‘That’s been a little jewel of an exhibition’, Paul said to me as we shook hands and wished each other well after taking down the ‘Vans’ exhibition the other day.
The exhibition had been Birmingham based artist Paul Newman’s idea and had been in a small space called The Showcase Gallery at the bottom of the Jubilee Trades Centre, a 3-storey building on the edge of Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter which houses amongst other things a collection of artist’s studios. You have to be a studio holder to exhibit in the gallery, which Paul is, and after an exhibition fell through he had planned with someone else, Paul contacted me and proposed an alternative on the theme of vans seeing that they were a feature in both his own and my work. Sure, I said, why not? What shall we call it? ‘Vans’ he said. Of course, I thought. What else?
A view of the studio wall prior to hanging the exhibition
I’ve only known Paul this last year, but I’ve known his work in various exhibitions in Birmingham for many years, which includes a solo exhibition at the Midland Arts Centre in 2016. He has quite a high-profile and is well respected in the region, as well as being very active with Contemporary Paint Britain, conducting many of the monthly interviews with artist members. His latest one was with Graham Crowley which you can read here:
https://www.contemporarybritishpainting.com/graham-crowley-artist-of-the-month/
Paul was also kind enough to give up his time last summer to visit my studio in one of my regular studio visits that I have built into my studio time in the last 18 months. As well as being an artist, Paul is a seasoned University lecturer and is currently a lecturer on the Fine Art Degree at Loughborough University. His extensive experience of discussing artwork and knowledge of art history was incredibly useful in discussing my own work and left me with much food for thought (these visits, which I have tried to schedule every 6 weeks or so, have proven very useful but following the last one I now just want to be left alone to make my work for a while…)
'Luton Van', oil on canvas, 50 x 60cms- a recent painting I created for the show
The Vans theme was good at bringing into focus a clear theme for the benefit of the exhibition. I like typological ideas in art and so I really enjoyed selecting a group of paintings along these lines. As I hung different iterations of them on the studio wall- I had around 20 I could have selected from-I felt excited seeing all the different ways I had ‘skinned the same cat’ so to speak over about 10 years and to paraphrase Chuck Close and how he viewed his own ceaseless experiments in depicting the heads of his sitters. I also felt in a rare moment of feeling positive about my work that the series looked good and that these paintings were strong. It reminded me of what is capable if you keep working and showing up, which is one thing I never have much trouble with.
One of Paul's large paintings in situ
Painting by Paul Newman
Painting by Paul Newman
'As Days Get Dark', oil on canvas, 100 x 120cms...one of my paintings
Paul’s own paintings were very different to my own with my roots in observation. Paul’s are more conceptual and an intriguing mixture of engaging with nineteenth century Romantic landscape paintings such as those of Constable, Turner and Gainsborough, with a bit of Rubens thrown in(!), and the idea of the ruin, which is where the van motif came in, and referencing his own personal history and relationship with his Dad who drove a Ford Escort van similar to those depicted in his paintings. One afternoon whilst we sat in the exhibition, Paul described his memories of his Dad returning home from work on Friday teatimes and reversing the van up the drive which pleasantly changed my view of the paintings. I had previously viewed the vans as sort of crashing into the landscape, but now I saw them try to back up and reverse out of them….
Paul Newman at work...
My side of the exhibition space
With these differences in mind Paul had a great idea to divide the exhibition space with double yellow lines constructed out of masking tape on the wall with his paintings on one side and mine on the other. This worked well and the final installation looked great. We had a busy Private View with visitors intrigued by the unusual theme, and then the exhibition ran throughout August by appointment where Paul and/or I opened up for what turned out to be a steady stream of visitors, including artists Barbara Walker and Matthew Krishanu.
...with artist Paul Newman
I’ve had such a busy year with exhibitions, with this being the tenth one I’ve shown work in to date, but I have to say this rather unusual ad-hoc collaborative one has been the most enjoyable so far. Thanks to Paul for asking me along…90
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