Interview conducted by May Beveridge who graduated with a Degree in Fine art from Northbrook College in June 2022Interview Transcript
What themes have you been interested in exploring within your work?
Right . well . The themes that I am exploring now . . um . . go back a long way when I started the course and I have returned to them and they are really geographical and geological processes and how to represent that if you like by painting. And .. um.. ah the landscape is as important to me as I like walking and I like maps and so now I am really working on . . . the two paintings I am working now um are actually both quite mountainous areas um and I am using acrylic paint and doing a lot of layering um so that I can sort of then process through what happens with rocks and the layering and the strata and also you know scratching the surface and things like that um to represent the different layering and um the difference in what I am working on at the moment is probably that maps have always been important since I am a geographer, I have a Degree in Geography so um I am actually doing a lot of line work or experimenting with that putting another layer of perhaps contours and the two areas I am working on are the Brecon Beacons and the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland and I know them very,very well and have walked them many times. And so what I want to achieve (laugh) is experiment with the layers of what’s underneath , what you walk on human obviously paths and roads and somehow put it in a very, very different way um to . . to um make it look more um let that the viewer would have to work a bit. Um so um ( I understand) So really turning to what I used to do the earlier works were always about rocks or drawings of stalagmites and things like that but I am trying to um. .
So what kind of area would a typical painting cover then? Would a typical painting cover an area of lets say a mile by a mile or 2 yards by 2 yards if you are reflecting back on a particular ordnance survey map.
It could be a biggish area the one I am working on at the moment in Northern Ireland is the Mourne Mountains which is . . . . well . . . probably mileage 25 miles by 40 miles but the scale of the map is actually 1:25,000 metres and so is a big area but conversely the one I am using for the Brecon Beacons um is a much more detailed map so what I am selecting is more a favourite walk around a particular peak or two peaks so Pen-y-Fan which is the highest peak south of Snowdonia and so . . um . . biggish areas . .or . . um . .
Mmm
Yeah
Now that. . that seems like a bit of a contrast with some of your early work that I know which was a specific rock for . . .
Yeah
. . .example or specific small patch is there any reason why you have changed your scope if you like?
Yeah I think it is because . . um it was almost too simplistic and I think a lot of it I didn’t although I would use drawings you know drawings from photographs of rocks and things like that that was I am not going to say that was about it but didn’t explore a bit more the use of um lines on the surface but also the whole process of um if you like the time time and the sheer scale of what is underneath . . .
Mmm
I mean we are talking here about sciences and um the Brecon Beacons the painting um I am working on now is largely very very orange and red but then here are drawings on that reflecting from photographs the craggy rocks so it’s a mixture of landscape then what’s underneath um and the redness and the orange . .(which) are the predominant colour of the painting is because it is in fact Old Red Sandstone and um I think how I have moved on is that I am trying to embrace a whole sense of movement um and um the Brecon Beacons and in fact most of the older rocks in um not only the UK but Norway and Finland and Iceland but the Old Red Sandstone was laid down in a desert environment because it was actually laugh that bit of land was 2 degrees latitude south of the Equator and . . . .
Oh!
Migrated (laugh) but that’s plate tectonics and it is now at 52 degrees latitude north and 3 degrees longitude west
Ahh!
And it was on the plate of Laurussia and that collided with Euroamerican plate so its all this movement and as somebody once commented to me well fairly recently actually um on this theme um says that’s a bit like the human migration from the south to the north so um I am suddenly trying to open up things um and ah the ah the migration aspect of that land huge what we are talking about are huge land masses um it it is like migration too there’s metaphors that spring to mind when when you think about it and um for that particular painting I have called it ‘The Movement of Rock from 2 degrees South of the Equator to 53 degrees North and it has a line across it and the line is really to accentuate the movement from the desert through the Ice Age and to where it is today so um those are what I am working on but whether or not they ever get resolved I don’t know because they are sort of experimental for my bigger pieces and we will see how we go.
Yeah
Yeah
That that actually does lead on to something I was going to ask you because it strikes me that your work your most recent works and the works you feature on your website are much much more colourful than what I have seen before and I see the dominance of red but also I see turquoise and green and orange and I wondered what had lead you to a different colour a more vibrant colour palette?
Yeah I love colour and I think that comes from um I love maps and although your typical landscape map is not that colourful I have got lots and lots of geological maps and the way they use colour in geological maps with pinks and turquoise and they are works of art in their own right in many ways and have been said as such um but I just love colour and its a bit of an imagination to try and layer the different categories of rock um like a key if you like
Ok.
it’s an imaginary classification and then incorporates that with other things. I love using colour I did early on used to use colour so yeah yeah
I am just scrolling back do you have a colour key I mean have you sort of got a little note to self about what the colours represent for you or is it . . . .?
No I have not thought of that laugh I think it comes from um the predominant well really it comes from what will go together because . . . um . . . the Brecon Beacons is Old Red Sandstone and so that’s the predominant colour and then when it comes to layering on other features like what’s underneath the surface it really is what goes with what because you can have complete licence . . . with these geological maps the colours mean nothing um they are simply to go through the different eras um and there will be a key for instance the pink will be and there will a pink area and then the next era I mean we are talking about millions and millions of years and the but the keys I have tried to sort of incorporate the keys in a way by sometimes I sometimes use a um motif of like a column with several colours and I am working on that in the sense um it’s like a key to a map as well you know a map
Yes
will have a key. And so it’s bringing those in um and at the moment I am not that happy with them but um I am more concentrating with the layering of paint that’s how . . . that’s another subject though I think that’s um you know the process I go through . .
That’s really question two . . .
Exactly
Which is about the process . . . you have actually said that you use acrylic and you scrape it back and then you layer it and to some extent you have told me why um but do you want to say a little bit more about that?
Um well you see the scratching and mean . . . what I like to do and what I am doing on the ones I am working on now which are by no means finished I like to do a few layers and I put a colour on um and it could represent the Ice age or the Old Red Sandstone and something like that and then where it is it just does not feel right. I have not got the balance and I scrape all that off and I think that’s interesting what’s underneath and it could be something else um another type of rock but it’s also part of the process of the whole making of the landscape anyway um scratching will be abrasion and erosion and um I am also trying . . . . I love lines on paintings which could either be contours or could be physical paths and roads but you can also think on another level the lines that rocks have made you know in the Ice Age being scrapped and dragged along the landscape so um at the moment I have not put any lines but I am working on a third painting which will literally be a contour map but it won’t look like a contour map when I finish because I want to sort of layer above that and show what’s above and beneath and basically achieve something that started from what I have seen and copied from maps and traced this and traced that but then to move it on it’s a little bit more difficult to see all of that but there is something . . . . but it’s still reminiscent . . .
So when you start the composition do you start by . . . . how do you start because your compositions I find really interesting . . .
Thank you. I think I have a theme in that the composition will start with what area do I want . . . you know . . . . I like the Brecon Beacons a lot and I have done quite a few on that so some of it is simply building from earlier work and how that composition started and it usually is from a map just looking at a map and then doing a sketch and then thinking I need a bit more of the map and so trace from the map and really you feel you way around really. Um but it’s almost the most difficult part of the composition because the two I have done the balance is not right o one in terms of contrast and also um it’s hard to focus I need two or three focuses um and I think the only way I am going to do that is by using lines to guide the viewer and um but . . .at the end of the day the composition is the most difficult part and if it works it’s great but . . .
But to me that’s great because what you are doing you are almost allowing the painting to have its own power. To develop and then you look at it and you put it away and look at it and it’s equal to the artist if you like in that it’s almost composing itself.
Well I think so because with landscape and places you are familiar with and you have seen the photographs and the maps so many times that you are so familiar so that you can start with the lines and let it go really and in a way mistakes are good because if you rub them out as I am doing it leads to something else and some of the best discoveries of what works is through that um process um yeah
Yeah. So what media do you work with canvas or board?
I find boards better. It’s easier for me and there are different sizes you can get and I know you can do that with canvas but you can have much more variety of shape um and I also quite like having a frame if need be but it does not always help. I just find them more versatile. Yeah and with the paint as well.
Yeah for me it’s the acrylic paint that dries quickly and I don’t like any kind of movement on the canvas with a paint that was drying quickly. I much prefer boards from that perspective.
I think so as well. I don’t think that . . . . the other problem is that I have not done a lot of work on canvas . . . um . . . because it almost got easier to work on boards quickly. Different sizes, thicknesses compared to canvas. I could never get them tight enough and the bought ones . . if you buy canvases they are not as good as . . . so really they are a non starter. I would like to work in oil but am happy with acrylic and I know you can thicken acrylic but oils can be thickened using wax and really thicken it and it would almost make it three dimensional because I think the layering is not just reflecting the rock processes I am trying to represent but um fabulous to work through with something with texture.
Do you ever just think of using some dust from some of your rocks in your paintings? (Laugh) . . . it’s a bit late maybe . . .
No I have and I have used coal dust but a problem I found is making it stick but perhaps gesso would work. I have also got bits of Old Red Sandstone which I picked up when I was in the Brecon Beacons and those could almost just go on the painting to make it more 3D.
I am not sure this is appropriate but which is your important piece of work and why . . . do you have one?
It is probably Rocks and Fossils I and II in my portfolio because those inspired me for instance the one with the photo collage that is Pen-y-Fan in the Brecon Beacons and it’s here that I started to do this layering of rocks so I am really going on from there.
Yes those are very important works because I agree your most recent works are very reflective of those and that they are quite lovely. Finally, what kind of visual research do you do?
Photographs from the landscape, the sketches from the photographs and found objects like bits of rock or fossils and maps whether topological, geological, town or marine. I like taking photographs when I am out walking. It could be anything that catches my eye.
What are your plans for next year?
Well I am not going to do an MA in Art (laugh)
(laugh)
Well like you if I did I would take a year off and um ahh but I want to keep the momentum going that’s the problem um I think I shall probably do some courses but be quite picky about it and go for painting ones maybe Julian le Bas and the one that Kate did online as apparently she is thinking of setting up a course at her studio in the Peak District stay locally and it’s proposed it will be 3 or 4 days. So that would be great so things like that and maybe sound a bit pompous here but also need a time for reflection . . . . look back at what you have done and where you want to go and . . . . have a holiday.
Absolutely. I think for me the question still is do I want to sell my work or am I not bothered because without some motivation to make work in some shape or form whether its for the degree it’s quite difficult
To motivate yourself yeah I can understand that for me my motivation at the moment is to work . . . on the art and I do some everyday and I am treating it like a job at the moment but I think if you are a professional artist it is a job and what’s keeping me going and motivated is the fact that we have a graduate show and so unless you have something before the public and so it;s like yikes I had better get moving you know you can’t just sit back and say ah that looks quite nice yeah you have to be working for exhibiting.
Rocks and Strata I (Acrylic and mixed media on Board)
Rocks and Strata II (Acrylic and mixed media on board)
Probably Rocks and Strata I and Rocks and Strata II. I completed these two pieces of work in 2020 and it’s a subject that I am returning to and moving forward with the use of maps and photographs.
What form of visual research do you do?
My main visual research is photographs and sketches either from the photographs or from sketches of the landscape whilst out walking. I also use maps and found objects as primary sources for sketches.
Which artists are you particularly interested in and where have you seen their work?
I like the land artists like Richard Long and Chris Dury and also Per Kirkeby, Brice Marden and Sean Scully.