'Autumn to Winter': notes from the studio

'Alan', oil on canvas, 90 x 60cms

I’ve been busy over the last few weeks in the studio. Aside from working on ‘The Moz Award’, I’ve been trying to lock myself away to stay focussed on creating some new paintings. I’ve had a vague concept in my head of the theme ‘Autumn to Winter’ to help hang things on. I do mean only loosely though, with the idea of letting the colours and textures of the outdoors inform the formal decisions I make.

I did my first portrait in over a year, ‘Alan’, a portrait of Alan Cheeseman who owns and curates the Chameleon Gallery in Walsall. I really enjoyed doing it, and it was good to re-connect with this side of my work. I feel it has a more confident and ‘up’ feel than a lot of the work I’ve made recently. I have often felt the best portraits I’ve made express all that I want to say as an painter. I think at the moment however, I need to keep pushing the ‘nature’ paintings where things are less comfortable, such as the one below based on a study of an autumn tree.

'November' oil on canvas, 120 x 100cms

This is a larger painting, and painted very loosely. I surprised myself at how loose I was happy to keep it, but it just seemed quite quickly to become it’s own thing that I didn’t feel that it needed my hand interfering with it anymore. I wanted it to look like it was painted outdoors ‘plein air’, like the study it was made from, and think it does this and more. It was great fun.

'Wild Flowers', oil on canvas, 100 x 150cms

This blue painting, ‘Wild Flowers’ was made from further studies I had that informed my very large ‘Eve Of The Day’ painting. Initially it was intended to continue an exploration of the formal decisions I made there, and it was this, but since it’s creation it has very much asserted it’s own identity to me. I’ve really learned to like this one.

'Yellow and Purple', oil on canvas, 85 x 70cms

‘Yellow and Purple’(above) was shown hot off the easel at my recent ‘Thirteen’ exhibition. It was still wet as I put it on the wall, but often my paintings are. This and the large painting I did this last weekend on the easel in the studio photo, are based on dahlia’s my Dad planted on his allotment over the summer in my brother Stu’s favourite colours. The plot was covered in them, and each week he would bring more back to my parent’s home and put them in jars around the house. I found it very moving, and felt compelled to record this in drawings and paintings. I think the allotment has been a place to work through my Dad’s grief, as the studio has been mine. ‘Yellow and Purple’ on reflection seemed like a portrait of my Dad and Stu’s relationship. It’s ended up on my Dad’s living room wall which I’m pleased about. I did it for him.

I hope you find these notes of interest. Any comments are always welcome!

The Moz Award

I finally handed over ‘The Moz Award’ to my brother Stu’s former work colleagues today. I don’t know if you remember, but when we did the Fun Run in August they asked if I would make a piece of artwork dedicated to Stu to be handed to a different colleague each year for good work and more importantly the qualities they bought to the workplace. They wanted the award to reflect some of the values and qualities that Stu himself carried in his life and work that left such a huge affect on those around him.

I’ve worked hard on the piece over the last month or so. This was with help from my own colleague Patrick O’Donohue who is a great ceramic artist, who initially suggested some ideas for the form of the artwork inspired by the ceramics of Jiktha Parmer, who creates some wonderful painted vessels. As I’m not a 3D artist, Pat thought it would be a good approach to collaborate; where I could paint on a vessel that he had thrown. He was absolutely right.

My design was based on an initial suggestion by Stu’s workmates that reflected his love of family and his family life, based on the idea of using different hands to express this. All Stu ever really wanted in life was a family of his own so I held onto this idea, combined with a love of nature that he also had.

I normally work only from primary sources, but after a few failed attempts at drawing from my own hands to get started, I quickly realised the limits of this. Having no one else to model for me, I instead decided to make studies from lots of paintings in books in my collection, looking particularly at Renaissance artists such as Pierro Della Francesca, Mantegna, Fra Angelico, and Botticelli. I really enjoyed this and found it really absorbing. Through the act of drawing from these sources it really taught me a lot and opened up the possibilities. It’s one of the oldest artistic traditions, copying from old masters, but not one I’ve directly done much of myself. I really learned the value of it more deeply.

Pierro Della Francesca's, 'Baptism of Christ'

If I had to have a ‘desert island painting’, it would always be Pierro’s ‘Baptism of Christ’ at the National Gallery (above). There is something in the tenderness between the Christ figure and John the Baptist that I find incredibly moving. The way the whole scene is painted with both a clarity and restraint is inspiring. The actual casting of the Christ figure must be one of the greatest things in Western Art. I wanted to convey some of these feelings in the piece too if that’s not too presumptious of me.

At half term Pat threw some terrific large ceramic plates in terracotta, which were then fired and I then painted. Below is the image before it was glazed and fired again. You can see the teal blue background is much lighter before firing. I think I prefer the darker fired blue.

It was a relief handing it over today. It has been a difficult piece to make, both emotionally, and trying to work with different materials such as glaze paints. I also felt the pressure of expectation of everyone at Stu’s work. They were really pleased though, so that’s great. I remember last December when the Principal, Dr Lynne Morris MBE, retired from Joseph Chamberlain College where I teach. There was a huge send off for her and celebration of her professional achievements and her very long, prestigious career. I found it a very difficult evening, as my thoughts were full of Stu, who was by then off work and we had learned he was not going to get any better. I just thought Stu will never have any celebration of his own working life, he has just slipped quietly away home. But these last few months have proved how wrong I was as I have seen the impact Stu had on all those around him and the huge gap left behind. Now, to have an award named after him is very comforting after those feelings at that retirement evening. I feel very proud of Stu and glad I could play my own part in marking his personal and professional achievements like this.

'Unpopular Culture'

‘Unpopular Culture’ was a recent touring exhibition featuring paintings, sculpture and photographs selected from the Arts Council Collection by artist Grayson Perry. The selection presents a very personal view of post-war British art from 1940-1980ish, and provides a subtle investigation of the mood, pace and preoccupations that underlie the period. The selection evokes a certain nostalgia, while addressing notions of place, identity and class. As Grayson Perry himself says: ‘Unpopular Culture’ conjures a picture of post-war, pre-Thatcherite Britain, more reflective, more civic, and more humane’.

Sadly I missed the exhibition, but recently bought the accompanying catalogue and found the selection really inspiring. Much of it seemed to reflect many of my own preoccupations and ambitions for my painting to do with creating an art that, in Perry’s words in the catalogue essay, ‘is subtle, sensitive, lyrical, and quiet’. I also enjoyed the sense of Britishness in the work, which can be more nostalgic and sentimental, but also find the selections have a contemporary resonance about current British society that particularly appealed. It is something I’d like to explore further in my own work, but have only touched upon in a few pieces.

It seems I also share many of Grayson Perry’s cultural passions. He says, ‘Many of the works in this show come from that span of British cultural history when the working class voice was beginning to be heard in film, photography, literature, drama and art because of post-war socialism, grammar schools and grants. The show is about Britishness, and is therefore a lot of it is about class.

David Hepher, 'Arrangement in Turquoise and Cream', oil on canvas, 1979-81

He also says funnier things, which nonetheless have resonance:

‘The sculptures and paintings…are nearly all figurative. This is a purely personal bias. Abstract art reminds me too much of beardy art lectuters with grey chest hair poking out of their denim shirts as they spout vague unchallenged tosh. I associate abstraction with unreconstructed machismo’.

Blake Morrison in his own essay for the catalogue writes, ‘Anyone knowing only that Grayson Perry is a contemporay artist might have supposed the show would be full of videos, installations, and self=conscious interrogations of ‘the meaning of art’ (there are none)… he has come up with a show, that is muted, modest, wary…a show to get us looking and thinking’.

'Slagheap', William Scott, oil on canvas, 1953

How refreshing. I’ve just been looking at the programme of events for this weekends Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum in Digbeth’s Eastside, and there does seem to be a lot of ‘self-conscious interrogations of ‘the meaning of art’’ on offer. Is it just me, or does anyone else find this increasingly boring? We’ll see. No doubt a blog will follow…

Wayne Thiebaud at Faggionato Fine Art, London

I’m excited to see that American artist Wayne Thiebaud has an exhibition on in London at Faggionato Fine Art. You don’t often see his work over here, so I’m going to try and get down to see this show and view his paintings of iconic American confectionary and San Francisco landscapes ‘in the flesh’. I feel a deep affinity with Thiebaud’s approach to painting which an excerpt from the gallery’s Press Release below demonstrates:

‘Whether a nude, a landscape, or a still life of a man’s hat, the focus is the visual language the works all share…Known as, and frequently referred to, as a ‘painter’s painter’, Thiebaud is less concerned with a naturalistic depiction or a true likeness of his subject, but more interested in solving formal issues. The artist explains: ‘Painting is a series of problems that you are trying to solve-base, colour, design, composition and those intrinsic characteristics, rather than all the things that happen afterwards extrinsically- expressions, individualism, subject matter, iconography. It’s all important, but first and foremost for me is the formal plan’

.…For all its bright modernity Thiebaud’s art readily pays homage to past traditions. While his brushwork is readily influenced by the action and colour field painters, the compositional arrangements look back to Chardin, Manet, Georgio Morandi and Edward Hopper, amongst other heroes’

Follow the link for more details. The show runs until December 18th.

http://www.faggionato.com/current/

Wilhelm Sasnal at K21, Dusseldorf

I recently really enjoyed a retrospective of Polish painter Wilhelm Sasnal at the K21 Modern Art Museum in Duseldorf. Diane and I enjoyed a weekend break in this great city a few weeks ago. It was nice to connect with a lot of the German artists that have so often informed my practise over the years; Gerhard Richter, Jorg Immendorff, Markus Lupertz. Many of them teach at Dusseldorf’s renowned art school The Kunstacademie, where Joseph Beuys gave many of his famous lectures. I was delighted to come across the exhibition by Sasnal, as it is the only city it has been planned for.

Sasnal is seen, like many current artists, as a post-Tuymans painter. I’ve seen many reproductions of his work over the last ten years as his reputation has grown and like Luc Tuymans the imagery for his paintings comes from many different sources; often media orientated but also personal photographs, and history too. I admire Tuymans a great deal, but came away from the exhibition that Sasnal was very much his own man. The work was so varied in its source material and also its handling. It was so difficult to define or pin down, and this was partly the point, as you moved from one very different painting to another. There was definitely a clear aesthetic being asserted though and this was what I enjoyed and related a great deal to, as it is one of the motivations behind a lot of my own painting practise.

Another interesting thing about the exhibition was a Study Room detailing Sasnal's biography but which also featured a suite of computers loaded up with albums from the artist's record collection, which when you donned the attached headphones you could enjoy. It was significant in the sense that it represented the music that Sasnal listened to while painting. It offered another dimension and insight to the sensibility behind the work. I really appreciated this, and particularly enjoyed listening to 'Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste' by Galaxie 500, a record I hadn't heard in ages, amongst many others that ranged from Slayer to The Smiths. Wilhelm had impeccable taste.

I’ve linked to a recent Guardian feature on Sasnal which discusses his work further:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jul/08/wilhelm-sasnal-artist

There’s a really interesting painting exhibition on more locally at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery. ‘Razgulyai’ takes it’s title from the city Russian artist Semyon Faibisovich lives and works. In his huge, heroic canvasses he depicts the city’s many dispossessed individuals, many of them homeless and alcoholic. The paintings are derived by photographs taken by the artist on his mobile phone, and consequently have a weird low resolution, pixellated quality. The shadow of the artist himself looms over many of the subjects, which is a smart reference to how the paintings were created.

I’ve enjoyed both these exhibitions for the scope of the artist’s visions, and the ambition in their work. I visited some of the region’s recent MA Fine Art graduate exhibitions last month, and felt that these qualities were disappointingly absent. So much of the work seemed so uncertain of itself, almost as if the artist’s were afraid to commit to anything in their practise. Contemporary Fine Art practise does encourage a more pluralistic approach, whereas when I studied one worked more definitely in one of the main Fine Art disciplines, but even so...

Hey, I’m just a painter so what do I know, but I was left wondering how these artist’s were hoping to develop and sustain their future practise. There was a lot to learn from the example in the work of Wilhelm Sasnal and Semyon Faibisovich.

Maisie Crow and The Soul of Athens

I was recently pointed in the direction of the work of photographer Maisie Crow by a photographer friend. She’s produced some really powerful photography, such as the one above,and video work, including this one I’ve linked to at the brilliant ‘Soul of Athens’ website. ‘A Life Alone’ is about an elderly guy called Tom Rose, who talks openly and movingly about losing his wife after being married for sixty three years.

I also really enjoyed ‘Lost in Plain Sight’, a series of photographs based on a series of individuals who are not part of the mainstream because of certain choices made or circumstance. They are accompanied by some really interesting notecards by the individuals themselves. I’m not keen on things being too spelled out for me, and these cards hit just the right note between saying so much and yet leaving a space for the audience to enter the story.

Follow the two links to Maisie’s website and the ‘Soul of Athen’s’ one. There is so much to explore at the latter. Thanks to Rachel for the tip-off...

www.maisiecrow.com
http://2009.soulofathens.com/?q=node/48

'Thirteen'

I’ve just installed a new exhibition of my paintings at the Bessant Gallery, at the School of Art and Design at Wolverhampton University. I’ve called the exhibition ‘Thirteen’ and it is a mixture of recent paintings with older ones. In the past with every exhibition I was keen to show completely new work, always moving on, but these days I like to view my work differently, as a sort of continuing evolving dialogue between paintings past and present and certain themes and ideas. I enjoy installing exhibitions like these where I select a number of paintings to take to the space and try and create something new in the installation that may surprise and help me and look at the work with fresh eyes.

This time I took along twenty paintings and installed thirteen. At first I was unsure what I had put together. The installation had a quiet, melancholy feel which took me a bit by surprise. But having come away from it I found this mood interesting and it did indeed surprise me and make me look at the work differently. There’s a cool colour palette that runs through the work that seemed to add to the atmosphere. Below are a few pictures of the show.

This is a new painting, 'Yellow and Purple'.

‘Thirteen’ runs until Friday October 23rd, and is on the ground floor of the School of Art and Design. If you want to go along and visit you can find the gallery if you just turn left at the reception.