ4QbIHBRZzUIZAS1mgfBpG1_0YEeowI6LN539oN9nBTvW1dSKCAasW4U195fmpYn04aKVNh9OHGew/s200/Fence.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528025016399855490" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: I’m fascinated by the multicoloured fence. Despite all the gestural colours that interweave, they’re still related to the colours you might expect the house to be, but not the fence.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: I see the fence as a cartoon language. The Lino is a cartoon language, too. It’s got an outline, bright and comical. I did a number of house paintings with these egg shapes and the fence is a continuation of that, cartoony and sharp. Again, something you wouldn’t normally want to be there, like the Lino, a funky kind of thing that breaks it up. This summer at Latitude festival I did an art installation of paintings. Because I had to hang paintings in a tree, I did something quite loud and different from what I’ve been doing. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSqDb59NZZ8e0AOglCOB0rewroDUhMif1tk5UXvqwww-4qKdy6uVVrYbcb2zSXhxQqubgP31bnga96tqGIfMkep8KsOBXdVwh49myCDaEPWvPNj6xOQrO-NUBokknS89rPxgwwBaTCVQ/s1600/Latitude1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSqDb59NZZ8e0AOglCOB0rewroDUhMif1tk5UXvqwww-4qKdy6uVVrYbcb2zSXhxQqubgP31bnga96tqGIfMkep8KsOBXdVwh49myCDaEPWvPNj6xOQrO-NUBokknS89rPxgwwBaTCVQ/s320/Latitude1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528025998870806354" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: You’ve taken the golf-ball type things that you painted in the past and made them huge and they’re no longer tied to reality. The golf balls were quite explainable, but these are more like the buds of a tree, or every ball that’s ever been thrown and there’s been a time warp and they’ve all appeared at once.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtI0vw3g_LsHPzIpJ3QrTKdxZeK4uQNICaqwOIvfpSvsjUXLsfOEpTA0G50jb9zlOcL2HLbppOA5hAk2MwVa4pikdiDMuacoVngyria03687CA-Wc9tXlkorTyl_Iwr8otWBo6FAt7eg/s1600/Swing.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtI0vw3g_LsHPzIpJ3QrTKdxZeK4uQNICaqwOIvfpSvsjUXLsfOEpTA0G50jb9zlOcL2HLbppOA5hAk2MwVa4pikdiDMuacoVngyria03687CA-Wc9tXlkorTyl_Iwr8otWBo6FAt7eg/s200/Swing.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528028711608176930" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: I like that. These are signs I painted pointing to things you couldn’t do, obviously, being a festival. You couldn’t actually go there.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">NN: And this time you’ve painted a scaled up representation of the Lino?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JC: Yeah, these objects are quite big. If the Lino was stuck on that, it wouldn’t work, so I’ve blown it up. I imagined a campsite with pine trees, a resort no-one used anymore that I stumbled across, with derelict buildings, fences and funny bits of architecture which had been overgrown and left –a playground, a swing, a concrete picnic table, close ups of this fantasy setting triggered by seeing pictures of the wood and thinking what could have been there. The memories were from childhood – I was brought up in Majorca. I suppose it was a bit of a joke, because, going back to ridiculousness, I thought about festivals and music and camping and what people are there for, and I threw this concrete ugly resort in the middle of it all via painting just to annoy people.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF6iR-XRJnXkI2Vg1N8ddhirRgAwoq4fbdViPOyPq12vnS1_RelLD1G7s4M7xiYhOXtbNJxPncmbI2s8Ehf6OrI9qZiT8N-C3P2Xnj4oVIBcwYNX8Lks81IHOcjyEJRoZeKTjZdNiLNQ/s1600/Barbed+Wire.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 327px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF6iR-XRJnXkI2Vg1N8ddhirRgAwoq4fbdViPOyPq12vnS1_RelLD1G7s4M7xiYhOXtbNJxPncmbI2s8Ehf6OrI9qZiT8N-C3P2Xnj4oVIBcwYNX8Lks81IHOcjyEJRoZeKTjZdNiLNQ/s400/Barbed+Wire.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528028272138209938" /></a><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">I liked the idea of people going, ‘Oh god, this is a bit ugly.’ But for me, it’s not ugly. I was contradicting what was there. I wanted to have people take their pictures in front of it, as though it really was a resort sign. The paintings had to be quite loud to work in that environment, which was all very dark and woody. Kitsch ugliness - taking Majorca to Suffolk. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDB0kS1YErM6MJwGMYKHCHSFwEn6J9H3PHQyXGSTPctadn0k_gDMiQFmJTdLDLLmiVXFJR3TKybGboqzueiJYQUVWqM1ybgauQqZT3dSkNO3Bak12T5-6YmSYUCfUZxvYCUxgcIhpSg/s1600/Latitude2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDB0kS1YErM6MJwGMYKHCHSFwEn6J9H3PHQyXGSTPctadn0k_gDMiQFmJTdLDLLmiVXFJR3TKybGboqzueiJYQUVWqM1ybgauQqZT3dSkNO3Bak12T5-6YmSYUCfUZxvYCUxgcIhpSg/s400/Latitude2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528029153092311074" /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.jake-clark.co.uk/">www.jake-clark.co.uk</a></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-33203985026003954702010-09-23T12:40:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:38:48.897-08:00David Blandy talks to Alli Sharma at his studio in Hackney, E8<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><i><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div>‘David Blandy’s work deals with his problematic relationship with popular culture, highlighting the slippage and tension between fantasy and reality in everyday life. Blandy is searching for his cultural position in the world. He often uses humour to ask the difficult question of just how much the self is formed by the mass-media of records, films and television, and whether he has an identity outside that.’</i> <a href="http://www.davidblandy.co.uk/">www.davidblandy.co.uk</a></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.davidblandy.co.uk/"></a><br /><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14778663" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/14778663"><i>Preview for "Child of the Atom"</i></a><i> from </i><a href="http://vimeo.com/user3083985"><i>David Blandy</i></a><i> on </i><a href="http://vimeo.com/"><i>Vimeo</i></a><i>.</i></p></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: How’s the show going at Seventeen Gallery?<br /><br />DB: I think it’s going pretty well. I've had some interesting responses to it so far. I'm pleased with how the installation reflects parts of the film, it's something that I've tried to do before, but I think it has been a bit more successful this time. I've been working on it for about two years now. In fact, I had the first kernel of the idea for it when I was in Sweden at I.A.S.P.I.S. at the end of 2006.<br /><br />AS: It took a long time to happen, did you organize funding too?<br /><br />DB: I scavenged around for different bits of funding. The Daiwa Foundation, which supports Anglo-Japanese research, supported the travel part. I wanted to take Inko, who did some of the animation sections, but had to scale it back. Phoebe, my daughter, wasn’t necessarily going to be in the film until we got out there, and I realised she had to be in it. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. But I was anxious, you know, putting your own children in your work. It can be exploitative. I consciously wanted all the camera shots of me to be from a distance, so that the location would become an important part of the film. It worked for keeping a bit removed from Phoebe too.<br /><br />AS: She immediately brings in the next generation, the future, against your grandfather’s past and the present day trip.<br /><br />DB: And somehow it made it more real to me, that kind of choice; would I choose my life instead of 100,000 people in Hiroshima? Yes, it’s only my life. But when it goes onto my daughter, I just couldn’t cope with the idea that she wouldn’t exist. It gave it another reality.<br /><br />AS: How do you convey that sort of horror? Do you feel that because you have your own family story, it gives you some sort of ownership and you can tell it?<br /><br />DB: I suppose I felt it lent legitimacy to my approaching it. The personal link was a significant part of growing up; an awareness of what happened to Pete, my grandfather, who was a Japanese prisoner of war. He was called David Piper but everyone called him Pete because it was a school nickname, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper. He wouldn’t eat rice or drive a Japanese car, yet he was generally a conscientious guy. He was a Director of the National Portrait Gallery and Ashmolean Museum, he wrote books like <i>The English Face</i>. So he was a learned academic and yet he still had a visceral reaction to things related to his time there, unable to deal with the history of that experience.<br /><br />AS: And how it impacted on him.<br /><br />DB: I had a Japanese pen pal when I was about six or seven. The family had to come over for business and they sent their son to my local primary. He seemed so cool because he could play rounders really well and draw accurately and played cool computer games. Even with that relationship, I think I remember my mum was anxious about telling Pete and what his reaction would be. Then I grew up falling in love with Japanese popular culture, Akira, anime and bits of manga.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/11894137" width="400" height="250" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/11894137"><i>Enter the Barefoot Lore Pilgrim:Origins, David Blandy</i></a><i> from </i><a href="http://vimeo.com/user3855584"><i>Seventeen Gallery</i></a><i> on </i><a href="http://vimeo.com/"><i>Vimeo</i></a><i>.</i></p><br />AS: The TV series <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(TV_series)">Kung Fu</a>, or Shogun, would have been before your time?<br /><br />DB: I remember watching Kung Fu with my dad. It must have been repeated because it was produced in 1971/72. I remember in the early days of video, when I was nine or ten years old, getting out Jackie Chan films and there was the video nasty, Shogun Assassin, a very bloodthirsty Samurai. And I grew up with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series)">Monkey</a>, of course.<br /><br />AS: Do you think using popular culture makes your work more accessible?<br /><br />DB: One of the reasons I started incorporating the stuff into the work was because I didn’t want it to be closed and only accessible to people who had been exposed to that bit of popular culture. If you actually put the song, or clip that has become a part of my memory, a part of me, into the film, then I’m sharing that and making those links clear. I’m really interested in the idea of collective or shared memory. We all watch the same films or have these images going around in our heads. If you’re remembering a film, is it the same as remembering a dream?<br /><br />AS: There’s a familiarity, even if it isn’t specific.<br /><br />DB: I wanted <i>Child of the Atom</i> to incorporate sections that implied that they were part of an existing anime series. The anime parts are an amalgam of appropriated bits overlaid with drawings I made with Inko, a Japanese manga artist. The image of the atom bomb is from <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCHbF9lG3lE">Barefoot Gen</a></i> so it’s already an anime version of Hiroshima. That anime was based on an original manga, a survivor’s tale, slightly fictionalized, a day in the life during the war when the bomb happens.<br /><br />AS: In cartoon form, that’s horrible.<br /><br />DB: Yeah, it is horrible, but it’s in the same realm as <i>Maus</i>, the comic of the Holocaust, of Auschwitz, but it’s done from a personal viewpoint. It’s a survivor’s tale but, rather than writing it, you’re turning it into a comic book. I think it’s more foreign to us because manga is so pervasive in Japan. Millions of people read <i>Shonen Jump</i> every week and it’s a comic the size of a telephone book. They flick through and then get rid of it because if they kept them their tiny apartment would be full of comics. So if there’s a story they really like then they buy the collected edition when it comes out. The cartoon is quite a faithful recreation of the comic, so I took a few sections from that for the film because it just made sense as the bomb had already passed into popular culture. I also mixed in <i>Fist of the North Star</i>, which is based in a post-apocalyptic world, quite <i>Conan</i>-ish with some intense scenes of nuclear Armaggedon, and <i>Akira</i> is the third.<br /><br />AS: So there are three different animations mixed into <i>Child of the Atom</i>.<br /><br />DB: Yeah, and they’ve been altered so that the same character continues in each of them. I’ve overlaid different frames, animated frames, put glasses on one of the characters, little things, so that it’s the same character occurring and there’s a narrative. So there are two parallel narratives; the journey of me and Phoebe in Hiroshima and Miyajima, the little island shrine, and then the parallel narrative is the Child of the Atom falling to Hiroshima and witnessing, or creating the bomb, and then walking through the ashes and fire and then seeing the flowers of new life at the end. So those two coming together and that melodrama set against the banality of our tourist visit. But equally, I really like the quiet bit of me and Phoebe, sitting at the end of the pier, looking out through the temple gate.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/9156766" width="400" height="227" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/9156766"><i>Crossroads (2009) Excerpt</i></a><i> from </i><a href="http://vimeo.com/user3083985"><i>David Blandy</i></a><i> on </i><a href="http://vimeo.com/"><i>Vimeo</i></a>.</p><br />AS: I heard someone ask you what you thought a moving image was and you said it’s like a series of still paintings. Your films do have a painterly quality. I was thinking of <i>Crossroads</i>. The camera holding on a particular moment for a long time, it’s very beautiful. I know Claire Barrett, your partner, does the camera work, so who makes those decisions?<br /><br />DB: Claire does all the camera work and of course we talk about the feel for the film. I mean it’s a total collaboration in that sense.<br /><br />AS: I was wondering about the painting comment, was that flippant or is there some influence?<br /><br />DB: Well, I grew up with art because my dad’s an artist so I always thought I was going to be a painter until I got to my foundation course. I felt there was nothing new I could achieve. Then I realized the things I was really interested in were screen based, like computer games and videos and television, so if I wanted to talk about these things then wouldn’t it make sense to make them out of that media. Then it comes down to the editing process. Claire has some input but that’s my main job really, apart from messing around in front of the camera and organizing everything. But that’s where it becomes a piece, the rhythm of it, the choices, instead of just being a sequence of images. <i>Crossroads</i> is cut down from something like 12 hours of footage to 12 minutes. I knew that I wanted it to be a very still film so I made sure that Claire was hanging on for 15/20 seconds on every shot. So, it’s that thing of what is creative? Is it the editing? It’s artist-as-DJ, mixing the bits of existing materials. I like having Claire’s material like the found objects, the bits of pop culture that I then bring together and mix to mean something.<br /><br /><br />David Blandy is at:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /><i>Child of the Atom</i>, Seventeen Gallery, London E2 until 2 Oct.<br /><a href="http://www.seventeengallery.com/">www.seventeengallery.com</a><br /><br /><i>Mixtapes: Popular Music in Contemporary Art</i>, Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland until 24 Oct.<br /><a href="http://www.glucksman.org/">www.glucksman.org</a><br /><br /></span> <br /></div></div></div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-37077163253668131032010-07-24T03:31:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:45:48.348-08:00Paul Johnson talks with Nick Nowicki at his studio in Poplar, East London<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRuI_TM6esU5UvCSuyLzKEsoEaY0C7hucaI9oL46c0hf-47B_0d6uyaoazxDkVrzM8zpICe0HjJVAYV7Tp4tS95QaJgf556IVD-7x1VF8qrkqbGgFPSl7FwApGaqL1D8u1E6n6jdz7eQ/s1600/Untitled+Green.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRuI_TM6esU5UvCSuyLzKEsoEaY0C7hucaI9oL46c0hf-47B_0d6uyaoazxDkVrzM8zpICe0HjJVAYV7Tp4tS95QaJgf556IVD-7x1VF8qrkqbGgFPSl7FwApGaqL1D8u1E6n6jdz7eQ/s400/Untitled+Green.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497426297140818402" /></a><br /><br />PJ: I grew up as an oil painter, graduated from Glasgow in a painting school, but I never really wanted to pick up a brush, or start mixing paint. I was always trying to work out how I could construct a painting; how I could handcraft it. I started to formulate glass-paint and spray it onto cut-out pieces of paper, which I used to build up collages. I don’t really know what I’m going to get until I start putting it together. There’s a slight uncertainty with spraying, because you don’t have complete control over spray. As your consciousness kicks in, colours change and shift with your mood, so if someone ends up with a green chin for some reason, I allow that to be part of the making, as opposed to ‘Oh no, that’s gone wrong.’ So, in a way, I do feel a bit like a painter at times.<br /><p class="MsoNormal">NN: The drawing of the soldier looks like you’ve painted it with watercolour daubs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">PJ: Some artists go through a process of simplifying things as they work through their career. I’ve found what I’ve done is complicate things and added more and more. They’ve ended up becoming more layered and more ‘painterly’ through the making. This green bit is tracing paper that I’ve sprayed and then placed on top, and the rest is sprayed by sectioning parts off. If it’s not right, it’s sanded away. Glass-paint has a stiffness, but I use it so lightly it’s almost like a dusting. If this was a watercolour and you didn’t like a certain section, or if you wanted to shift it once you’d put the paint down, obviously you’d be adding water or you’d be using a sponge, but for me, I’ll be getting out the sandpaper. It has similar possibilities where I can eradicate or keep things in. Again, it’s like a constructed watercolour. Physicality always returns in the work at every stage.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvaPRpP2JWW_1kvuG53M01XFvWVwidRBBe3PROMCdNuQRJjbmd-rZkKXvk0GascPp7LX2zYv2fPmkxkx2LobGxOGdq1_oH_Q7DlL5cIRJqBru89RwTs1ZULLdxKtoctes8pz9_AEM6Bw/s1600/Driver.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvaPRpP2JWW_1kvuG53M01XFvWVwidRBBe3PROMCdNuQRJjbmd-rZkKXvk0GascPp7LX2zYv2fPmkxkx2LobGxOGdq1_oH_Q7DlL5cIRJqBru89RwTs1ZULLdxKtoctes8pz9_AEM6Bw/s320/Driver.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497419414373964178" /></a>NN: When I first saw your work in 2003, you were physically covering up your collages with red polypropylene.</p><p class="MsoNormal">PJ: At that time, I was trying to contain physical worlds, and it felt like the process needed to be contained as well. But I had backed myself into a corner. I thought, ‘What next? Do I just stay here, hermetically sealed, or do I try to navigate my way out?’ I remember an artist coming to my studio and he put me on the spot. He looked at my collages and said ‘Why would you want to cover them up?’ I think strangely that comment triggered something I was already thinking, but wasn’t yet prepared to do. Like any artist, you make dumb decisions sometimes, and I made a series of yellow ones, and a series of clear ones, and the collage was still all sealed in. But the polypropylene had become an effect, as opposed to an integral part of making an image. Then I made a piece called <i>Girl</i> that felt integral, all the components felt right, and it only had one bit of plastic on it. It had elements of the red polypropylene series but felt like a whole different beast. The discs, that had been sheeny and covered, suddenly allowed their physicality to be seen. There’s still an element of containment, but it’s about her visual containment. For me, this was the key piece to move on and bring in elements that I was interested in.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-6PZ8nvVw8NKcaI7rZHaelAIfE8SJ-qKfuTcUNxb0MrECeioWqiTB2vnhzijQmCy-fwN2OKNjQbxTHNXivuJjhLgFZ3v4z2yFYFXfOkR3DBnS5ZqhPBQQ8Q6XQgrvko2pZ8T2ab9sQ/s1600/Girl+2006.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-6PZ8nvVw8NKcaI7rZHaelAIfE8SJ-qKfuTcUNxb0MrECeioWqiTB2vnhzijQmCy-fwN2OKNjQbxTHNXivuJjhLgFZ3v4z2yFYFXfOkR3DBnS5ZqhPBQQ8Q6XQgrvko2pZ8T2ab9sQ/s320/Girl+2006.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497420869794257154" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "></span></a><p class="MsoNormal">NN: Talking about the presence of the poly-propylene, that's a strong artistic presence. You were very present within that work, as the keeper at the gate. And you are still present once that's gone, because of the way that it's been visibly crafted. I think you are strongly involved in my perception of the work.</p><p class="MsoNormal">PJ: I think that’s definitely a point. I was interested in that sense of clarity; when you think of something and you have the sudden urge to physically make it. I love that intention and I think the handmadeness of what I do, and the level of labour, speaks of the obsessional. Potentially, there are so many easier ways to make an image, and I end up giving myself a hard time. My Dad joked, ‘It’s probably ‘cause you’re Catholic, Paul. It’s probably just your upbringing.’ That I feel I need to go through this cathartic kind of thing each time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: Could you go into more detail about finding the images, and the compulsion to make a particular image into a portrait? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">PJ: It’s normally about being switched on, and looking, but the trick is not being conscious of looking. So, throughout your day, you’re susceptible to seeing things, whether it’s a bit of newspaper on the floor, an image on the internet, television, or an image of someone I’ve seen and sneakily taken their portrait. I put the found image on the studio wall and it lingers for five or six months. I keep looking at it on a day-to-day basis, and normally it’s this funny process of there’s-something-about-you-which-I’m-unsure-about, which turns into a compulsion to make an image of that person. But if I forget that it’s there then I just leave it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2nnfVFJGYoV631puGxTim2aH4KhBDpotj45bgH26AUx6xaa9fOyDGb_EcVGtNqU2OYxpDIOYan2bLYlbywDAcAiNBVU-Y8zlYMH5LdMdhfkg2ca8ASAqC4hTzDXSGpA8nu-CBE464xQ/s1600/Civil+War+Drawing.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 336px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2nnfVFJGYoV631puGxTim2aH4KhBDpotj45bgH26AUx6xaa9fOyDGb_EcVGtNqU2OYxpDIOYan2bLYlbywDAcAiNBVU-Y8zlYMH5LdMdhfkg2ca8ASAqC4hTzDXSGpA8nu-CBE464xQ/s400/Civil+War+Drawing.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497421783150821122" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">It’s a slow process, and maybe a head will come from somewhere, a uniform or costume might be sourced from somewhere else, and then I’ll start to piece them together using drawings and photocopying. Fictional things then happen, and it becomes this person whom I try to present as if they are real.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: Because you’ve spent so long lovingly crafting them, it feels to me like you love these people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">PJ: Wow!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: But in actual fact you don’t know them. They don’t even exist.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf7agqzRtS9LiQ6ffesh9knxhJZ-VY-onhEH5Ns3M_NH5oz-4BqWlaqzoyAEjxw6D9Je3plpkkWBPlurnGKYYuVw1l9Pzkd1ZMkSR5x_p3txXwfoeWxHIqApdztGrgrKjGHEkwXqCJg/s1600/The+Lookout.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf7agqzRtS9LiQ6ffesh9knxhJZ-VY-onhEH5Ns3M_NH5oz-4BqWlaqzoyAEjxw6D9Je3plpkkWBPlurnGKYYuVw1l9Pzkd1ZMkSR5x_p3txXwfoeWxHIqApdztGrgrKjGHEkwXqCJg/s320/The+Lookout.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497422262408919282" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">PJ: No. There is a distance. I found an image on a boat in India, and after I’d made it into a portrait, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Lookout</i>, people were saying ‘Who is it?’ and they wanted me to describe him, as if he was someone I’d had some sort of contact with, but the strength of the work is that there’s, hopefully, a mystery. That is something I’m interested in. How much do you believe and how much don’t you believe, and the space between.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf7agqzRtS9LiQ6ffesh9knxhJZ-VY-onhEH5Ns3M_NH5oz-4BqWlaqzoyAEjxw6D9Je3plpkkWBPlurnGKYYuVw1l9Pzkd1ZMkSR5x_p3txXwfoeWxHIqApdztGrgrKjGHEkwXqCJg/s1600/The+Lookout.jpg"></a><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: Is it a literal translation of the photo?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">PJ: The photo was black and white, quite an old photograph in a Victorian frame. I’m projecting colours onto him, as if to give him some sort of vibrancy - a lot of images I’ve used are black and white or drawn from a photocopy and I add colour - to make you think about him as someone potentially real, or to give him a feeling of something quite current. I don’t want him to feel like he’s a Victorian photograph, or he’s from another century. His hairstyle and beard seem to allow him to be in this current day. I picked up another few photographs, and the rest looked like they were from a particular period of time, whereas he seemed timeless, as if he could exist then and now. When they are stuck in an era that’s when I lose interest. If I can convert them into feeling present, rather than past, they become familiar, as if you could tap into what that person is feeling, or the thought-pattern behind the eyes.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0O0S5DDjFvscNoIW421cPLR9wq2mYJmoOLRIpD9fvUEo4bZgptkl45Y4gPsBBicVHCnVoJ57ShQR3EYKU8ugdFidylnCuSGPpIm673VsRisL-KBNZ6LAIF_YIdPkyrM4tb0svVL7uXw/s1600/Civil+War+Photograph+Photocopy.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 145px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0O0S5DDjFvscNoIW421cPLR9wq2mYJmoOLRIpD9fvUEo4bZgptkl45Y4gPsBBicVHCnVoJ57ShQR3EYKU8ugdFidylnCuSGPpIm673VsRisL-KBNZ6LAIF_YIdPkyrM4tb0svVL7uXw/s200/Civil+War+Photograph+Photocopy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497423175598555330" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m hoping some sort of fragility is communicated through the image. And also I have actually described them in the past as being a sort of family of people, not in a traditional sense, but in the sense of disparate people coming together, through some sort of shared belief.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: Like a cult?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">PJ: Yeah, and the work went through a point where the cultish element started to creep in, but now I’m more interested in the work being ritualistic without the symbolism being directly placed upon it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Venus Passing The Sun</i> might feel like a ritualistic object, but it’s not explicit. There’s an attempt to make it more suggestive.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpBmO3Fhi6x-vj6MoFspKwvFokWM4yv4dRZwbr0-CLoPQ1jlZLARL8i9zSIjLHJMSUeDxTicHA7zm1X8X5o_Vna_T1UWKGYwDdXrDDFdPUvykHZDCiM_wtNDy-W6IW3Ys07CF900t5Ug/s1600/Venus+Passing+The+Sun+180dpi.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpBmO3Fhi6x-vj6MoFspKwvFokWM4yv4dRZwbr0-CLoPQ1jlZLARL8i9zSIjLHJMSUeDxTicHA7zm1X8X5o_Vna_T1UWKGYwDdXrDDFdPUvykHZDCiM_wtNDy-W6IW3Ys07CF900t5Ug/s320/Venus+Passing+The+Sun+180dpi.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497423729645999154" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: Are you using your imagination more?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">PJ: I think so. I’m just allowing things to seep in. Maybe I’m going through another transition. You always evolve as an artist, you’re always sort of moving. For instance, with this most recent one, I had the title in my head for years. It’s quite a tragic title, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Portrait of Someone Slowly Drowning, </i>and I remember thinking how would you go about visualizing that title. At the same time, I was interested in how I could pattern the surface around a portrait, but without it simply being some sort of decorative device. Instead of the background being blank, I wanted to fill it, so it’s almost as intense as the actual person, almost as if it’s whirling or swirling round that person. And in a practical way, I literally made him in bits. His mouth and his chin I didn’t really like, and in a spontaneous way I put him on in a temporary way without the bottom half, and instantly thought the image was enough. It feels like this portrait is almost being sucked into some kind of mental schema that’s floating around him, whereas in my previous work, it’s always a symbol or something physical floating over, something that’s real and tangible, but not actually there. This feels much more fluid. It’s got this crazed pattern, but it’s uncertain, and it’s clear, and you think you’re looking at particular things. Someone described the lower half as being like some sort of water formation, or some kind of crustacean, and I like that it’s suggestive, but doesn’t become definite.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDCsHX9Axm9QaZ5v7AQrUm1XTENtrbSVe98UVyrRAhZh-QKsFR5eeIsCGltneDMrsdMz7gFTBHkLNew7VzzJpqgiNzrfMJrI11BVOEa5HnwXEguqk-F_fB6qk9CS_abet12lt_G_X8yA/s1600/Portrait+Of+Someone+Slowly+Drowning.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDCsHX9Axm9QaZ5v7AQrUm1XTENtrbSVe98UVyrRAhZh-QKsFR5eeIsCGltneDMrsdMz7gFTBHkLNew7VzzJpqgiNzrfMJrI11BVOEa5HnwXEguqk-F_fB6qk9CS_abet12lt_G_X8yA/s400/Portrait+Of+Someone+Slowly+Drowning.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497424518886356546" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal">NN: The abstract part could be part of him, like a body under a sheet, or it could be seen as a nervous system.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">PJ: Ah yeah, something biological. I think that’s where the collages are starting to head. There’s openness to interpretation as opposed to a definite kind of badge, or symbol, or object floating over the top of someone. All artists make a body of work, and then they just reach that point of ‘Mmmm, what’s that one about?’ It feels like a bit of a jolt, but that’s really exciting. This feels like another evolution, a personal evolution with making these collages, and it’s good to let them grow.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><i>Paul Johnson is showing in 'Newspeak: British Art Now, Part Two' at the Saatchi Gallery, London, 27 Oct 2010 - 6 Jan 2011 and 'BigMinis' - fetishes of crisis at CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux, 18</i><i> Nov 2010 – 27</i><i> Feb 2011.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><i>Images courtesy of the artist and Ancient & Modern, London.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><a href="http://www.ancientandmodern.org/">www.ancientandmodern.org</a><br /><br /></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-51085966567642125832010-07-08T12:56:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:46:56.588-08:00Michael Ajerman talks to Alli Sharma at his East London studio<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-3JZw4KrrGVpTv7tqcbZM340ikBybZmq2Pcu_hTrwkMm3zZX33W2NqY7FfBhszS1JuQkPLt3yyN1_fslOnUP486F1GQu1V-AaZBINsq2M_CYr2rg-BPTwEkldKL5xYGcNw7zJqJyiQ/s1600/IMG_4263.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-3JZw4KrrGVpTv7tqcbZM340ikBybZmq2Pcu_hTrwkMm3zZX33W2NqY7FfBhszS1JuQkPLt3yyN1_fslOnUP486F1GQu1V-AaZBINsq2M_CYr2rg-BPTwEkldKL5xYGcNw7zJqJyiQ/s400/IMG_4263.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491640792411983426" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is the watercolour from life?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yeah, I’ve been doing these on and off for a while. I had an instructor in New York but I only really did it seriously in about 2002 at the Slade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some people like the watercolours, others like the oils, but over the years, they’re beginning to become one.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is it that you can explore something about materiality in the watercolours?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: It’s the fluidity of the material and colour and not really having the ability to mess around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t really know the history of watercolours very well. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I mean I know there’s a huge history in Britain and I know what a Turner or Constable watercolour looks like. I like doing them. I find them incredibly special and I really have to focus because there’s so much going on at one time.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is the history of painting important to you?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: It is. I mean I know it. I had a weird neighbour when I was growing up in New Jersey who showed me old art documentaries. When I was 8, everyone else was doing Martin Luther King or Thomas Jefferson reports for school. I was doing Michelangelo, talking about him cutting up bodies to figure out how things work. I was a weird kid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_kkW1rOAyFMhqBAxV2Oznq6R-LPJ4Kay0ovjSyHUSF8QoZuWRBWMgiGtPe5wMFrPFI6TTypsQ2ZzsljGdIVFFZvFrMHfgwKhH3bD1F6aAY0QQr73AXYx5mufkpxLyxl44XoPYs330lA/s1600/IMG_2781.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_kkW1rOAyFMhqBAxV2Oznq6R-LPJ4Kay0ovjSyHUSF8QoZuWRBWMgiGtPe5wMFrPFI6TTypsQ2ZzsljGdIVFFZvFrMHfgwKhH3bD1F6aAY0QQr73AXYx5mufkpxLyxl44XoPYs330lA/s200/IMG_2781.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491630421583646322" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: Do you still make discoveries?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I do, but I’ve also begun to notice that certain aspects of work by artists that I like has changed. Things seem different now and I don’t know why. Albums that I’ve listened to for a really long time also sound different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I still make discoveries in strange places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Recently, I’ve been more interested in just going out there and seeing what comes my way than a premeditated research on something, like it’s a sign. There was a really big Otto Dix show in New York where I saw these two great paintings of a woman and a child. The first one looked like a brown Mary Cassatt and the other like something painted by Charles Addams who did the Addams Family stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was the same year, the same model, but I was blown away by the scope of the works.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: You mean the different styles?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: No, just completely different sensations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One seemed to have the parental empathy of Cassatt, but with the other one, you could almost hear the Addams Family theme tune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had been thinking about doing something with a good friend of mine, Ivan, who’s just become a father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He lives in New York and now has a son, Jonah, so we met up I did some sketches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just cause I usually draw Ivan when I see him, and this was an event, he’s now a ‘Dad.’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then on my next trip to New York I went to Zwirner gallery and in the back office they had this Alice Neel painting of Neel’s husband and her first son. It’s a bizarre painting. The partner’s face was really heavily done with this one long mark for the eyebrows, the nose and then back up again. The child’s face almost scrubbed out, which is kind of like stuff you would see now. I thought, it’s a sign! I should do the paintings of Ivan and Jonah when I get back to London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So stuff like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzQO0_TKPPexV64E41b7j-BGzloWpJu3R1V25WibHuutYpyqcRYhPH9GSNXfMNEj58P6Lby-nM4X7Ui4k-PBoU2eL4Q79b7JGRPVGdtKi3dF4JfGqhBXOMtvw_AKW2wl3X54_kKXwkQ/s1600/IMG_4264.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzQO0_TKPPexV64E41b7j-BGzloWpJu3R1V25WibHuutYpyqcRYhPH9GSNXfMNEj58P6Lby-nM4X7Ui4k-PBoU2eL4Q79b7JGRPVGdtKi3dF4JfGqhBXOMtvw_AKW2wl3X54_kKXwkQ/s200/IMG_4264.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491635287147170594" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: Making connections with things going on in your head? I was wondering about your subject matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You paint the things that are going on around you in your life?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I am aware of what I do here, but it got to the point where I was really not in the mood to go to the dark for a little while, I needed a break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I also want to keep it fresh. The heavy ones are mentally exhausting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not saying that the ones of the father and son are not exhausting but it’s just different.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: Why are the heavy ones exhausting, because the subject matter is very close to you?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: Sometimes it is and sometimes not. I can put too much in, of my feelings and stuff, it’s been pointed out to me pretty clearly but I think it’s the same if someone is writing or doing an intense scene in a film or something like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A tension starts building up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5hw93dJ3BGEsI4fAu5oOvjKcdCx0eSbrj0OsO3fHXq6y6ySFBAwjmtW-Tk4hwx3d-hPOvXbMmUEkDcuh9oPfm0E0Z1LGGiUr8fk570fnuXdxnznyNJH34bouOl-WXiI_AU6Q3fR74Q/s1600/IMG_2688c.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 334px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5hw93dJ3BGEsI4fAu5oOvjKcdCx0eSbrj0OsO3fHXq6y6ySFBAwjmtW-Tk4hwx3d-hPOvXbMmUEkDcuh9oPfm0E0Z1LGGiUr8fk570fnuXdxnznyNJH34bouOl-WXiI_AU6Q3fR74Q/s400/IMG_2688c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491634346511382354" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">AS: It’s an emotional relationship?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: It is, but at the same time, if it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it. Well, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Upside Down</i> in the Transition gallery show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s a woman dangling, you don’t see her legs and there’s a lot of ambiguity in that painting. People have said to me ‘I don’t like it’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I say ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to like it’, then other people do like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m trying to make paintings with feeling and power, with a presence to hold up to everything else, like billboards, magazines, Piccadilly Circus and you know, everything else (makes hand gestures like scrolling through an iPhone).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjucLaG0mItmjr7LVyXhkzzuLTtRnt141wpjrmIpEpuV4Q_oyi7KvrrQ8mZA3_2JgAdyCx84MPo9efd-1hg3MbPHvVINudyZiW1_jAuqu5lOMorBG4GswXi1Kj81ncjw8ftES6FMM0OcQ/s1600/IMG_2719c.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjucLaG0mItmjr7LVyXhkzzuLTtRnt141wpjrmIpEpuV4Q_oyi7KvrrQ8mZA3_2JgAdyCx84MPo9efd-1hg3MbPHvVINudyZiW1_jAuqu5lOMorBG4GswXi1Kj81ncjw8ftES6FMM0OcQ/s200/IMG_2719c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491636436268813714" /></a>AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The way you handle the paint looks like a balancing act, it looks intense and concentrated. The paint could have been slapped on, but you know it hasn’t, you know it has been controlled and it’s slippery and difficult.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I call it aggressive surface control. The marks can sometimes be aggressive. At the same time, I like what </span><span style="color:black;"><a href="http://www.corinnaspencer.com/blogs/">Corinna Spencer</a></span><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;"> wrote on her blog, that some of the marks are pulled slow, to get certain effects. I don’t like the word ‘dragging’ but you’re gliding through.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: So it’s not necessarily a fast way of working.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: If it’s working wonderfully, it’s fast, then there are times when it creeps really slow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The conclusion of a piece is usually two or three marks interplaying, ricocheting onto each other, creating some kind of sensation, usually. The most important thing is trying to keep open to things, accepting things that don’t happen in the normal way and moving with that. There’s this idea that the mistake is not the mistake. The mistake is what comes after. So if something is done which is a little bit odd, it’s what is done to compliment or aggravate that afterwards to verify whether it was a mistake.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: The response?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">MA: Yeah, the response is more important than the ‘oh god’ moment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: So do you know when to leave something?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: Well that’s hard. There are times when I’ve run out of the studio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because you get this moment when you really have to accept what you’ve done and it takes a while because you have this idea in your head of what you want to do and sometimes you get really close to it but sometimes the idea of accepting something is really hard.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiXEevQTBLAhUEYcww3Yj04aWGgYsgAvVgGgJ6UkQozD7OLd_SOWPDtbmSSpsbUpI6D-3Vp7lA407cQaMKSKpwID7XNYUkEUEFXzSgKeSZJ07twqaqaKbgwaGwQgtXkjOdeAh4KHUcCw/s1600/IMG_2692c.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 167px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiXEevQTBLAhUEYcww3Yj04aWGgYsgAvVgGgJ6UkQozD7OLd_SOWPDtbmSSpsbUpI6D-3Vp7lA407cQaMKSKpwID7XNYUkEUEFXzSgKeSZJ07twqaqaKbgwaGwQgtXkjOdeAh4KHUcCw/s200/IMG_2692c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491636984720880322" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When you start a piece do you have a strong idea of what it’s going to look like?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I have an idea, but even the drawings are never close and also things that are planned out too much always look really dead to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I stopped doing that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That way of working is not interesting to me any more.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">AS: If you’ve worked it out already, there’s no working out left to do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: There are people who want and demand that control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For me, the most interesting ones I do are where everything is on an equal level, meaning that any part of the picture can be pushed, pulled or re-adjusted in a delicate or aggressive manner at any given time and not to be precious about a specific part and realise that it is the whole thing that is really important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I mean some of my marks are aggressive and some of my marks are calmer, there are definitely certain types of approaches that I’ve been working with for the past couple of years and that might expand or contract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But the thing is I mostly just think about the colour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The marks.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You use a particular shade of dirty purple.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I thought it was from watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Purple Rain </i>too much. I found this purple and I really like it. It’s in jars over there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I make some slight adjustments to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The colour range breathes in and out depending on the imagery. For a while there were reds, yellows and deep sienna brown to depict a late night electric light.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSW4FvWG6zQF560dJd0_LRn2Bhhc2SQtN3lNBy9pklHfnnA60X3SHEs28eUqL5FmhZpWcyQRe4nbpS1fCIRg3NkW0yaOQN2k_oFiibyhaCqIbcTCjzdDA2C2_N1DoRsiaW7SuTEtKt4w/s1600/IMG_2726c.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSW4FvWG6zQF560dJd0_LRn2Bhhc2SQtN3lNBy9pklHfnnA60X3SHEs28eUqL5FmhZpWcyQRe4nbpS1fCIRg3NkW0yaOQN2k_oFiibyhaCqIbcTCjzdDA2C2_N1DoRsiaW7SuTEtKt4w/s400/IMG_2726c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491637675668036258" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">AS: They feel really close.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I used to work night shift at bars and restaurants. Those times are great because when going home at night everything seems a lot easier to see. It’s tonal, not chromatic. I really responded to the red colour range. For a while it was clunky then I became more conscious of controlling it. I liked the red because it seemed easy to lose control of it and I liked that idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: Do you limit your palette?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I remember at University in New York, you’re palette looked like a freight train.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think it’s that student idea that if you have five different reds and four different blues, it will make it better. God, what a mistake that was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Limitations are good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll shift something or change the tone but it usually starts from a compressed amount, and a decent amount of it. Even in the small paintings, if you mix a tiny amount and you put it down then that’s it, the mileage of that colour is over. If you mix more of that colour you can make that same mark or ten more like it to do something else in the painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: It makes sense, so you can change things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’re not fixed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">MA: It’s important for me to have the ability to move from one part of the surface to another very quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That can mean the colour range or making sure that there is an amount of pigment to physically do that and that’s only done by preparing, preparing preparing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">AS: Some of the paintings are on aluminium.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: Metal is pretty awesome.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: Because it slides?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: It’s like butter in a pan when it’s just going. It captures the marks much more differently than board, which is probably the closest.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgsbZM2dl7OZ5dxzTI8PnIFVX8DE7rO08VvEhhS_FkW3LDoshAaAszqLWxH2Kf_S0yYajT84hlQAgrx2cWOX4Mr-3so-a9yi6gXQh31rm_fEnyfe40RWFbOhyuth07MbEXgGpPvlyyA/s1600/IMG_2729c.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 371px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgsbZM2dl7OZ5dxzTI8PnIFVX8DE7rO08VvEhhS_FkW3LDoshAaAszqLWxH2Kf_S0yYajT84hlQAgrx2cWOX4Mr-3so-a9yi6gXQh31rm_fEnyfe40RWFbOhyuth07MbEXgGpPvlyyA/s400/IMG_2729c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491638308301342786" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: The pumpkin strikes me as a particularly American emblem, you don’t feel that about it?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I don’t know if it’s a love poem for Americana but it is strange and comforting to see them around here in Oct/Nov.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The pumpkin goes back to that colour range I was using, but they’re weird things; they’re meaty. I got a pumpkin and I grabbed my power drill and drilled holes in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The cool thing was when I was working on it I had the candles inside the holes, so it has this vanitas feel to it. One of the candles went out.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">AS: Yes, it’s just gone out, you can still smell it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: It had gone out and I was really chasing it, it was a lucky couple of seconds.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNkmLPKXOF4zdQFhcOS0kFfCcGadeq3q1s-Wo_f4IkREmuMlr6RYLoD0GZNCHPqiKv9ymhFrDXPRxsQLmFQZqEjjyzxT4wBDUqmr7XRSftIo1wr3Q5ylDCEE58OyZ8hWHJC8Etg7krVQ/s1600/Derek.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 198px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNkmLPKXOF4zdQFhcOS0kFfCcGadeq3q1s-Wo_f4IkREmuMlr6RYLoD0GZNCHPqiKv9ymhFrDXPRxsQLmFQZqEjjyzxT4wBDUqmr7XRSftIo1wr3Q5ylDCEE58OyZ8hWHJC8Etg7krVQ/s200/Derek.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491639221019411106" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: The portrait hung next to the other pumpkin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is that an actual person.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: Yeah, that’s my friend Derek. We grew up together in New Jersey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was coming through London. For a while it has been a nightmare working from direct observation in oils because I didn’t have the same type of control as working from non-direct observation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I abandoned that approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When Derek was here I thought I’d give it another shot. I remember how weird his jaw was and I never noticed it before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was really bizarre.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: How long did it take?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: This was fast. The paintings take two hours to two years. There are people who don’t trust their working methods when it’s finished in a couple of hours. I want things to be as good as everybody else does but there are times when the first thought is the best thought.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: There is something very fresh about that way of working that seems to be undervalued.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: It’s weird because you get painters who talk about Eastern philosophy and Chinese Dynasty landscapes and they’re done like that. Yes, there’s a great deal of training and planning that goes into those types of things.</span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5WQ2zxa7vuaetjeuNC8M-S3f85NdVz55uVRmhTUbqEonGWh6Qin1qqFUl2HhhDr4pIrVCTSzN9yw0maf3Elff7d9SwXuSz06Ya6EsjYxs3IZGmM2ikN2nN6D4Yf0Rq8227uoeNc2gDw/s1600/IMG_2733c.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 162px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5WQ2zxa7vuaetjeuNC8M-S3f85NdVz55uVRmhTUbqEonGWh6Qin1qqFUl2HhhDr4pIrVCTSzN9yw0maf3Elff7d9SwXuSz06Ya6EsjYxs3IZGmM2ikN2nN6D4Yf0Rq8227uoeNc2gDw/s200/IMG_2733c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491639783716041618" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: I would imagine that when you’re working that fast, something must take over in the way that you are looking and working.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I don’t think that kind of thing can be described verbally very well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You become so at one with the materials in a way that conventional human dialogue doesn’t really work. I think that can go for any type of creative impulse. It’s a weird thing because you are bombarded by someone who is sitting in front of you, someone that you have known for a long period of time so there’s a great deal going on cerebrally and optically, and now you’re at two very different places in your life, those days are gone but those parts of your brain are still flickering in a funny kind of way and I like working with all of that.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: It’s not just anyone’s head you’re painting.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I know people who don’t want to know the model, they want the distance but it’s never been like that for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That kind of dislocation from the subject matter really seems a waste of time. I’m interested in the people I paint, but I’m also picky about the people that I paint. I think it’s trying to use a language to try to investigate something that is close to you and seeing where it can go.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvfBNEEvzHHZ08CsID2uOlctJoYoRTgD38b_F0qZXKs7UGqkkfalksW2sUkgJ8y2N5CadPBdfPRtIAyHRvypcQAvX6Ah5ZLfR4BwkZV1POeAeCyjukvT0UoMoiu1n0EJsJ9gsCpdRXPA/s1600/IMG_2706c.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 334px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvfBNEEvzHHZ08CsID2uOlctJoYoRTgD38b_F0qZXKs7UGqkkfalksW2sUkgJ8y2N5CadPBdfPRtIAyHRvypcQAvX6Ah5ZLfR4BwkZV1POeAeCyjukvT0UoMoiu1n0EJsJ9gsCpdRXPA/s400/IMG_2706c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491640282112781426" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: Can you tell me about the painting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Christelle</i>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I’m very happy with it as an image. It’s a memorandum piece and I’ve never done anything like that but I think it works well. It was something I really needed to do. We spoke before about how do you make a painting, I had previous watercolours that I had done and old photographic imagery and stuff and I really went for it. At Slade, Bruce McLean used to say, ‘when you know you’re hitting it, you’re hitting it.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You have this ten minute groove, and it doesn’t happen all the time, but when you’re in it you’re in it and you just go. It was weird finishing this thing because I felt I was hitting it better than I’d ever done before but at the same time I really felt like I was losing my mojo with every hit. It was really bizarre like I was really in it but after each volley, my strength kept going down and then I don’t know if it ended because there was nothing left to me or nothing left to do in the painting, I just remember it stopped.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">AS: So when you were talking about an intense period of working, this was what you were dealing with?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;">MA: I consider it intense. I come in here and I see where it all goes. I’m trying to stay open for things to shift and change but I don’t really know where it goes. I can try and will things and I do, but there’s really only so much, I’m not interested in choking it. That’s just boring.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><i>Michael Ajerman can be seen at </i></span><span style="color:black;"><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/fisherman_strawberry.html"><i>Transition Gallery</i></a></span><span style="color:black;"><i> until 11 July.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;color:black;"><br /></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-62657621980229260392010-06-05T22:04:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:47:38.676-08:00David Harrison in conversation with Nick Nowicki at his studio in Angel, N1.<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNsjnVRLlFHekdIghqVwWrPIo2ohnWY7Wwjh5fda4I3YnMDafZwrN3STZitkVhTfaC7HuIiWoTFYPoBSLiZItNSbdTqQXjY3TiqJr7nLeVUSwjvYhq0faPoVxfE59Ejkj5VU4WksnYkw/s1600/they+watch.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNsjnVRLlFHekdIghqVwWrPIo2ohnWY7Wwjh5fda4I3YnMDafZwrN3STZitkVhTfaC7HuIiWoTFYPoBSLiZItNSbdTqQXjY3TiqJr7nLeVUSwjvYhq0faPoVxfE59Ejkj5VU4WksnYkw/s400/they+watch.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479534993652511314" /></a><br /><div>DH: This is the latest painting I’ve finished.<br /><p class="MsoNormal">NN: Someone is peeping out of the trees, or some<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">thing</i>.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsRS_jHnlYu0RTXIeZiAQbC8JxCLTb_Xahu-CRcV8dN87iD8xXSgfeLx08eqxNkuNc9ki3fCYzBLPikr6irVY_lSjsrSsQPDwuEmk-_vd9Qn3R_XZ37LtpZn0Tu-iVIJ7NB4d5kTV1Bg/s1600/they+watch+detail.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 172px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsRS_jHnlYu0RTXIeZiAQbC8JxCLTb_Xahu-CRcV8dN87iD8xXSgfeLx08eqxNkuNc9ki3fCYzBLPikr6irVY_lSjsrSsQPDwuEmk-_vd9Qn3R_XZ37LtpZn0Tu-iVIJ7NB4d5kTV1Bg/s200/they+watch+detail.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479538527066513618" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">DH: It’s not made clear what it is. It’s the unknown watching. I’m thinking of calling it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">They’re Watching</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">They Watch</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Do Property Developers Dream Of</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Electric Trees?</i> I love the idea that we’re being watched all the time by nature. There are probably spiders and insects or mice sitting here now watching us. Man thinks it’s getting one over on nature, but in his darkest dreams nature can come back to get him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: How do you approach composition when making paintings?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: I never really do. I just go for the picture and it seems to work its own composition out. I like to play with composition, take risks, put things where they shouldn’t be and make them work. I always like to put the dominant figure, like the owl, off-centre and uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But after doing that I have to make it so your eye then travels round the painting to what the centre of focus is pushing you towards. So I painted the white zigzag in the foreground to lead your eye to where the owl is focused, which is on the running man and, in doing so, you see and feel the trees, the hare, the businessman, the watcher, the moon, and it all connects. So I think that’s how you work out composition. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0LpqoWRjewYjyvrlx5ctd0qIVA3xJyXMRjQq4w6RbzUMvjgmuM3z2de8OPkKDmGsLmHSJGm5MB7yHr7vDORPOwYpXxK4UqND7nGUR6Mlq2VlKeVTlApE96XW0ttVTDXNigjonxUn1Ag/s1600/01.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0LpqoWRjewYjyvrlx5ctd0qIVA3xJyXMRjQq4w6RbzUMvjgmuM3z2de8OPkKDmGsLmHSJGm5MB7yHr7vDORPOwYpXxK4UqND7nGUR6Mlq2VlKeVTlApE96XW0ttVTDXNigjonxUn1Ag/s200/01.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479540284733243570" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">NN: Is it on board?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: It’s on wood. Most of my paintings are on wood. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: How does the surface affect what you’re doing?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: I love the surface. I love the wood grain coming through. I love little holes. In fact, that’s how the yellow eyes in the trees came about, because there’s a puncture-hole from a nail. I have to prepare the wood, because it can warp badly, so I hammer in stretchers and cross bars to the back. Then I prime it with clear glue so bits of the wood come through, and then, when I’m painting, it guides me where I think, ‘that’s looking like part of the sky so I might leave that.’ </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: The people in your paintings seem to be imbued with magical properties.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: Nature is magical and we are part of nature so we’re part of that magic and we shouldn’t step out of that otherwise it’s working against what we are. No-one really knows what we are anyway. Things happen in nature that are unexplained and that’s magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If people say magic doesn’t exist they should go into a meadow and sit there for an hour and see what happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s always something else in the air. You can actually see atmosphere. Playing with perspective helps create that atmosphere in my work. There’s no such thing as a perfect perspective because everything moves, your eyes don’t just sit and look. We’re created with an eye that’s not a machine, it’s an organic moving object and we’re floating through space and time with nature.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFAdasUkGl4uwaTZRXtvazzoZxpBRF039BBgv9WdCbldmrAnB84x73DZQwo8emxjtb3dPU7441ZXKkvcch-6l2T7sKPNkklSrQCheR1hLod29_AKLPcJtAPzWgVb6AtdyMQfTSXOG92A/s1600/the+living+and+the+dead.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 295px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFAdasUkGl4uwaTZRXtvazzoZxpBRF039BBgv9WdCbldmrAnB84x73DZQwo8emxjtb3dPU7441ZXKkvcch-6l2T7sKPNkklSrQCheR1hLod29_AKLPcJtAPzWgVb6AtdyMQfTSXOG92A/s400/the+living+and+the+dead.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479526013847196594" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: You’ve warped the perspective in this one. Is it new?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: It’s fairly new. I’m not quite sure if I’ve finished it. It’s called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Living and</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">the Dead</i>. It doesn’t tell you what’s the living and what’s the dead. You have to make your own mind up about it. This is an 18<sup>th</sup> Century Macaroni. They were the fashionable young men of the day and dressed, like the Renaissance paintings they saw, in beautiful velvets and frills. They used to wear powdered wigs that were three feet high.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCh42GujkqWsQuLXCBtUQwSUaUKP_5TqR1EuRuxLFsOcz8Zf0oKncfbYdhj0aLeOOOBMr4xnyfax4YzjQUOiDXw2TdeqjSUZrD956tYae4viw-v-5Kws0fNUSwCyrl5-HNGfEbM5sCoA/s1600/the+living+and+the+dead+detail.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCh42GujkqWsQuLXCBtUQwSUaUKP_5TqR1EuRuxLFsOcz8Zf0oKncfbYdhj0aLeOOOBMr4xnyfax4YzjQUOiDXw2TdeqjSUZrD956tYae4viw-v-5Kws0fNUSwCyrl5-HNGfEbM5sCoA/s320/the+living+and+the+dead+detail.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479527098279958242" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">They had an attitude – they never wore watches because they could do what they wanted, they weren’t beholden to anyone and didn’t have to be anywhere. They were rich and just walked around in the latest fashions; and they shocked their parents apparently. The Macaroni could be a ghost, and the fox could be the go-between two worlds where nature sees all. Foxes are like ghosts around the street. You see them and then they disappear before your eyes. They sit and wait and look fantastic and then every time I get my camera out, they’re gone. How do they go? This is a street. Where have they gone? The foreground figure is the fashionable man of today, an image of threat. He’s almost a ghost. The green colour is mostly compositional. I wanted it to fight with the other colours. So he’s not got his true colours on. Is that an ectoplasm colour? Is he living or is he a ghost?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: I like the wobbly wall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: I drew that in first. I’ve been doing sketches of walls. I like the way brick work moves and it still keeps its geometry but you can put an organic shape in as well. What I might do is quieten it all down by putting a wash over it. Victoria Miro came and said, ‘Don’t touch it; leave it as it is.’ Sometimes, I’m blinded by what I’m working on. This was a quiet picture and it became garish to me; I get confused by the two worlds and two states of mind. I worry about changing states of mind rapidly. I’ll take it down and leave it on its own and look at it by itself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: Is hanging them in this arrangement informative?</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbwqeF1_hIuYYbRmrxliq6TyZxIB7utYhvOnao-0aIBgRAsv4kZILRqNcGKtdxergyQODVMfxAYPG2iAUV2NDfyO_Efv9z2woPuUB6O2UdXLBQhL8ik31A4VtLqE27mUZbsWA-bkMiOA/s1600/studio+wall.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbwqeF1_hIuYYbRmrxliq6TyZxIB7utYhvOnao-0aIBgRAsv4kZILRqNcGKtdxergyQODVMfxAYPG2iAUV2NDfyO_Efv9z2woPuUB6O2UdXLBQhL8ik31A4VtLqE27mUZbsWA-bkMiOA/s320/studio+wall.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479528170073898770" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: No it doesn’t help. I need to put them in my viewing space just by themselves.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes I might take a week to paint a picture, then leave it for a week, paint some more, work on something else while I leave it up there for six months, and in another few days finish it. I suppose the leaving time is part of the process of painting. I’m still painting that picture even if it’s on the wall for six months so therefore the mental process is part of the work. Some of them are put away for a couple of years and then I get them out again and finish them. I always try to make something of what’s there. I never like to write something off completely. It’s wasting too much time. The older you get the more aware you are of wasting time. You just feel you haven’t achieved, so you’ve got to make this kind of real statement about yourself.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja3e_1lmGKFJi-m4zUA3u8SsjKR9wwU0BaiQ30P32i157QYkjZO5fTviqJ4J3HqeltktVdjlWZJxkM3uiN3CEhhdPO9rNRtfBrJYOi7Wk4kcwQ5TVFBilPoNP0wVEb5dKPufRFT4sm9A/s1600/the+gate.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja3e_1lmGKFJi-m4zUA3u8SsjKR9wwU0BaiQ30P32i157QYkjZO5fTviqJ4J3HqeltktVdjlWZJxkM3uiN3CEhhdPO9rNRtfBrJYOi7Wk4kcwQ5TVFBilPoNP0wVEb5dKPufRFT4sm9A/s400/the+gate.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479533957988926786" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Gate</i> is another one I don’t think I’ve finished; I was wondering whether to have the hares white. It’s a landscape painting of a real place, but how I think it should be. I took photos of the trees, copied from the photographs and then put them away and thought about how I felt when I saw the actual trees. Sometimes you look at the photograph and it doesn’t look like the tree you saw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s best to get the essence of a tree rather than the look of it, because everyone sees it differently. At first I thought the gate was standing on its own, but when I looked closely there was a fence of very thin wires, which didn’t come out in the snapshot so I didn’t put them in. The gate becomes this pointless object, but it looks beautiful. It’s the idea of no boundaries.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">NN: Do you listen to music when you’re painting?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqlDGZi9txcRgO_JObgWQ7NGcgI6JXTvhb8ImZDf_PJ5pq0jOd3ia3BJ7WJnihyg7digtylTGnM8gh2oeX1x4qJWdJV2ipbrHKjgnhyyDsiYyCgPw_oh_iW9NmhH3E9yV4VRWuGPpHbQ/s1600/the+mystic+spiral.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 293px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqlDGZi9txcRgO_JObgWQ7NGcgI6JXTvhb8ImZDf_PJ5pq0jOd3ia3BJ7WJnihyg7digtylTGnM8gh2oeX1x4qJWdJV2ipbrHKjgnhyyDsiYyCgPw_oh_iW9NmhH3E9yV4VRWuGPpHbQ/s400/the+mystic+spiral.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479529125813851858" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">DH: Music is a strong influence because you go with the mood of it. When I was painting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Mystic Spiral</i> I was playing Gong – a very old hippy band I’ve always followed since I first saw them in 1970 in concert. The painting is about when I was in a medieval village in Somerset. It was twilight and very creepy and it was Halloween. And I got lost. I’m walking down the street feeling spooky, but enjoying it immensely, and I pass a tower, which was known for devil worship, and then bam in the middle of the village is this blood red Jaguar. It looked so weirdly out of place, but in place. And the registration number is S666FUN. I was like, ‘I don’t believe this!’ I photographed it so people knew I wasn’t lying. I waited for someone to come – I wanted to know who owned this car – I wanted some tall, dark stranger to come out and say, ‘Get in, you’re going to be sacrificed!’ but nothing happened. That’s Mikhail Bulgakov sitting in the car. I got a picture of him from the internet – film star looks, very gaunt and pale. He wrote a novel called <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita">The Master and Margarita</a></i>, which has been a big influence on my work. It’s a book about seeing the dark side - a comment on the politics in Russia in the 1930s. Stalin was killing people, only in the book it’s the devil making people disappear, but, because of communism, no one is allowed to believe in the supernatural. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiR_S5DQOano4_lq8Ge5A41HIekpWBuct3nacX6jiephG1JhUFRTaWxcQUZrre8wx0JTltlLX2m4tjXlIuoSj8PbrkdiPU1TfWomErgvncdlMJy9wTDbrTszpxmKDmNifZDDlaFlgEAg/s1600/the+mystic+spiral+detail.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiR_S5DQOano4_lq8Ge5A41HIekpWBuct3nacX6jiephG1JhUFRTaWxcQUZrre8wx0JTltlLX2m4tjXlIuoSj8PbrkdiPU1TfWomErgvncdlMJy9wTDbrTszpxmKDmNifZDDlaFlgEAg/s200/the+mystic+spiral+detail.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479530193047045698" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal">And then, of course, I needed a focus of where the car’s going to go, so I put the hare in to balance the picture. The hare is a sign, when it runs down the middle of a road, which it never does usually, that disaster is going to happen. The cat formed in the paint washes and so I painted it in. Whether I was looking for it, or not, I don’t know. I wanted to put something in that didn’t make sense, so I started to do that colourful little display – Hollywood-looking ghosts as they appear – and I wrote 666 in a shadowy form so you couldn’t see it, and then as I was doing it I heard this mystic voice at the end of Gong’s new album saying ‘Welcome to the mystic spiral’ and I said, ‘Oh that’s perfect, thank you! That looks like a spiral, I’ll join them together’ and I made a spiral.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); "><i>David Harrison will be showing in the forthcoming portrait show at the </i><a href="http://www.victoria-miro.com/"><i>Victoria Miro Gallery</i></a><i>, London N1, 22 June - 30 July 2010.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i>'<a href="http://www.victoria-miro.com/store/_73/?s=&t=1&a=">David</a></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><a href="http://www.victoria-miro.com/store/_73/?s=&t=1&a="><i> </i></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i><a href="http://www.victoria-miro.com/store/_73/?s=&t=1&a=">Harrison</a>'</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i> by Alistair Robinson is published by</i></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i> </i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i>Philip Wilson Publishers.<br /><br /></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i>A limited edition print, '</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><a href="http://www.victoria-miro.com/store/_72/?s=&t=2&a="><i>City</i></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><a href="http://www.victoria-miro.com/store/_72/?s=&t=2&a="><i> </i></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i><a href="http://www.victoria-miro.com/store/_72/?s=&t=2&a=">Gent</a>'</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i>, to accompany the book, is also available.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><i><a href="http://www.poodle666.com/">www.poodle666.com</a></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"></span><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--></div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-42303887056064517312010-05-16T10:32:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:49:28.082-08:00Donald Urquhart in conversation with Nick Nowicki at his exhibition, 'Bi', Maureen Paley and Herald St, London, E2<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAA7CDXlfcciirnvN7bkMy_4rmn-1IOkWJD62m1umDwAlqZDheihl81k6VIejyZkD9SXCpJll7uS6_Tt5bf927_UhqXsSztlItFOFlsNzU4OlqOQKXiJN7Gl4lz3Y_jIjiEO1pc6zhZw/s1600/04.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 291px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAA7CDXlfcciirnvN7bkMy_4rmn-1IOkWJD62m1umDwAlqZDheihl81k6VIejyZkD9SXCpJll7uS6_Tt5bf927_UhqXsSztlItFOFlsNzU4OlqOQKXiJN7Gl4lz3Y_jIjiEO1pc6zhZw/s400/04.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472185170473299378" /></a><br /><br />NN: Do you favour a particular type of sketchbook?<br /><br />DU: I always use A3… is it Daler? There’s something really familiar about that brand because I remember using it at school. I always used black ink and brush; I haven’t really changed.<br /><br />NN: Is it Chinese ink?<br /><br />DU: It’s Indian ink. Chinese ink comes out matt. Indian ink has a shine that I like. The thing with using ink is it’s got to be flat. You can’t have it on a wall or it’ll all run down and I could only really go as far as my arm would reach. I find an A3 sketchbook on my lap the best way to draw.<br /><br />NN: ‘Why Bother’ is acrylic on canvas.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRRZ1adkt_ReuzVBvaE6PvIsmj1p1EaGUJzVo0PzjY9yTcXCCyorYwGQaU7qCJL7OJ2rOxIIw7_3c96oY1BwhJ5wUAgYGFDnUz_q1m7WBOZ0TGNTjTRlXa-R_s7tkTpv4TuBptUk49AQ/s1600/01.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 341px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRRZ1adkt_ReuzVBvaE6PvIsmj1p1EaGUJzVo0PzjY9yTcXCCyorYwGQaU7qCJL7OJ2rOxIIw7_3c96oY1BwhJ5wUAgYGFDnUz_q1m7WBOZ0TGNTjTRlXa-R_s7tkTpv4TuBptUk49AQ/s400/01.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472182162779151698" /></a><br /><div><br /><br />DU: And basically I can bang nails into that and paint it flat on the wall. It could be stretched afterwards but I quite like these bolt-things, the grommets, so you can stretch it on the wall.<br /><br />NN: You incorporate text with images, which can be difficult. How did you arrive at that?<br /><br />DU: I don’t know. I used to write for magazines. I used to be a journalist so I find writing comes really naturally and then drawing the words that I write is just an extension of that.<br /><br />NN: Does it look like your handwriting?<br /><br />DU: It’s very similar. It’s a bit tidier than my handwriting.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6UfkiZHdjzKI1iIopOcaWYOzhIyH6IM8MXmYv4Rf_03i3IzTwv31JsmE_jJZObupIcvTGUTY1kAR_er6uu891BbKix644eY1mN-VvPQf45kUepzmH-BnTHeIpeV3-X2zejecCAz-Rg/s1600/02.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 292px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6UfkiZHdjzKI1iIopOcaWYOzhIyH6IM8MXmYv4Rf_03i3IzTwv31JsmE_jJZObupIcvTGUTY1kAR_er6uu891BbKix644eY1mN-VvPQf45kUepzmH-BnTHeIpeV3-X2zejecCAz-Rg/s400/02.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472182696459760642" /></a>NN: When an image is made bigger, it can look contrived. It’s not the easiest thing to do.<br /><br />DU: People ask if my wall drawings are laser-cut transfer. But why draw a picture and get a laser-cut transfer of it when you can just go to the wall and draw it by hand? You’ve just got to concentrate. I use a tiny brush, 0 or 0/3, to get the outline really sharp and then fill it in with a larger brush. Usually I can’t be bothered getting off the ladder and I do it all with a little brush. I swear a lot when I’m doing it.<br /><br />NN: You’ve put in some…they look like school images, I’m not sure.<br /><br />DU: Oh the self portraits. I think when you look at old pictures of yourself it doesn’t actually look like you. You recognize yourself, but you’re remembering yourself, aren’t you? You’re not really seeing yourself. You wonder is it really a picture of you. Sometimes I see old pictures and I don’t see myself at all.<br /><br />NN: So what made you think of using them this time round?<br /><br />DU: I wanted to do portraits of people I know, like my family and friends and then I decided to start with myself, do a few self-portraits and see where that takes me. So I dug out old photos. I couldn’t face sitting in front of a mirror and actually doing a picture of me now. That one I’ll get round to one day.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjReI4rk9zK8D1BmlXkhqtK4-ezRsZY013_IKpQKqTwBakm5DsoQR1XmOJ05NCSdLCswn6dEdAm33LBq1vJfq2t37Qwlye5DpFCj6WZEqFI9WXJQkmwGqf-uchsmlI59i_-2PLBm9c1Bg/s1600/03.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 298px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjReI4rk9zK8D1BmlXkhqtK4-ezRsZY013_IKpQKqTwBakm5DsoQR1XmOJ05NCSdLCswn6dEdAm33LBq1vJfq2t37Qwlye5DpFCj6WZEqFI9WXJQkmwGqf-uchsmlI59i_-2PLBm9c1Bg/s400/03.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472182977792107010" /></a>NN: That’s you as a moody youth. That’s definitely not a school pic.<br /><br />DU: No, that’s when I’d have been about 22, a moody, hung-over youth.<br /><br />NN: You look like Elvis, or maybe even Morrissey.<br /><br />DU: It is a bit Elvis-y that one. Someone else said that. The chin’s too pointy to be Morrissey.<br /><br />NN: How do you come up with the titles for your drawings?<br /><br />DU: The titles for all these Bette Davis ones are quotes from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. I’ve just illustrated the whole book. There are, I think, 41 drawings and they all relate to specific lines. The book doesn’t really tell you her age at the end, but I thought to make the character, Becky Sharp, get more and more warped and wasted. I thought I would have her go from 16 right up to 70 years old.<br /><br />NN: You’ve invented a world where Bette Davis is playing her?<br /><br />DU: Yeah and ages accordingly.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVKYPRrGCmpBnqdEFPTrQrWksJSCdgaSF39TQTcfYKtcYCCYiJxXpe7aQ21HDL1MNUA7j816nTsFUsAzisNb18yCK8dABYbEFZXoU_cN0FaDAHtUTya6J_ooDl24fYZMm7iOMuDYc6w/s1600/MP-URQUD-00288-A-300.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 210px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVKYPRrGCmpBnqdEFPTrQrWksJSCdgaSF39TQTcfYKtcYCCYiJxXpe7aQ21HDL1MNUA7j816nTsFUsAzisNb18yCK8dABYbEFZXoU_cN0FaDAHtUTya6J_ooDl24fYZMm7iOMuDYc6w/s400/MP-URQUD-00288-A-300.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472184063357204898" /></a>NN: And where did you get all the images of Bette from?<br /><br />DU: Oh my god. Well I pause-framed films and then I got books with loads of pictures of her and then I looked her up on the internet. But it was strange, I had to start with an image of Bette Davis, maybe in a fur coat holding a cigarette and then change her into a slightly period Becky Sharp. It’s meant to be set in the Napoleonic wars and I don’t think she smoked. It doesn’t mention smoking in the book. I altered them all and I made a motif of bows, on her hair and clothing.<br /><br />NN: Have you mixed them up in the show and ignored the narrative aspect?<br /><br />DU: Yes, I’m really just showing images. There are 52 images in the whole show, so I put them in two groups of 26. I wanted the show to look a bit like a schoolroom, with instructional diagrams, a really sick school. You couldn’t teach a child using a Joan Crawford alphabet. I thought I’d make it formal, with pictures of people from history, and you might get a poem up on the wall. That’s in my mind. What other people see - I don’t know if they’re going to get any of that<br /><br />NN: What do you think is the difference between the photocopies and the hand-drawn pieces?<br /><br />DU: I feel a bit of liberation seeing things blown up large and I’ve always used photocopies. I could have put these up as silk-screened prints in a frame but I think there’s something more relaxed about photocopies. I mean, I’m showing my drawings – it’s not like I’m having a sale of luxury goods. It’s nice to show the originals but I think a photocopy is quite unpretentious.<br /><br />NN: With those jokes, not jokes exactly but, is it like making notes and it all comes together in that moment as you get the idea?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjptFuIbMPNwAWSiia07WX2vNO8apnWKY9CwMTrMlSxTlWYNBhGwgzO1Tkx2YJbpfcKKaMuNLK_r9Ww7_Oeir0IGVG-Fw3jy_RxjFKxDOMYx7isojPgasIyhi7qCl4Q3g9rvaBahxTieQ/s1600/05.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 286px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjptFuIbMPNwAWSiia07WX2vNO8apnWKY9CwMTrMlSxTlWYNBhGwgzO1Tkx2YJbpfcKKaMuNLK_r9Ww7_Oeir0IGVG-Fw3jy_RxjFKxDOMYx7isojPgasIyhi7qCl4Q3g9rvaBahxTieQ/s400/05.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472184650655835298" /></a>DU: If I come across a funny idea in my mind, something that I think’s quite witty and has humour, I write it down or make a text message on my phone so that I remember it and then, when it comes to doing drawings, I look at these ridiculous notions that I’ve had and pick the ones that…<br /><br /><div><br />NN: …still make you laugh?<br /><br />DU: Still make me laugh or that I think are worth putting in an image. These are like something from a Ladybird book, a Learn-To-Read book. They’re bittersweet. You wouldn’t tell a child that ‘in autumn everything must die’. You’d have ‘in autumn we dance in the leaves’.<br /><br />NN: And they’d be more colourful.<br /><br />DU: Yeah, they wouldn’t be black, that’s for sure.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">‘Bi’ is at Maureen Paley and Herald St, London E2 until 23 May 2010.</span><div><span style="font-style:italic;">www.maureenpaley.com and www.heraldst.com<br /><br />Donald Urquhart's work will be included in ‘Newspeak: British Art Now, Part I’ at The Saatchi Gallery, London SW3, 2 June - 17 October 2010.<br /><br />The new edition of Thackeray’s ‘Vanity Fair' featuring Donald’s illustrations will be published by Four Corners Books in September.<br /><br />Donald Urquhart will be showing at Galleria S.A.L.E.S., Rome, in the autumn.</span></div><div><span style="font-style:italic;">www.galleriasales.it<br /><br />Images courtesy of Maureen Paley, London, with thanks to Patrick Shier.</span><br /></div></div></div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-76244822431468070452010-04-25T05:58:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:50:02.961-08:00Emma Talbot talking to Alli Sharma at her studio, Walthamstow E17.<div><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEignbLW-dPtdkWPbn1a50pFnu4-EEdEPfOac5LneT6r-UWy3jloKxkClITNKFPQIaX4ee6LXILi2boUXJb4OxAwCE9F1WP5YEbEDmfgThSc5D3HiKr-kqHcXOdS_X8_7NIrne3VQGcP3g/s1600/27959_10150178828545113_88597210112_12435808_1770060_n.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEignbLW-dPtdkWPbn1a50pFnu4-EEdEPfOac5LneT6r-UWy3jloKxkClITNKFPQIaX4ee6LXILi2boUXJb4OxAwCE9F1WP5YEbEDmfgThSc5D3HiKr-kqHcXOdS_X8_7NIrne3VQGcP3g/s400/27959_10150178828545113_88597210112_12435808_1770060_n.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466248047857702354" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, serif;">ET: Drawing is really important. I have no fixed plan of what I’m going to do, so it’s a really open way of working. Something comes about which is a different mode of thinking. It’s like when you’re doing something and you might think of something else completely random and you don’t know why you’re thinking of that, but you are. It’s that kind of space and it gets interesting when I’m trying to articulate that kind of space.</span><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: Is text a recent addition to your work? </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: I think the first time I used text might have been in the <a href="http://www.nieves.ch/catalogue/emma.html">Nieves zine</a>. They’re either in bad capitals with a dot over the ‘i’ and things that you’re not supposed to do if you’re being very formal or they’re in a European font, from the 1930s, which was used for advertising or cinema posters; that type of information giving. It’s not my handwriting. It’s like painting words rather than writing.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEAsoCpNM5iwxwrbAYbu1gCN6Kz0ZHCbRsPGzIPb_jmm5YcjSVuehA6jis6J48tzJGIZkQOBOPkM5LyDDx4mZ-VSO1Y8dNPGGfKvc8Ppvaimamwx0QnNvUiJy759tJPCUWu7kIxlDeoA/s1600/Emma+Talbot+Beautiful+North+How+I+Love+Your+Sons+Painting.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEAsoCpNM5iwxwrbAYbu1gCN6Kz0ZHCbRsPGzIPb_jmm5YcjSVuehA6jis6J48tzJGIZkQOBOPkM5LyDDx4mZ-VSO1Y8dNPGGfKvc8Ppvaimamwx0QnNvUiJy759tJPCUWu7kIxlDeoA/s400/Emma+Talbot+Beautiful+North+How+I+Love+Your+Sons+Painting.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464061594546166994" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: You’ve used both in ‘<i>The Beautiful North’</i>. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: I<span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">’ve been going to Sheffield a lot recently, because I’m going out with someone who lives there.</span> A lot of my family is from the North. So we go to Sheffield and then get the train to Manchester, or Liverpool, and do things and it’s like falling in love with the North again after being in the South for such a long time. T<span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">hat painting includes the names of all the men from the North that I have loved, so there’s him and my brother, my dad, my uncle and my husband, who died and was also from the North.</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: You lived in Jesmond, Newcastle?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: <span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">Yes. And at the top are images drawn from childhood memories</span>. Every summer I used to go and stay with my grandparents in Wigan and I was remembering things like learning to make toast on the fire and my <span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">Grandad</span> buying me my Olivetti typewriter and going round to <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">relatives’</span> houses.</span><span lang="EN-US" style=" font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: And sitting very politely on the sofa.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: Yes, while a dog eats your biscuit and you’re too scared to tell it to get off. The bit in the middle is about <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">a romantic weekend</span> when I went to Newcastle, Sheffield and then Liverpool in one weekend.</span><span lang="EN-US" style=" font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: Is that a brooch in the centre?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: No, it’s like if you looked at the thing as a whole, it could be a mirror, or some mirrored thing or a pub window, something like that. It’s like a really decorative container that’s broken. I think cities in the North are like that, there is a lot of Victorian decoration, it’s very beautiful but it’s also a bit ugly and broken. The mirror is one of the motifs I use. They provide a duality between something glamorous (reflective mirror, cut glass, diamonds or lace that could be a keepsake or embellishment) and something vulnerable to breakage and damage (for instance, the smashed mirrors or cracked pavements that superstitions can be based on). Within them, there is the idea that things can be lasting and/or broken.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP6JEz9EUpCRz_Z8QLmMhHo30xS4Im0GgGE926Jc28SlpUFQ5MuMhqO7uazIZTAxX8UJqHlW8JNtcf5qtMhtWHoA1LaiWLHrX2vAHVLiUX4WyTo_rcEpCGr3KHF2PRAbA_goqP-gH3Eg/s1600/smashed_glass_sml.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 176px; height: 142px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP6JEz9EUpCRz_Z8QLmMhHo30xS4Im0GgGE926Jc28SlpUFQ5MuMhqO7uazIZTAxX8UJqHlW8JNtcf5qtMhtWHoA1LaiWLHrX2vAHVLiUX4WyTo_rcEpCGr3KHF2PRAbA_goqP-gH3Eg/s400/smashed_glass_sml.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466248578765779234" /></a><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: The painted text here gives the look of an advertising hoarding.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma; mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: Well that one does in particular because it’s the idea of a promise, something that you wish for, that you have a desire for, and it’s offered to you. It’s about that kind of relationship between things. Someone saying that they’ll do something and you want to believe them or you wish this would happen. It’s the space of advertising, in a way. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNpYQ_W3Bb7Uk-5MGpUmS-Si2zYGn7XVGtQbenaqnTeKRR7Rr4kHPBerwQfbtWxWcuqdCn4g1UQuOSalqu29X69dTMcZbZWCl1Mhd50kJeVLlyw3Czvfv-vSfrgrOyVzoTospExjleKw/s1600/E+Talbot+Your+words+are+like+honey+my+promise+is+as+good+as+gold.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 282px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNpYQ_W3Bb7Uk-5MGpUmS-Si2zYGn7XVGtQbenaqnTeKRR7Rr4kHPBerwQfbtWxWcuqdCn4g1UQuOSalqu29X69dTMcZbZWCl1Mhd50kJeVLlyw3Czvfv-vSfrgrOyVzoTospExjleKw/s400/E+Talbot+Your+words+are+like+honey+my+promise+is+as+good+as+gold.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464062888055414914" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: Is that a Smiths lyric in <i>'Your Words are Like Honey, My Promise is as Good as Gold'.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: Yes, and another from John Dowland, a 17th century poet and songwriter. All his songs are about sadness and death and they’re very beautiful. He says, ‘if only I could go to sleep then it would be like I could die,’ notions like that. I’ve used his words quite a lot. The music’s amazing but the words are just lovely. Romantic.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: Are you looking at any other particular artists?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: I took my boys to <a href="http://www.thelowry.com/ls-lowry/the-ls-lowry-collection/">The Lowry</a> last week. I was absolutely obsessed by it. The collection is amazing. There are paintings that you recognise with the figures and city scenes and there are others that are incredible. There’s a really funny one that was painted in the 1970s with two teenage girls standing over a teenage boy and he’s wearing an argyle sweater and the girls are really tall and they’ve got beatnik hair and really long legs and little white boots and it’s like they’re bullying him, or trying to impress him and he’s looking totally overshadowed. It’s just really economical and I thought ‘this is exactly what I want to look at right now’. It’s unfortunate that someone made that awful song about him because it detracts from his work, but I think he was always a bit outside.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: Is that because he was very popular?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: Very popular and his rudimentary drawing. I think people thought that was because he was self taught, rather than making a <span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">choice about language</span>. There’s a painting called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">‘The Spire’</i> and it’s just a triangle. It’s not quite black, more charcoal grey, and the sky is not quite white, you know, a really northern sky, where it’s like a piece of paper. It’s like looking at a church spire in the sky but it’s also like looking at an abstract form and it’s very modern. <span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">I could relate his early work to the social concerns of painters like George Grosz and later, the compositional structures seem to borrow from modernism, like early Mondrian, breaking up space.</span> That’s how I see him understanding the context. He did have a gallery and it’s pretty obvious that he knew more or less what he was looking at. But he said things like, ‘I’m a simple man. I just use blue, black and yellow.’ But simplicity is somehow rather brilliant. That matchstick figure is the least interesting thing about his work, to me. He was quite bleak and existential. There are quotes of him asking, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">‘what’s the purpose of life? W</span>hat’s it all for?’ and all the kinds of things that you think, ‘yeah, that’s what everybody wants to know.’</span><span lang="EN-US" style=" font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YZXFT5XofKcpbxGbeorJGYPMM8aXsgWX6wkj3qpsBtfVDrsAv5QTDuIFUJAUJh0esQVrBjUDXDPPONmI8hAAbH16tQjSc0HGqVEhb9kxAcVEsjzXK74JZfUXTAnr72Y3pF9kbKYrKw/s1600/ET+hypnotist.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YZXFT5XofKcpbxGbeorJGYPMM8aXsgWX6wkj3qpsBtfVDrsAv5QTDuIFUJAUJh0esQVrBjUDXDPPONmI8hAAbH16tQjSc0HGqVEhb9kxAcVEsjzXK74JZfUXTAnr72Y3pF9kbKYrKw/s400/ET+hypnotist.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464084135196929186" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: Who else are you looking at?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: I’ve been looking at him and Annette Messager quite a lot and I suppose someone like Louise Bourgeois. Her drawings are really interesting, the directness in things. And then there are people like Rosa Loy where I don’t really like the look of the work so much but I quite like what it represents in terms <span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">of a contemporary re-engagement with narrative painting and what it suggests painting might deal with or do with personal, psychological space<i>.</i></span> And I really like things like Tal R’s drawings, but I don’t like his paintings. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: I love the details, the tiny feet and cuffs and collars but you’ve left the faces blank so you don’t get involved in the detail of that.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: If they had faces then they might be expressive in an illustrative way and also, this telling of things, they’re in my mind or they’re memories or whatever, but they’re not unique. It’s not like this only happens to me. It happens to everybody all of the time. I like the idea that you might see something acted out by someone in a film and then you might see another version with a different actor but it’s the same role; it’s like that. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma; mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGIO2qVNJXKmfcWGL1U975goQ2Z3dYvZ3RHGjlCyIwOjKjAJeSE308sTlDQxxRQCOVo02vDHR-R6ofpxKM-QlYBOI7TotvVC4RFj6PqpZyZNnfCBRQc-n8f8Br5VolaRAQh1hNLOzBrg/s1600/Shades+of+Black-+Everything+Bad+Everything+Wrong-1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGIO2qVNJXKmfcWGL1U975goQ2Z3dYvZ3RHGjlCyIwOjKjAJeSE308sTlDQxxRQCOVo02vDHR-R6ofpxKM-QlYBOI7TotvVC4RFj6PqpZyZNnfCBRQc-n8f8Br5VolaRAQh1hNLOzBrg/s400/Shades+of+Black-+Everything+Bad+Everything+Wrong-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464067541563601298" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">AS: You really allow yourself to do anything in these don’t you? Some of them are quite rude. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">ET: Yes<span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">, I include really personal things all the time</span>. But I should say that those two are not to do with my personal life. One is based on a Moravia novel and the other is called <i>‘Shades of Black, Everything Bad, Everything Wrong’</i>. It’s a catalogue of things on TV screens that I haven’t experienced first hand; things I only know from TV or film so there’s film noir, where a woman murders a man; people are gambling for high stakes; two lovers are in a motel room, she leaves him and he kills himself; a biker gang kidnap a rocker and a woman buying guns. I suppose the thing that you could say about all of them is that they are about things I think about, so it doesn’t matter if I’m considering something that I’ve seen or if I’m thinking about what I did last night. They all come through this space, which is my mind. They could be anything. I don’t think ‘oh I’d be ashamed to put that in’. It’s exactly like writing a diary and you write whatever you want. </span><span lang="EN-US" style=" font-family:Tahoma;mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;">Emma Talbot is currently exhibiting <i>'Pictures From My Heart' </i>at <a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/">Transition Gallery</a>, E8 until 16 May 2010, gallery open Fri-Sun, 12-6 pm.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;">Her new Tranzine<i> </i><i>'Between the Shadow and the Soul' </i>is available <a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/editions/tranzine/2_betweentheshadow.htm">here</a> for £3, limited edition of 100.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;"><i>Images courtesy the artist and Transition Gallery.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-62252482801301129082010-04-17T08:28:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:51:06.245-08:00Phillip Allen talking to Alli Sharma at his studio in Dalston, E8<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtYR0rQSXM7sx7eZKb5q75hB8K0ROMzBGdlDlDBlow8EJEiYOWxYn5H4p_QHrYCsC3i3udKEvjImq0wtQhVjSDb05WikR4bR_9_rUDvSxXwcgGQbnGda6en_smlY3lT_SM9TBwqdrFg/s1600/IMG_9010.JPG" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtYR0rQSXM7sx7eZKb5q75hB8K0ROMzBGdlDlDBlow8EJEiYOWxYn5H4p_QHrYCsC3i3udKEvjImq0wtQhVjSDb05WikR4bR_9_rUDvSxXwcgGQbnGda6en_smlY3lT_SM9TBwqdrFg/s400/IMG_9010.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461132735375343650" /></a><div><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: You've just come back from <a href="http://www.bsr.ac.uk/">The British School at Rome</a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve been there since the start of this year. I made some paintings, which have gone to a show in Bologna, and I did piles of drawings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are familiar shapes and objects that crop up in the drawings.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, sometimes things appear, sometimes I make something out of something I’ve made before. How these worked is that I was out and about in Rome with a small book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I hadn’t worked like that before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> It</span> looks like a comic book; the way you’ve framed them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was just a way of getting them down on a page. That framing has existed in the work one way or another; it’s an instinctive thing. Then, I quite literally work my way through these into felt tips. When you first move into your studio there’s that horrible thing about being in a white empty space. I didn’t do much work for the first three or four weeks. I thought I needed to fill the space up to feel a bit more at home and so this process evolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I put things up and thought ok, this is mine, I can relax.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do you get a room to yourself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s an old place that looks like the British Museum. There’s a courtyard, then 8/9 artists are down one wing with your bed upstairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then there’s the library where the academics are. It felt like an open prison and a retirement home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You feel imprisoned, but you can go out and see Rome and do whatever and talk to the academics. That was fantastic. I spent a lot of time asking them things</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did the trip have an impact on your practice?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe the things I did there had a superficial impact. I was out with my book because, in a sense, I had to; that’s what I was there for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe the point is that there is no impact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m sure you’re affected by the experience but it wasn’t a hunt for something. It’s the people you meet which is the real thing; to meet others and to see what they’re up to and all of those things.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8jQTYXp1VLK6HSrQs4HXSCnqJYFesJA2aN3Jn_zLvbKIi1J6_-ca3DQnjooog81IRV45ZW2BEohVTaCX4U9NFGGsIf_l4Y9fR5hQWMTHqUcN2n7Qyi0s-L2hN2Vk2DdNKXkIfqYnS7g/s1600/IMG_9016.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8jQTYXp1VLK6HSrQs4HXSCnqJYFesJA2aN3Jn_zLvbKIi1J6_-ca3DQnjooog81IRV45ZW2BEohVTaCX4U9NFGGsIf_l4Y9fR5hQWMTHqUcN2n7Qyi0s-L2hN2Vk2DdNKXkIfqYnS7g/s320/IMG_9016.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461133422099486034" /></a> </span>Have you been productive since you got back?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve just started these prints. I came back and didn’t really want to paint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A few years ago I did some etchings and making prints has always been at the back of my mind. I was wondering what to do with the drawings and whether they were for printing or whether they were things for other ways of making work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I’m in a real ‘I don’t know’ phase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it’s nice to make and produce things and then, once you’ve got all the things in front of you, begin to think ‘right what am I doing’.</span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ_To-T2PfhHihYrFcS5VmAaqySLeS6v-RLqWIn8pctEpEpvnxS7KXnVrBlX41NV0GNPB98WqbNm87-b-4K_rTaBF3B4U6btX1BtoFSK1xac61DBc6v3v-cNJSBYvWTuwTieHJac88Lg/s1600/pa4.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 306px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ_To-T2PfhHihYrFcS5VmAaqySLeS6v-RLqWIn8pctEpEpvnxS7KXnVrBlX41NV0GNPB98WqbNm87-b-4K_rTaBF3B4U6btX1BtoFSK1xac61DBc6v3v-cNJSBYvWTuwTieHJac88Lg/s320/pa4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461139527471731394" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS: The paintings you showed at <a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/rubbernecking/pa.html">Transition</a> recently looked like something was being worked out on the canvas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They were made over a long period of time; that extra bit of whatever that I do alongside the main body of work.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do you go back and add or alter them over time?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No, I make them in one go. I think once you begin to go back then it turns into something else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They’re things that can’t be re-done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They’re outside of the other bit of my practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But then, once they’re seen, they get absorbed as part of your practice.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Were you easy about showing them; if you put them to one side then is that because you don’t want people to see them.</span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Uvr8U9_cp3INjGdGNMCum7XZgNU17Lu5C5R4R5kOaBlLnoNxU5xqC7rB2ZbQDlcFxmBRIeojSGYwGcayk0M7zmfxfidKnIR4DGJBP9DbhmyDR6yZyljvArNipras1oKU1R55oSBEiw/s1600/pa7.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 318px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Uvr8U9_cp3INjGdGNMCum7XZgNU17Lu5C5R4R5kOaBlLnoNxU5xqC7rB2ZbQDlcFxmBRIeojSGYwGcayk0M7zmfxfidKnIR4DGJBP9DbhmyDR6yZyljvArNipras1oKU1R55oSBEiw/s320/pa7.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461137711807214498" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think they were put to one side because I hadn’t worked out what they were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/rubbernecking/jc.html">Jake Clark</a> came round years ago and we were talking about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then I began to think about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it’s one of those things, as soon as you begin to think ‘I’m going to make one more’ then you can’t because, once you begin to conceptualise them as your work in that way, then all this other stuff comes in and it begins to turn into your work. In a way they were always detached or a different aspect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I began to think that I needed the main work, say <a href="http://www.theapproach.co.uk/artists/phillip-allen/">The Approach</a> show, to make sure that these other things exist in the way that they are surplus to the main body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But as soon as the surplus becomes the work then it alters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I don’t know what I’ll do now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Once it turns into a work then it changes, it loses something at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Your drawings; they’re something else too.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p>PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For me, the drawings have to earn their keep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They’re things for me to use rather than making something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I’m making paintings I know that I’m making something. The drawings are there to work for me; my nuts and bolts. Usually, this wall would be full of drawings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think ‘this drawing works’ and then I make it into a painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So you can look at the drawings and the paintings and say yes, that’s that one.</o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That happened at your show at <a href="http://www.theapproach.co.uk/exhibitions/sloppy-cuts-no-ice/">The Approach</a>, you reached the end of the paintings and arrived at a wall of drawings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And you could match them up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I was wondering about the process and I was a bit disappointed that the paintings had come directly from the drawings.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p>PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why?</o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I wanted your approach to the paintings to be more like your approach to the drawings and not so planned and worked out.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p>AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I came into painting at art school doing that hard won image thing where you have a blank surface and then you’re painting and, through the process, something appears. I worked like that for a long time but I found it a frustrating process because nothing ever did happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The mythological, hard won image never appeared. I was also questioning the whole notion of painting being this autonomous thing. And so the way I solved this problem was to know what to paint. The drawings came from that; from thinking that I needed to know what to do because, for my own personal state of mind, I can’t just approach a blank canvas. For a long time I felt that I didn’t want to show the drawings alongside the paintings, because once you show them you begin to demystify the whole process, and then I thought, well so what.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I like that.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Painting isn’t a mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It can be quite a pragmatic thing. You can still approach a painting in the same way, but it’s come from this; this is its real source. The paintings aren’t made in a kind of Jonathan Lasker way where I photocopy and blow it up. They’re drawn then painted. Other things happen, slight variations, but I need the drawing in front of me.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCwvxjCbK44lFM1kXI4EjKFnSi5oRFLegAs3CpBF50cMEKCjoYR0ptQhGhakpbazHc3qioIjPbm0tR9QPoBLHFnzxWj7G__wYIR0a_ArwjOp_xmxr6m5fud2iWlNWolo5NZiFaAjt80A/s1600/IMG_9011.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCwvxjCbK44lFM1kXI4EjKFnSi5oRFLegAs3CpBF50cMEKCjoYR0ptQhGhakpbazHc3qioIjPbm0tR9QPoBLHFnzxWj7G__wYIR0a_ArwjOp_xmxr6m5fud2iWlNWolo5NZiFaAjt80A/s320/IMG_9011.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461140085949998482" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Your combination of colours, with gold and silver can be quite, well, I love the word vulgar, but I’m hesitant about using it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I like the word; you won’t offend me. I guess they come from the felt tips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve used a lot of silver. It’s enamel paint. I think I like it because it’s not oil paint.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p>AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did you see Paul Nash at <a href="http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/">Dulwich Picture Gallery</a>?</o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p>PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, awesome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That last room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One of my favourite paintings he did when he was 29.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s quite depressing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Which painting?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">PA:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>‘<a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conColObject.13407">We are Making a New World</a>’ (1918).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Studio images courtesy of the artist.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Images of paintings courtesy of Transition Gallery, London (photography by Damian Griffiths).</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div></div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-84982521648671476522010-02-24T17:09:00.001-08:002011-01-29T08:51:44.552-08:00Rose Wylie at her studio in Newnham, Kent with Alli Sharma<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzUPwdNquHcjMYs-ZB-oLblrqCj2LuRXLwyMEOxihzqqChnMOxm_u7OP1yFnKKg87r3dl6mhWzjBmqlg2MoEZaen0FRLN3ov5aptXfc6q2Sp2SREm2OmrJs6TnPue1HpaXmSU6zMpvzA/s1600-h/IMG_4444.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 253px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzUPwdNquHcjMYs-ZB-oLblrqCj2LuRXLwyMEOxihzqqChnMOxm_u7OP1yFnKKg87r3dl6mhWzjBmqlg2MoEZaen0FRLN3ov5aptXfc6q2Sp2SREm2OmrJs6TnPue1HpaXmSU6zMpvzA/s320/IMG_4444.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441990389557071362" /></a><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzUPwdNquHcjMYs-ZB-oLblrqCj2LuRXLwyMEOxihzqqChnMOxm_u7OP1yFnKKg87r3dl6mhWzjBmqlg2MoEZaen0FRLN3ov5aptXfc6q2Sp2SREm2OmrJs6TnPue1HpaXmSU6zMpvzA/s1600-h/IMG_4444.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wanted to show you a horse. This one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Where shall I put it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the floor? There’s something about its chest and the stupidity of it. I like the zebra beside it. It’s a take from de Chirico. I like his Metaphysical and early work.</span></a><div><br /></div><div>AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Is this your recent work</span>?</div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh7ThRvWcwKAuK4aI9L4KDiddk5gei8Fihkgux6el5fOudoWhz7ytEHSqIAKWP3i9mMZaAiZG5024khMtC0ZDWgKopmIkIrrKHIfQi2f36Oq8j3LGpVMhb6Yo7hbJWT2hf62ts12parA/s1600-h/sc001c86b7.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh7ThRvWcwKAuK4aI9L4KDiddk5gei8Fihkgux6el5fOudoWhz7ytEHSqIAKWP3i9mMZaAiZG5024khMtC0ZDWgKopmIkIrrKHIfQi2f36Oq8j3LGpVMhb6Yo7hbJWT2hf62ts12parA/s200/sc001c86b7.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441983256392742658" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s very recent. The Jay isn’t quite as silly; it’s more charming. I work on thin, cheap paper and it wrinkles. Sometimes I slit along the bump of the wrinkle and put something underneath and stick it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And what about the paper pieces stuck on top?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Those are corrections or changes, which is why they keep getting thicker.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">AS: Shall we go upstairs to your studio?</p><p class="MsoNormal">RW: Yes, it's in tip top condition because I'm not painting in there at the moment. This is a painting that didn’t make it into the current show at <a href="http://www.union-gallery.com/">Union Gallery</a>. I was sorry to leave it out. It’s Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Carla Bruni’s sister, in the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">‘5x2 (2004)’</i>. She’s being raped and rammed up against a pillow. She’s beautiful but her face looks terrible because she’s hugely distressed - a very nasty scene. It’s an extraordinary image of her and that is what I was trying to do. But I’m having enormous trouble with the painting. I thought it looked like her face has been scissored off. I tried a soft, curved face but that was awful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then when you put the eyebrow on you can’t curl it round because it looks like the face is in space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it isn’t in space; it’s pushed into a pillow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So the eyebrow has to go off the forehead and you can’t curve the forehead because it’s in the pillow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not drawing a factual pillow; I don’t want to do that. I could have written ‘pillow’ and crossed it out. I thought it looked easy to do but it wasn’t, at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll probably repaint this side again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is possibly a huge failure; I’m still working on it.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0YdhXe3lqIoAE4h8kiA-zcsqzBPVCjl9iXcN4RTk-C1dwBZnXakxqMGs4Y1ysrphrTzfUupSTB1FrFkfHxwiOUjzUzQ-q1UOAs-mACG9U978XKZpo4D6il3Cg3Cqv08PU1SUmRbm9w/s1600-h/IMG_4496.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0YdhXe3lqIoAE4h8kiA-zcsqzBPVCjl9iXcN4RTk-C1dwBZnXakxqMGs4Y1ysrphrTzfUupSTB1FrFkfHxwiOUjzUzQ-q1UOAs-mACG9U978XKZpo4D6il3Cg3Cqv08PU1SUmRbm9w/s320/IMG_4496.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441984389467381762" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is that how it works for you; you see an image that catches you, which you picture in your mind, and then make the painting of how you remember it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Exactly, and there’s no research after that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t look at stills. I started with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">‘Sitting on a Bench with Border’</i>. Then there was a gap. Then I did the big head, with arms ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Battle in Heaven (Film Notes)’</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVta0UGMdcmpGV1LS8ePWfEsUL_IYLdgTLdozBD-3UPObg956wrGHLjeaoSztU_GWHdUG6wNs6_Hwd4wg3UWneS5K6cJYHfz60s2w_H3D94ZyYNgkqfUnex4bZo_yUXPJ1jtmeRMPyA/s1600-h/union4746_0.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVta0UGMdcmpGV1LS8ePWfEsUL_IYLdgTLdozBD-3UPObg956wrGHLjeaoSztU_GWHdUG6wNs6_Hwd4wg3UWneS5K6cJYHfz60s2w_H3D94ZyYNgkqfUnex4bZo_yUXPJ1jtmeRMPyA/s200/union4746_0.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441997642268570098" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She looks like she’s got her arms around something.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She has; it’s oral sex and the man is standing in front of her. The film director, Reygadas, did this scene at the beginning of his film ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Battle in Heaven (2005)’</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s not all about oral sex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But at the end of the film he shows the same act from the front, or the side view, which is very explicit and it’s hard to take because it’s so focussed and direct.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8s-S_lY7aEuZHSaSP7NjJMIHv1moDpUWbaEROiHjdAYsKHaZOzhLepR-9dUQR2rTHEiWRs3RHQOuE9JGZ6GdioiHwL3-bH00YG9rbRxTYHnsp8FSgtu_T68G6zUUc1wZw9ToUXJckg/s1600-h/union4751_0.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8s-S_lY7aEuZHSaSP7NjJMIHv1moDpUWbaEROiHjdAYsKHaZOzhLepR-9dUQR2rTHEiWRs3RHQOuE9JGZ6GdioiHwL3-bH00YG9rbRxTYHnsp8FSgtu_T68G6zUUc1wZw9ToUXJckg/s200/union4751_0.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441997846426120194" /></a>AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Japon’ </i>by the same director?<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW: Yes, he deals with huge subjects; salvation and guilt for instance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He’s very visual. I also made <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">‘Silent Light (Film Notes)’</i> with the two Mennonite houses from his film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">‘Silent Light (2007)</i>. That was surreal; the two houses just floated into the shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Mennonites are a German religious sect and they moved to South America and Mexico and retained their puritanical, ordered life. They’ve all got to be identical; no individuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These are not two beach huts. They’re two identical houses which are not grand; they’re austere and unpretentious, built by their owners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So that’s what those two houses are about.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The green of those houses crops up a lot in your paintings.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja_fSLFleKHV-k1583bCbhY3ZDNQYm7CsZ4No4W7USx9ua5KE18CIF6j5d4W01nFShN5HOfsNc_t_FWCfxuSMl3SKgoovM_ySo8JBE02BYY__xzqHC6bPoUP7kNZ7A6FyJrrQPjmh05w/s1600-h/union4752_0.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 110px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja_fSLFleKHV-k1583bCbhY3ZDNQYm7CsZ4No4W7USx9ua5KE18CIF6j5d4W01nFShN5HOfsNc_t_FWCfxuSMl3SKgoovM_ySo8JBE02BYY__xzqHC6bPoUP7kNZ7A6FyJrrQPjmh05w/s200/union4752_0.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441985983580702002" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s a tricky colour because I don’t like bluey greens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I like yellow greens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s a lot of green in medieval stuff, which is yellowy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think the Royal College of Art had a very blue-green time in the 1960s and all the RCA students I knew went in for that colour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never liked it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Later I studied drawing at the Royal College, from 1979-81, and then moved onto paintings.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the recent show at </span><span><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/rubbernecking/intro.html">Transition Gallery</a></span><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"> you had the canvases stapled to the wall. Do you prefer that?</span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUkhT48nBPitdTBV9gio_qdI7ndZAMK4iiWDKFO2sX7z4gLYIGxHLKsTr1JvdSmlaCFYSOnRFKvadjlytPGJOtTYR5zrUbNmU25MA8OiLWgObqMf3Fl_BexyIA94UXVMNGJtmHtEK6Wg/s1600-h/rose_wylie.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUkhT48nBPitdTBV9gio_qdI7ndZAMK4iiWDKFO2sX7z4gLYIGxHLKsTr1JvdSmlaCFYSOnRFKvadjlytPGJOtTYR5zrUbNmU25MA8OiLWgObqMf3Fl_BexyIA94UXVMNGJtmHtEK6Wg/s320/rose_wylie.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441986650148865234" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, I like it. I have shown unstretched paintings quite a few times in various places but some people won’t have it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps if the work is for sale then people want to buy an object and they can’t see it otherwise.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They can’t see it, unless it’s stretched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They don’t want to bother about transporting it but obviously you could staple it to any old wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I sent some work into the Turner Contemporary Open in Margate last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The curator was from the Baltic and Martin Clark, from Tate St Ives, was a judge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They said I could staple them to the wall and send them on transit stretchers because I’d put it in the application.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You do stick them directly onto stretchers sometimes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW: I stick them onto a strip of canvas around the edges of the stretcher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Everything on the painting shows on the front. It’s quite difficult to do.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, they look imprecise.</span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigEayBEA4JWdMYsYLl3ZjqCgTdbm09uTFxe0V97Azhw7AlVA9n54LCwiHOw7R8cPHZ-wTcBUyRPdz5It8DnKGNwuzWzvpVnbWTmMCkhR_fChcxrSVrjhK0uBxGn1pHVpD0pEqA2-6SNQ/s1600-h/union3917_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 238px; height: 156px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigEayBEA4JWdMYsYLl3ZjqCgTdbm09uTFxe0V97Azhw7AlVA9n54LCwiHOw7R8cPHZ-wTcBUyRPdz5It8DnKGNwuzWzvpVnbWTmMCkhR_fChcxrSVrjhK0uBxGn1pHVpD0pEqA2-6SNQ/s320/union3917_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441989162670657410" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They stretch unevenly when you size them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And they stick out where you staple them up so when you measure them they’re not precise.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This one looks more like your work on paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Obviously because of the pencil and charcoal, but also the collage. A sort of hybrid.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I like to see the flipped up edges of the collaged bits because they make small shadows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The frame around the Fat Controller used up a whole pencil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It doesn’t take, unless you use a good artist’s crayon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Cheap pencils evaporate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I use cheap paper in my drawings, people ask if I use cheap materials and the answer is no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They’re not cheap materials but they look as though they might be.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMV2Op9apfzDhbJ1HTPjzyhRw0shZFytbFxhJTKy_B7fqOQIUeqKQ40aqyYsJaudYW13_2IoITj0x7oeeScZfn9p7P3XSUCOSufJ8QjFVse2xuVHkhkSZBetnWaIYnib646_-raGp8g/s1600-h/IMG_4559.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMV2Op9apfzDhbJ1HTPjzyhRw0shZFytbFxhJTKy_B7fqOQIUeqKQ40aqyYsJaudYW13_2IoITj0x7oeeScZfn9p7P3XSUCOSufJ8QjFVse2xuVHkhkSZBetnWaIYnib646_-raGp8g/s320/IMG_4559.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441989681743158914" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe that’s because of the attitude you have towards your materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’re not exactly precious with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t like to think of the cost of something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I prefer it to come from Woolworths or WHSmith but if you do that then after a few years it disappears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This one is part of four I was going to show together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The idea was that Blair was a fat controller. He tried to control fat by giving children no chips, do you remember, with Jamie Oliver?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There was that business about England being the fattest country in Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was gross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was a pun on the children’s toy Fat Controller and the description of Blair, the fat controller. It’s about obesity and control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In this painting the Fat Controller doesn’t really look like the Fat Controller but I like those thick charcoal lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I used to draw like that a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now I work with thinner, hard pencils. I visited Patrick Heron in the West Country before he died. He was just about to have a big show at the Tate. He showed me and Roy a few things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The only thing I liked was a drawing of a boat he’d done when he was 12.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I loved it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was done with a hard pencil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that clinched it for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I loathe arty materials. That’s why I like cheap paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I like cheap everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I like accessibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’d like pictures to be cheap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But if you have cheap pictures nobody wants them. I think they should be available.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Rothko wanted his work to be available and they became extremely expensive and unique and he didn’t want that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You think that’s beyond your control?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">RW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s horrible. I don’t like it.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhtB0KxsmuluUxg67Y9nw5fOskzTKQBvVAibpxeGiEg3itcyYdK1nGxDOTjDZX3375mXHRcqAwKHSqszVukFzJN2-PhYOduT1Algfp7KqGrS2cZVW6iqEbZ98zXCs0cHy50PbI-lk_w/s1600-h/IMG_4578.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhtB0KxsmuluUxg67Y9nw5fOskzTKQBvVAibpxeGiEg3itcyYdK1nGxDOTjDZX3375mXHRcqAwKHSqszVukFzJN2-PhYOduT1Algfp7KqGrS2cZVW6iqEbZ98zXCs0cHy50PbI-lk_w/s320/IMG_4578.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441990084644269794" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div></div><br />Rose Wylie is currently showing <i>'Film Notes'</i> at Union Gallery, 94 Teesdale St, London E2 6PU until 13 March 2010.<div><br /><div><a href="http://www.union-gallery.com/">www.union-gallery.com</a></div><div><br /><div>She has also been selected for Women to Watch at the NMWA in Washington, DC in July 2010.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.nmwa-uk.org/wwprogram.html">www.nmwa-uk.org</a></div><div><br /></div><div>And will be showing at Thomas Erben Gallery, New York from 25 Feb - 3 April 2010.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.thomaserben.com/index.php#biographyRoseWylie.html">http://www.thomaserben.com/index.php#biographyRoseWylie.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/rubbernecking/intro.html">www.transitiongallery.co.uk</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks Cathy Lomax for studio photographs and input.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /></div></div></div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-36694301438384131922010-01-20T13:40:00.000-08:002011-01-29T08:52:13.454-08:00Jo Wilmot talked to Alli Sharma at 'Detox', Hoxton Square, London N1<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTaX8ml2SV7_8MMC9jBnHRfv3hultOPtv44sc51vxiyoFEPiOk76l_20jD4sYJZvtlEgtqN9BHpDBbEFFIA_9cRv-kXWTsmLFQpMBXyfahRfNlbVlgqKG5AtgjUC0jnwFPe9BJmYfqOA/s1600-h/crash.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 319px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTaX8ml2SV7_8MMC9jBnHRfv3hultOPtv44sc51vxiyoFEPiOk76l_20jD4sYJZvtlEgtqN9BHpDBbEFFIA_9cRv-kXWTsmLFQpMBXyfahRfNlbVlgqKG5AtgjUC0jnwFPe9BJmYfqOA/s320/crash.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428942044423470962" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You have large and small-scale work in this exhibition; do you have a preference?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s easier to get a good rhythm in larger paintings and there’s more control to make it balanced or unbalanced. You’ve got more freedom with the scale of the marks too, from really small to massive. You can’t mess so much with the smaller ones and it’s harder to get stuck in.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p>AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So does your process differ according to size?</o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I always start with a coloured ground and use quite a traditional process, working dark into light. But then I also work wet on wet so it messes it up a bit. Then different amounts of different medium, just to try and get some texture into the painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then the different approaches to applying the paint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s paint obsessed.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgye3cAstnwmfeM8jN_hLjhbxi530nm9TmbeWG5AdfZ3JXEiyYTRIiaZ4NBdFQTBrEfu4nc_XVXslTdu8pdqdcw8Q1YwIhwpNcom5jgBTirOoAiMkrMTUNdyfLWptVE12LZtfSZ7QqExQ/s1600-h/forest_wilmot.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 274px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgye3cAstnwmfeM8jN_hLjhbxi530nm9TmbeWG5AdfZ3JXEiyYTRIiaZ4NBdFQTBrEfu4nc_XVXslTdu8pdqdcw8Q1YwIhwpNcom5jgBTirOoAiMkrMTUNdyfLWptVE12LZtfSZ7QqExQ/s320/forest_wilmot.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428942503202661202" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve heard you describe the way you work as letting everything go, getting into a bit of a mess and then having to bring it all back.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s a certain point in every painting, especially bigger works, where I look at it and think what have I done? It looks a complete mess, but not in a good way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It hasn’t hung together and it’s almost like it could be sliding off the canvas and it’s just scary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s horrible and disheartening and you have to fight through that and then everything starts to slot into place and it starts working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You get to that point and it’s exciting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You come into the studio and it’s pretty much there and you just have some slightly tedious finishing off to get it completely done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The drive is waiting for that magic moment but sometimes you never find it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So does a lot of work get binned?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are a lot that don’t make it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve just started on a new technique and the work isn’t ready to show yet because I haven’t worked out how to use the mark making technique.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vqT8oOMnYKYvcx7pFx0iHNSlxHKuFnSxMmho_8p-GmpHvl0CSCwYjo42QzFGGmGDKwZLAwI7nlR_eJDMGIicemS26BmRZ1_51Jeo6yYDVKAqMflPXwvfYaots3RLASZa_TUG1NVCmA/s1600-h/wilmot_gym.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vqT8oOMnYKYvcx7pFx0iHNSlxHKuFnSxMmho_8p-GmpHvl0CSCwYjo42QzFGGmGDKwZLAwI7nlR_eJDMGIicemS26BmRZ1_51Jeo6yYDVKAqMflPXwvfYaots3RLASZa_TUG1NVCmA/s320/wilmot_gym.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428943153501761842" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Y</span>ou’re masking parts off?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Basically, it’s working in two ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’d been trying to work with interiors that function as landscapes, like ballrooms, coffee shops and architectural spaces. Then I did the cars and reached the point where I couldn’t do them any more. I needed to move on. Some of them became too composed. So I decided to revisit the landscape based stuff, but trying to do more with the mark making and mess it up. The expressive marks contrasted with the structured architectural spaces produce a nice tension. My paintings work best when they’re slightly ambiguous and slightly hard to read. They’re always representational, but not directly; they’re one step removed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is this one based on a gym?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, with the machines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I got into the idea of the repetitive nature of gyms. Not only repetitive, like forced labour, but also the way that there are so many different machines and everyone is doing the same thing, like a cog in the wheel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I started with a bad painting, put down masking tape to fracture it and made another painting over the top then peeled off the tape. So there are two or three works in one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I’m still working out how to use this technique.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And will you work into it again after the tape comes off?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Probably not. Some need work on the contrast. It was a nice painting with the masking tape on it but now it’s a bit destroyed.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There seems to be a general element of destruction in what you do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yeah, and it’s weird with a new body of work and you’re not sure where it’s going and you’re a little bit lost. I was working from photographs of a posh, glitzy gym but really they always look a bit like a dungeon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8uAVF5FOfEjWFKqOwNaZPxHuTftTmTPad56k7AdqDVstLRFUr4Er7RE3sNh4QBlHaeQ3Dk-tGa9MPChcV8cCstn6DKskqmGLvGHsKq6eOszPZDUiiRvLBqTWKdwIVROyIEuhXA30ymg/s1600-h/ballroomwo.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8uAVF5FOfEjWFKqOwNaZPxHuTftTmTPad56k7AdqDVstLRFUr4Er7RE3sNh4QBlHaeQ3Dk-tGa9MPChcV8cCstn6DKskqmGLvGHsKq6eOszPZDUiiRvLBqTWKdwIVROyIEuhXA30ymg/s320/ballroomwo.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428943923128607090" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It sounds like you find glamorous images, which promise a fantasy and then destroy the gloss of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It kind of unravels it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When you check out the website of a restaurant and look at the venue photos they’re always beautiful because it’s just after they’ve opened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But you go there and there are scuffmarks where the mop has been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s what my paintings are like. They’re like the scuffmarks, rather than the fantasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s like a family photo when everyone is planning to get on really well and being happy and then 5 minutes later there’s a massive argument and people are crying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like getting behind the façade.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s the disappointment, failure and feeling like you’ve been slightly conned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve spent too long fantasizing and getting really sucked into things. Perhaps it’s me coming to terms with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just processing what’s going on in your life around you generally?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yeah, we’re just living in this world of glitz and everything seems to be moving to virtual. Our computer screens are flat so everything looks better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Pictures have brighter colours, faces of people look better and then when you go out into the world it’s quite disappointing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Paintings are good because they’re the antithesis of the seduction of a flat screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I mean they have a seduction of their own but it’s completely different to shininess.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAB5JWrhsj0LsJNonVWSFgz9CnkCuqU980HJQRVVEpqwR4twOo7QN2J266f6ztoPvJfamQj0mU0u84PMQFTU6Q3mC5PUGW5NzMcXLlipdjcCMin0XWPCZKWcXHUpVN8VdKyqJuwAyypw/s1600-h/wilmotwinkh.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 311px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAB5JWrhsj0LsJNonVWSFgz9CnkCuqU980HJQRVVEpqwR4twOo7QN2J266f6ztoPvJfamQj0mU0u84PMQFTU6Q3mC5PUGW5NzMcXLlipdjcCMin0XWPCZKWcXHUpVN8VdKyqJuwAyypw/s320/wilmotwinkh.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428946237604037906" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some painters enjoy that gloss and slickness.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m anti-slick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s what I like about paintings, they’re a bit grubby and hand made. Even Velasquez, when you get up close you see those big blobs of white are really crusty, or where he’s lazily cleaned his brush on the painting. But they’re such phenomenal paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The refreshing thing about painting is that you can see how it’s made, like when you see a live band, you can see how it’s done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But when you look at images in magazines or on the telly, you’re not brought into the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Unless you really sit there thinking ok, that’s a photograph, big studio, make up, teams of people and airbrushes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You used a lot of drippy painting in the suburban garden paintings. There aren’t so many drips in this work.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No, I was relying on those too much as a prop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was like breaking up, playing with and fracturing the space, which is something that I’ve returned to, but it became like a prop and I knew how to do those paintings too well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They were instinctive and becoming like a parody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Those are the ones people always mention. They’re cheesy and glitzy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> A</span>nd the colours are bright and vulgar.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">JW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They’re like footballers wives; really trashy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But then I got sick of green and I couldn’t use green any more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I needed to move away and challenge myself. </span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyF67M402GRBnSlC99_GVBBIE4434VKANy45xeFRYcI7aEhufLhURdqvWR7qn9PzJNiB-JFBQ7B8NuoxoTgx7LflQdW8gclGO3YV8sWQ1ckFf9h-saQDt38bA7Gpb9WElLQuokuC6dag/s1600-h/wilmotcocktailhof.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 319px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyF67M402GRBnSlC99_GVBBIE4434VKANy45xeFRYcI7aEhufLhURdqvWR7qn9PzJNiB-JFBQ7B8NuoxoTgx7LflQdW8gclGO3YV8sWQ1ckFf9h-saQDt38bA7Gpb9WElLQuokuC6dag/s320/wilmotcocktailhof.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428945192005267890" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Jo Wilmot is currently showing work at ‘Detox’, 16 Hoxton Square, London N1, which she co-curated with Kristen Lovelock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The exhibition is open Thur-Fri 12-6 pm, Sat 10-6 pm until 6 February.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.detoxme.org.uk/">www.detoxme.org.uk</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.jowilmot.com/">www.jowilmot.com</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-54986740376791141732009-12-12T12:52:00.001-08:002011-01-29T08:52:41.681-08:00Laura Oldfield Ford in conversation with Alli Sharma after her talk at Tate Britain, London on 7 December 2009<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSiM1A8vzk92wFnVxwFNA1_jtSLRYfVo3QnjwCGbF-bazkvoYd9WhwqlAXfLsoLQtsKwes5HU9AIGHsUrAGXxmJxPQr5R68ics2RWezq8LDbVGaY_kUJdJTYcACnb7PYQPhZG9bvx-ug/s1600-h/Leamington+Spa+to+Hastings.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSiM1A8vzk92wFnVxwFNA1_jtSLRYfVo3QnjwCGbF-bazkvoYd9WhwqlAXfLsoLQtsKwes5HU9AIGHsUrAGXxmJxPQr5R68ics2RWezq8LDbVGaY_kUJdJTYcACnb7PYQPhZG9bvx-ug/s320/Leamington+Spa+to+Hastings.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414457386589635970" /></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, serif;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When talking about your work in relation to John Martin’s ‘judgement pictures’, you touched upon the romanticism that exists within your own work but seemed a little reluctant to go there.</span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s a lot of political weight brought to bear when talking about historical movements like Romanticism, so in a way I’m trying to avoid taking that on. There’s a difference between the way that I romanticise my subject matter and the romantic idea in art history as contextualised in front of those paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Certainly, my work is shot through with some sort of desire or idealised portrayal of aspects of the city, which can be read as problematic. But I like to set that against the bleakness or melancholy aspects of the architecture that I describe.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To me, that is romantic; the way you look at the architecture in it’s decaying state.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What I find interesting about architecture steeped in that patina of decay is to do with what happens to those spaces when they’ve been subverted?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How do they change as people adapt them to their own needs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve always found that interesting about large planned estates, garden cities or post-war new towns. Whether that’s people changing the appearance of their front doors or adding nomadic architecture, caravans and building sites to the edges of those places.</span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKjTJS8F_7P4IZcqs6kG4ZUu7WMYi8nShT_WEiwq05ETFboo4EovHx7Gn9KJQQazy24BXah9RNFuGNtw7WI4s4MZRvC-69zLZTMf7NFk_GJ6FDuPeV1tbOT2UWRxeiHdzDvr4bOfsEiw/s1600-h/laura-o-f12.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKjTJS8F_7P4IZcqs6kG4ZUu7WMYi8nShT_WEiwq05ETFboo4EovHx7Gn9KJQQazy24BXah9RNFuGNtw7WI4s4MZRvC-69zLZTMf7NFk_GJ6FDuPeV1tbOT2UWRxeiHdzDvr4bOfsEiw/s320/laura-o-f12.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414464063626522290" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You seem focussed on the architecture of a place and not particularly on the people. You said you were becoming more interested in individual stories.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s definitely there, most obviously in the writing for my zine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Savage Messiah</i>. I try to coax out hidden narratives or stories so you get fragments coming from different characters. They’re loosely based on people I’ve met. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How far does your research take you? I imagine that you take your camera on walks around the city. Do you talk to people too?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I take thousands of photos so editing takes up a lot of time in the process of making the work. I talk to people on estates where I’ve lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At the moment, I teach a drawing class with old people in Kilburn and I talk to them about what Kilburn used to be like and listen to their experiences of living in that area and what it was like living in Paddington during the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These kinds of conversations provide me with background material for the work. </span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuvQjWFdyRC5ZpMzfa9tSABxmObhGJbrG0o1Fr9syk-ApOh4v00yBi9mpxXMJRzD_i75sjzc6pk1SDlC1KaugswBLWW1fo9Ivf6-OmjivaeIvl70UO3c4AkW6op5H0tHX45wfIR2aJng/s1600-h/Radiant+Future.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuvQjWFdyRC5ZpMzfa9tSABxmObhGJbrG0o1Fr9syk-ApOh4v00yBi9mpxXMJRzD_i75sjzc6pk1SDlC1KaugswBLWW1fo9Ivf6-OmjivaeIvl70UO3c4AkW6op5H0tHX45wfIR2aJng/s320/Radiant+Future.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414465003143848466" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’re a fan of Ballard; does literature play a part in your working process? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ballard has been hugely influential to me. He’s like an installation artist in the way that he can set a scene so that you can really visualise it. I’m often less interested in the characters and plot; I read him more for the visual images that come from his work.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;">AS: I wanted to ask you about class because it seems strong in your work but I get the impression it's a taboo subject right now and invisible in contemporary art.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think you're right in the sense that it has become unfashionable to talk about class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s something New Labour have distanced themselves from in their new branding process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’re supposed to believe that there’s no working class and that we’re all middle class but the actual issues of class war, to me, in my lifetime, have never been more pertinent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The society we’re living in now is so polarised and divided.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s not that class divisions have disappeared, but the focus seems to have moved to broader issues of globalisation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think people are prepared to talk about developing countries and the Global South and use terms like that and talk about how everybody in developed countries is in a privileged position. But obviously it’s not that simple. I think there’s a consensus that says it’s vulgar and unpleasant to talk about class; it’s bad form.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’re passionate about social injustice; how much did growing up in Halifax contribute to your political views?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I grew up in Yorkshire in the 1970s and 1980s when a particular moment of class conflict was being played out in a very dramatic manner, especially in 1984 when it came to the miners’ strike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It felt like a really important battle and it turned out to be so and that battle was lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That was a pivotal moment and, in a sense, what I’m doing with the work, the aesthetic of the work and the ideas I’m talking about, is locating myself back in that moment as if to activate a certain current or sense of agency that was felt by many people then and who subsequently feel brow beaten and defeated, having lost it all in the 1990s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWH01QRXKuHgulcvSA7KUJ1bNhpuMf56cnn6bHRE2QGokLvhFG8_5yk3FQL9jdvFyuVuRLjLvua1BjJBlQ0PmMZMEKHHz5YrC3IAtxVRbZXng8SScpy4rEsz5xF-nxS6UwxWu0VzsP5w/s1600-h/flyposter+Bristol+2009.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWH01QRXKuHgulcvSA7KUJ1bNhpuMf56cnn6bHRE2QGokLvhFG8_5yk3FQL9jdvFyuVuRLjLvua1BjJBlQ0PmMZMEKHHz5YrC3IAtxVRbZXng8SScpy4rEsz5xF-nxS6UwxWu0VzsP5w/s320/flyposter+Bristol+2009.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414461268203296706" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I see the term YUPPIE in your work, it makes me want to snigger; it seems so dated.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yeah, we don’t call them that any more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are so many different words for them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So what is a YUPPIE to you?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p>LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well, it’s the bankers that are getting paid massive bonuses but it’s also these hipsters around the East End. They move into areas, buy up houses, have absolutely no interest in the existing communities and are just interested in making money and exploiting a certain situation. I like the term YUPPIE because it speaks directly about a certain historical moment when there was a much stronger sense of class warfare and class hatred. But you’ve got to remember that there is an element of humour and satire that runs through the work as well. I do want people to find it funny because I get bored with really dry political tracts that are uninspiring and unimaginative.</o:p></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix1_wf3v1TBXdHO-V8bpAj9Ffiz6p7_Vze5tjHA8uuCWDgGbeUebNMX0TlzyxMdB52QCYTrsmyBHH7cSHErFMOHirlwrmUF0VrP4ZhOPaVjcC1xg2T8IdaU12AJxrFZKfFPnCc76-GBg/s1600-h/laura-o-f01.jpg"> </a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWtMOR4msQ8leZZecMceemCCFNXv-c7Fwtm5DsiiHh02CtuK4yHOJqFmHsZf21zwZcq3OdZZo3IWH3Oe7GBi_6C6erJ6_LxJ-t1WjgVqfFmmCGtCJMeDkg2VqGuvcWsJXCdelXwSiKJA/s1600-h/laura-o-f01.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWtMOR4msQ8leZZecMceemCCFNXv-c7Fwtm5DsiiHh02CtuK4yHOJqFmHsZf21zwZcq3OdZZo3IWH3Oe7GBi_6C6erJ6_LxJ-t1WjgVqfFmmCGtCJMeDkg2VqGuvcWsJXCdelXwSiKJA/s320/laura-o-f01.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414466078779630050" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most of your work is set in London; have you made work about Halifax?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well, the thing is I want to and I have tentatively started to make work about Leeds. I’ve lived in London for 15 years so there are various places where different parts of my life have been played out. When you come to London you can adopt different personas. You can be anybody and you can act up. But when you’re in Yorkshire, when you’re at home, you’re vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It touches on something of your childhood and your adolescence and sometimes it’s too emotional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But that’s not to say I’m not going to do it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How do your activities as artist and activist combine or are they separate?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As an artist, the politics are inextricably tied to the way I engage with the world. And the things I’m interested in are influenced by my socioeconomic position in society. It’s an inescapable thing. It’s just having the desire to express the way that I see things and having the freedom to do that in the work that I make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On a personal level it feels like a really important thing for me to do. My ambition for the work is to be an artist who contributes to some sort of critical milieu - just being present and saying these things.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p>AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Presumably, that requires visibility within the art world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Does showing work in galleries clash with your ideas and is that a problem for you?</o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p>LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For me, there’s not really a conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have got ideas and I want people to see my work. I want to be able to communicate with people. That’s just what I do and this is the critical position I’m taking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Showing work in galleries, particularly Hales Gallery, which I respect, and contributing to events at Tate, I don’t find problematic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A lot of the people that have criticised me for showing work in those sorts of spaces have done so when they have been reviewing my shows in those spaces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The irony is that they didn’t write about me during the 10 years I spent showing work in occupied spaces, underground studios or shows in pubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That just supports my argument that if I want people to be aware of what I’m doing then I need to show my work in many different spaces. </o:p></span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi576jhXowr9fcIKy60rfWsgRL8IsB-8hrVLnqyNRgouVc_5AJbKQFdyrE43AecHuZ0IJytXd5Jt9tXr5wMzr-2YlhLHUArLvqKbqWpgJnrjXnABJHM04YsvkDB1W0s4q_Fcx0RKNgObg/s1600-h/laura-o-f02.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi576jhXowr9fcIKy60rfWsgRL8IsB-8hrVLnqyNRgouVc_5AJbKQFdyrE43AecHuZ0IJytXd5Jt9tXr5wMzr-2YlhLHUArLvqKbqWpgJnrjXnABJHM04YsvkDB1W0s4q_Fcx0RKNgObg/s320/laura-o-f02.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414463668933731042" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">AS:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’ve been making biro drawings recently, are you doing any painting?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">LOF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Actually, I want to start painting again. I’ve really missed it. I’m involved in this project <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">2013, Drifting Through The Ruins</i> and the ballpoint drawings work well to articulate ideas I have of ephemeral places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ballpoint pen fades and the stains of acrylic paint gave it a sense of translucence and patina of slight decay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m doing a series of new drawings for The Armory in March. They’re related to the psycho-geographic engagement with the city but I’m going to be looking at Paddington and Kilburn. To make them as paintings would carry too much weight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I actually love painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not in the way some people do, like they get obsessed with the physicality of making. I’m not a painterly painter but I enjoy constructing the images and taking time over them and working in that way. I’ve already got plans for a painting show - but I can’t talk about it. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, serif;">Laura Oldfield Ford is currently exhibiting at:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><i>Britannia: 2013-1981</i>, Art and Design Gallery, Hatfield, 20 Nov 2009 – 30 Jan 2010 <a href="http://http://www.herts.ac.uk/events/Britannia-20131981-Laura-Oldfield-Ford.cfm">http://www.herts.ac.uk/events/Britannia-20131981-Laura-Oldfield-Ford.cfm</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">The Armory Show 2010, Pier 94, New York City, USA, 4-7 Mar 2010 <a href="http://www.halesgallery.com/news/_69/">www.halesgallery.com/news/_69/</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;"><a href="http://www.lauraoldfieldford.com/">www.lauraoldfieldford.com</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhGQcLK94O0et63h42CPLxvs5zOPbpQD6r7g5yChSWtzt8skgFSA6BmZmlFojVxwS4isxdmNNiqmO9oS-VtSRtH8HvCs_N-AHyI3O0RxtcbVhaYaZXAcaezyC-5ZL753HwbtwVwN5Uw/s1600-h/Savage+786low.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhGQcLK94O0et63h42CPLxvs5zOPbpQD6r7g5yChSWtzt8skgFSA6BmZmlFojVxwS4isxdmNNiqmO9oS-VtSRtH8HvCs_N-AHyI3O0RxtcbVhaYaZXAcaezyC-5ZL753HwbtwVwN5Uw/s320/Savage+786low.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414466854981786578" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;">Savage Messiah zine is available at:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://savagemessiahzine.com/savstore.html">http://savagemessiahzine.com/savstore.html</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;font-family:Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-33190996760811910602009-11-08T15:05:00.000-08:002011-01-29T08:53:15.770-08:00Jasper Joffe talks to Marianne Morild in his studio on 3 November<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial, serif;">I come to Jasper Joffe’s studio armed with a voice recorder that doesn’t work. The following is a reconstructed conversation, which Jasper agreed was ‘a good re-creation of the ideas'.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiumwHfbGz7chKSYytLqQckfROqTqo6ktBA5MJQS84NSOC4koeI-QUx6kgfSZvsOFGy3pSL0CTS2TPogmWhtom6Rs8JGGZdqozNgpDcsVzUKjEaIw5USbkCq88tCJEYgUwg3smlSLeZww/s1600-h/Prince+Phil-Skull.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 248px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiumwHfbGz7chKSYytLqQckfROqTqo6ktBA5MJQS84NSOC4koeI-QUx6kgfSZvsOFGy3pSL0CTS2TPogmWhtom6Rs8JGGZdqozNgpDcsVzUKjEaIw5USbkCq88tCJEYgUwg3smlSLeZww/s320/Prince+Phil-Skull.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401873388416424162" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: Your paintings have changed quite a lot over ten years.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: Yes. I’ve tried to make one body of work look the same as another, but somehow I can’t do it. I get bored. I get bored of going to the studio every day, mixing colours, painting pictures. I love painting, I just can’t do the protestant work ethic, although a lot of the artists that I admire work in that way, six hours in the studio every day, like going to the office. The 24 paintings in 24 hours was a way to demonstrate that it’s not the amount of labour that is lavished on a piece of work that determines how good it is. A painting that is done in an hour can be as good as something that has been painstakingly painted over a long period of time.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlPcoh9wlToztGh1ZYqTm0J41XVyrAofxPH_QtvD0-4uLkV8yV_JpWTrr5afb40eYc92S8SmAsO2AEZE0dsw_pPGfBe8C4RxYrLV9SZJo5N1w3m1sQ_bjcIxVJIJoAVDCuX8dmnZgDPg/s1600-h/24hours.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlPcoh9wlToztGh1ZYqTm0J41XVyrAofxPH_QtvD0-4uLkV8yV_JpWTrr5afb40eYc92S8SmAsO2AEZE0dsw_pPGfBe8C4RxYrLV9SZJo5N1w3m1sQ_bjcIxVJIJoAVDCuX8dmnZgDPg/s320/24hours.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401873992606739074" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: Your practice includes curating as well as painting. Does that keep the boredom away?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ:I think so. It was another way of creating a whole world of art as I see it. I don’t always agree with the way that art is perceived or treated by critics or curators, and I wanted to create a world where the kind of art that I liked was included. Why would I stick to only making paintings when I could make a whole world? It’s just because I’m so full of myself.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: Do you think that when your work changes it is because you get bored with doing the same thing over and over?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: I’m quite an argumentative person. If somebody says something, I take the opposite view, just for the sake of a good argument. Maybe it’s the rebel in me, that makes me want to do the opposite of what I’ve done before.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: You’re having an argument with yourself?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: It’s like a thesis/anti-thesis, if you will.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: So really that amounts to quite a coherent philosophy then, if you decide that your working process is to constantly present yourself with the challenge of doing something different each time. At the same time you are quite hard on the paintings you have done before?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: I’m very ambitious. People say ‘oh you're so down on your work’ but I’m just very ambitious, it’s difficult to be satisfied with what I’ve done. People always say I’m just a painter who makes repulsive paintings; I paint porn, Nazis, swearwords, tattoos and cancer. But really I do it because I think painting makes it beautiful. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffzFOKO-gJXl0CSbBMgYfJebDmBhANhf-X7Nj6N2kcH7LxEfW2OrAb6Q94KYzTVXDYSETvYflL_IfcyBVCTGUL4zeSddpd674Tq3CyS8xWb8L44zq_UBf_H0n2haFgszZbgdf5U_0Vg/s1600-h/Japanese.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 245px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffzFOKO-gJXl0CSbBMgYfJebDmBhANhf-X7Nj6N2kcH7LxEfW2OrAb6Q94KYzTVXDYSETvYflL_IfcyBVCTGUL4zeSddpd674Tq3CyS8xWb8L44zq_UBf_H0n2haFgszZbgdf5U_0Vg/s320/Japanese.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401875127154819330" /></a>MM: I wanted to ask you about your notion of beauty. In the porn paintings the way you paint the women alternates between lovingly applied paint, quite academic, and big furious brushstrokes in the backgrounds and sometimes on the women’s faces.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: I wanted to give the women some humanity, see beyond the image that people masturbate to. And the expressive paintwork – I suppose I wanted to inject some of that energy into the painting, the effort to see them as human beings. But I’m not happy with those paintings. I think they failed. People couldn’t see beyond the sleaziness of it. They just thought I was another misogynist.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: The Himmler painting works on a similar level. I’ve seen the original photo, where the look in his eyes is one of vengeance and arrogance. You have painted him in a rather loving kind of way.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZJyKoHJpCczcb2MaYbiHXgH9qXwHZdx_sGco28cs1mTzTXXCt8pyi4vLqhF6n5rDPN7Tt4sdCmd8SsjeNXQsn-6547aAG4UVG74OwNFwX8LiSBXf6NHnTSQ0JT1PAa-tng-kCKBtFQ/s1600-h/himmler_father.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZJyKoHJpCczcb2MaYbiHXgH9qXwHZdx_sGco28cs1mTzTXXCt8pyi4vLqhF6n5rDPN7Tt4sdCmd8SsjeNXQsn-6547aAG4UVG74OwNFwX8LiSBXf6NHnTSQ0JT1PAa-tng-kCKBtFQ/s320/himmler_father.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401875745465885266" /></a><br />JJ: Yes, it’s funny, the Nazi paintings seem to have what the porn paintings didn’t. Maybe it’s easier to see the human in a Nazi; they’re vilified by everybody, nobody’s on their side. And besides, when you paint something, you get certain sympathy for what you’re working on. And you stop seeing it as an image, it becomes abstract, just colour next to another colour, you want to get the highlights right, the relationships between nose and eye etc.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: The bodies you painted in the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Buck Naked</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> series were very different in style. They have more of a comedy element to them than the porn-paintings, and less focus on emotional expression.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: I painted those bodies from my head; they are the people I see around me. When you think about how you see people, there are always some things that are emphasized and take over. I was just fascinated by the people I see around me here in Dalston, on the bus, what people do to themselves, how they treat themselves, the way black women straighten their hair and so on. I drew them, and filled in with colour – I guess that’s what makes them so cartoony.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Eb6LC4KgFiKsvl-YMvHqHr_ty_mwMrbCtyjYHhDKyNw52NrNdqHhn7W4YTnFAtlEs9jPkgClK174jk_KQgh8qScubz60BVuGaPy7ItWbhi-_rQjf8Q0HScBrOIJdaoIaBQrrCo5Z2w/s1600-h/fuck_you_ass.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 155px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Eb6LC4KgFiKsvl-YMvHqHr_ty_mwMrbCtyjYHhDKyNw52NrNdqHhn7W4YTnFAtlEs9jPkgClK174jk_KQgh8qScubz60BVuGaPy7ItWbhi-_rQjf8Q0HScBrOIJdaoIaBQrrCo5Z2w/s320/fuck_you_ass.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401876261837159218" /></a></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: There are a lot of orgies going on.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: The orgies are also something that is everywhere. The way people talk, they swear, they talk about sex on the bus, they are rude.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">All those words that people get so upset about when I put them into the paintings, they’re around us all the time.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: They look a bit bored with the orgy, like they don’t really engage with what they are doing.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">JJ: There is nothing that is holy anymore that they can really engage with. I suppose I really would like to be religious in a way, although I’m not at all. I like to believe in really big things, like big art or big love. But people don’t treat it that way. Not religion, not sex, nothing. Children perhaps, but I don’t really want to go there in my artwork. I don’t want to touch any of that stuff, children, paedophiles or terrorists. People are angry enough with me as it is.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">MM: But I don’t see your work as being linked to fads in politics. There are some things that remain constant throughout.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;">JJ: Yes, that is true. It's always the same, women, Nazis, sex, death, mess. And beauty.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><a href="http://www.jasperjoffe.com/">www.jasperjoffe.com</a></span></p>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4723368643038118144.post-1166331030332624512009-10-19T07:58:00.000-07:002011-01-29T08:55:39.454-08:00Paul Housley talks to Alli Sharma in his studio in West Norwood<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bEDiZWK7ZaM1CH0HccbDN5z3J6no3zfshGJTbCs68IBkNrAgIdMXH5s81Vj0AeWjKGStRAeL_nuXug_CmdQ4GDwWR3SCZSHi5Ag3stb11ijV93Q4gv9524H4MvHN8j_yUUd3dgL3Kg/s1600-h/Painters+Boot.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 257px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bEDiZWK7ZaM1CH0HccbDN5z3J6no3zfshGJTbCs68IBkNrAgIdMXH5s81Vj0AeWjKGStRAeL_nuXug_CmdQ4GDwWR3SCZSHi5Ag3stb11ijV93Q4gv9524H4MvHN8j_yUUd3dgL3Kg/s320/Painters+Boot.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394328064761336178" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial, serif;">AS: The objects in your paintings have weight; they look heavy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: I quite like things to have that feeling about them, for lots of reasons, psychologically, physically and something to do with the actual material of the paint. Most of these paintings have got about six paintings underneath. It’s a physical build up of completely different paintings. I find a white, canvas surface quite difficult and I like to have something to work against.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: Do you mean the whiteness can be intimidating?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: In some ways, especially canvas. It’s such a nice aesthetic thing in itself that you don’t want to mess it up. You have to break the seal as it were so it’s difficult in that sense. I find I have to make a few bad paintings to try and dig out a good one. It doesn’t always work. I’m trying to get to the point now where I make less bad paintings and make better decisions. I’m aiming to become a more minimal painter.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8gGKD1eIwK4KfvHeddtinZj7uQHsVeDdOQffJ-BfDsCQ4qa-0nu9mnsQA0VtMAFKN2JmxIwvf6OlFjBOnaGs38CCdZWWIC6LnmxBICp0V8XhOOnBscJ6cKk15yfyMjZDdN9STYV_iA/s1600-h/Plastic+face+cant+lie.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 242px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8gGKD1eIwK4KfvHeddtinZj7uQHsVeDdOQffJ-BfDsCQ4qa-0nu9mnsQA0VtMAFKN2JmxIwvf6OlFjBOnaGs38CCdZWWIC6LnmxBICp0V8XhOOnBscJ6cKk15yfyMjZDdN9STYV_iA/s320/Plastic+face+cant+lie.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394328601444788786" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: By making fewer marks?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: Fewer marks, like the dolls head there, which is basically made of spots. Almost reducing something to a pattern. That’s the direction I’m going in. I want to lose the modelling, but my mind changes all the time and each painting is a bit of a compromise. You start off trying to make a certain type of painting and end up making a different one. I’ve always had a problem with backgrounds. I’m making paintings where I only paint the background and bring out an abstract quality.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: Is that a figure/ground problem; not wanting those things to be separate?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: The thing is that all of the painting has got to be interesting, not just one particular bit so when you paint an object you tend to concentrate on the object and it becomes the focus. I’m trying to play around with that a little bit so that the background becomes more important and gets diffused and integrated. I taught myself how to draw objects and how to make them believable and how to get depth and weight and I can do those things now so I want to be able to do something else. You’ve got to keep yourself interested.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: You use the same objects over and over again, as if you’re striving to get something else out of the same thing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: I don’t think the number of objects is a problem. In a way that’s the challenge of it. An obvious comparison would be Morandi; the idea of having just a few objects and the amount and range that you can get out of those things. I like that challenge, to eek out interesting paintings with limited resources and small objects and so on. </span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTE9Bo5AcP5YnTsX5XBDPLDgX0Oy0EiKlCboJZ2LbXqk2wFp_1byTBB6KF6eOh8-FZiVplu9zolzOUbWiAOVam8qoBJS63TJ2RG_BHo8oJzjRu3WBABftOgA4KhYfwGDjnauGur584jA/s1600-h/yellow+dog.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 278px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTE9Bo5AcP5YnTsX5XBDPLDgX0Oy0EiKlCboJZ2LbXqk2wFp_1byTBB6KF6eOh8-FZiVplu9zolzOUbWiAOVam8qoBJS63TJ2RG_BHo8oJzjRu3WBABftOgA4KhYfwGDjnauGur584jA/s320/yellow+dog.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394329471513482738" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: I saw a painting of yours done back in 2004 called ‘</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Big Daddy</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">’. I think it could be of Cezanne. Your new paintings also reference other painters.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: I suppose that was the first one I did as a precursor to these new paintings. It was a one-off but I’ve come full circle. The recent Picasso show was a real influence; the way he was using old masters. I think the main thing for me is to get away from using photographs. That’s one of the reasons I started painting objects. And if I don’t then I’ll reference a painting rather than a photograph.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: I suppose a photograph flattens everything immediately so perhaps some of the work is already done for you.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: Well it can be seductive. I was using photographs from National Geographic and I was influenced by Luc Tuymans, but it’s limiting. You learn how to paint like Tuymans which is a limited style of painting to start with. So I’ve gone further back. The kind of paintings I’m looking at now are from the 17</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> Century so, in order to read those paintings, I have to learn a bit about what those painters were doing. You can read paintings on several levels but to actually physically understand how it’s made is one of the more interesting levels if you’re a painter. The kind of stuff that I’m really interested in is indefinable. You can’t say why a particular Rembrandt is such an incredibly powerful piece of work. Even great painters don’t nail it all the time. Every now and then something is imbued with something beyond it’s own physical attributes. I’m in no way talking about anything spiritual. It’s just something else. I mean to some extent it’s an illusion but it’s a very powerful, convincing illusion and maybe that’s enough. Certain paintings just seem more alive than others, like Velasquez or Courbet. They don’t date or age. The paintings that I’m trying to make are my conversational response to those paintings. I want to be part of that conversation.</span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNuhhn4_0lViLBK1iqYHVcI3ASarR5zutvWXetehxFA4f6DppFRZal-qM73mkJmDXOkN_8YYplmwzZqdupbsgaY2MQ89dilPVQdbGtfSneMPboYdDJIWrkZOfN7qbhnxLr5FHBDRvCw/s1600-h/Velazquez.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 241px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNuhhn4_0lViLBK1iqYHVcI3ASarR5zutvWXetehxFA4f6DppFRZal-qM73mkJmDXOkN_8YYplmwzZqdupbsgaY2MQ89dilPVQdbGtfSneMPboYdDJIWrkZOfN7qbhnxLr5FHBDRvCw/s320/Velazquez.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394330003459210386" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: You’ve literally put those painters into some of your recent paintings.<br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: Some of them are direct but I’ll often give the paintings titles, like I’ll call that cat Velasquez. I’ll always acknowledge what I’m using. It’s always genuine. Doing the Rembrandt thing, that’s an odd one because it’s almost pathetic. It’s not pathetic in the sense that it’s a pathetic judgment on a Rembrandt painting because I love Rembrandt. It’s about an acknowledgement of the ridiculousness of what I was trying to do. Even signing things can be a statement in itself or part of the composition. I put a fake Courbet signature on the Snoopy painting. That’s about as close as I get to conceptual art these days. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t. </span></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaGVSXoTIzNfNA6WS7XJb1ILR0zvnxxMItwkZ7pL3uebOGGyMjGjvFoLixokorr3gS642XkoldN6csban7t1ODAmq6bpSRP0QR9Kq5wFxPaq3_9L1f5XjVXLPOXf-6D03khtzForb2eQ/s1600-h/Selfportrait+as+Picasso.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 262px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaGVSXoTIzNfNA6WS7XJb1ILR0zvnxxMItwkZ7pL3uebOGGyMjGjvFoLixokorr3gS642XkoldN6csban7t1ODAmq6bpSRP0QR9Kq5wFxPaq3_9L1f5XjVXLPOXf-6D03khtzForb2eQ/s320/Selfportrait+as+Picasso.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394330666028487714" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">AS: You’ve done a few residencies. What was that like?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">PH: I did one in Berwick, which was very isolating. I did Newcastle then I ended up doing one in Durham. Fellowships are odd things. I’ve done a few and they all look great on paper but in reality it’s expecting a lot to just drop an artist somewhere and expect them to get on with it. It takes a long time to actually get used to where you’re working so quite often they’re not actually very good for your work. If you make any successful work at all, you’ve done well I think.</span></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:arial, serif;">Images:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><i>'Painters Boot'</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><i>'Plastic Face Can't Lie'</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><i>'Yellow Dog'</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><i>'Velazquez'</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><i>'Self Portrait as Picasso'</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;">www.paulhousley.com</span></div>Articulated Artistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04175326501527061958noreply@blogger.com3