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| Dead Fly, 2013 |
Alli
Sharma: We’re here at your exhibition, in front of
the work. So what came first? I recognize some of the cave paintings?
Mimei
Thompson: 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.
AS: Tell me about your fascination with
insects.
MT: 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.
AS: These marks here are literally swirling
up to form a Green Man.
MT: I like these paintings together because
you can see the suggestions of Green Man
in Buddleia. 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.
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| Green Man, 2013 |
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| Buddleia, 2013 |
AS: I wanted to ask you about the surface
because the paint looks iridescent, almost as if the support itself could be
transparent.
MT: 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.
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| Pavement Tree, 2013 |
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.
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.
AS: Do you work on a painting all in one
go?
MT: 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.
AS: I love your Asparagus, they always make me think of Manet.
MT: That was the starting point, and then I
got the exhibition title Lunar Asparagus
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.
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| Asparagus, 2013 |
AS: You seem to have also developed a
signature palette. Does your use of transparent colours limit what you can use?
MT: 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.
AS: Do you start with an image?
MT: 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.
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| Weeds (Forecourt), 2013 |
AS: There is so much space generated in the
paintings.
MT: The baroque marks need to have space
around them and the very simple illusions of depth help.
AS: In contrast to say Andy Harper, who
uses a similar technique but fills every inch of the canvas with marks.
MT: Yes, Harper uses a similar kind of mark
making, but the work is about a different kind of sublime, I think.
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.
AS: Maybe you just understand your own
language and recognize that.
MT: 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.
Mimei Thompson is exhibiting at Art First Projects, 21 Eastcastle St, London W1W 8DD
until 16 November 2013
Mimei Thompson website
Mimei Thompson is exhibiting at Art First Projects, 21 Eastcastle St, London W1W 8DD
until 16 November 2013
Mimei Thompson website
