Before deciding to submit a proposal to do the residency at HARI, I had a conversation with Alex Stubbs about his and my practice and it was significant to notice how he made me reflect on the intention of my work, as he spoke about his in a way it was rooted in both tradition and from an honest point within himself. Like work as enquiry. I was telling him how I was starting some portraits and he recommended I should read Man With a Blue Scarf (Martin Gayford) which is essentially a diary of a sitting the author did for Lucian Freud. He mentioned how it talked about how portraiture was about more that just the painting, it was a dialogue and exchange in many ways.
There were several reflections I took from the book but there was one thing that was a total revelation of simplicity. It was that artists (he was referring to his painter contemporaries) all have their own ‘pace’, some work fast, some work slow, and this made me realise that this ‘pace’ is a fundamental part of making work. It is an expression of you, it may not be constant, needs nurturing and recognising as an independent force, and importantly it should be understood and learned.
My proposal was that I would paint a 4’ x 4’ canvas, responding to colour, light and architecture of the space, with an expectation that it may end up as abstract work, perhaps because of the scale and perhaps because the space itself provides so much material that I find appears in this type of work. I recall I also wanted to remain open to the fact that this was research, so may not become abstract.
During the summer I began a renewed enquiry into colour theory, practically how to perceive and mix colours, started using mid-tones as starting points, spending valuable time in the studio and reading about painters I love and looking at their paintings. I think on reflection I was seeking to work out why I liked them to try understand what I wanted to paint. I love the precision and colour of Ewan Uglow and how successful they are up close (rare in paintings); how Richard Diebenkorn in his Ocean Park work shows the process of eliminating all that is not required revealing an extraordinary beauty; how Hurvin Anderson can paint space with such little material; how Sickert or Melville can be so loose, but the drawing is the backbone. My understand of their paintings may change and there are other painters I have spent time with too but this is what I took in with me to the residency.
By the time I started, I think the idea of imposing a structure, valuing measurement and tone as a methodology and representing the space was already fixed in my mind. I just had to allow it to emerge during the 25 hours. I just got stuck in.
- I created the mid-tone by mixing an average of the actual colour of the floor, a neat starting point I thought, rooted in a truth.
- Using 45cm ruler (with spirit levels), I held it at arms length (vertically & horizontally) and marked the walls/floor in the space (blue marks) that were at the outer ends of the ruler. I also marked my position on the floor to maintain the viewpoint.
- Using the ruler (at arms length) I spent a day creating a measured drawing with 1cm in viewed space to 2.7cm on the canvas, using plumb points and triangulating positions to account for viewed errors. I also made use of a vanishing point.
- Using masking tape I created a tone painting on top of the measured drawing starting from the mid-tone to the darkest point. Making some minor corrections at the end.
- Also using masking tape I created a single highlight, lighter than mid-tone in the areas where there was direct light (tops of windows and skylight).
- I selected colours of interest and mixed all the colours ‘locally’ (testing them against the actual surface) and returning to the view point, adjusted these base colours to match perceived ones and applied them using the tone as reference.
- Having painted the chair, this became a key focus, as it was both practically protecting work of another artist (which I liked) and had been such a success in terms of ‘perceived’ colour mixing reflecting light in the space. I needed to anchor the chair to the ground so completed some measured drawing on the leg(s).
- As 25 hours approached, I chose some remaining areas to ‘complete’ that would use the ‘locally’ mixed colours and resolve some drawing/measuring issues.
The result of the time spent is both incomplete and complete. My residency was shaped by allowing strict rules of measured drawing, tonal observation and accurate paint mixing to dictate my pace and the result is 25 hours of that process. This experience has provided me the beginnings of a new mode of painting and given me the permission to use it.
Having had conversations throughout the residency with a number of the other artists, it has made me realise that our practices are intertwined, consciously or not, it’s rooted in a shared understanding of what HARI, the space, our collective participation, our enquiry and how this enables us to connect with and be connected to the building, how we can evolve our own practice in the open with time and space and how fortunate we are to have had this experience.
All paints were used were Sennelier Abstract, I used a medium and matt varnish, 3 brushes, a calculator, a long bit of wood and a 45 cm ruler.