I have just had a studio visit from Ingrid Swenson who runs Peer. I feel fortunate to have spoken to her as they are currently showing a fantastic updating or re-evaluation of John Smith’s The Girl Chewing Gum, which is one of the best shows I have seen during my time in London.Peer as an organisation is a very thoughtful one and Ingrid was the quite naturally of the same nature. We started by talking about John Smith and also the prerequisite discussion about Richter. I then talked her through lots of previous work, and then what I have produced on the residency, i imagine she had to digest a lot of rambling, but made many insightful comments at the end.
We talked about why I am almost battling with painting/being a painter and she asked why I can not just accept that I am and let things go from there. I do not have to be like Sisyphus and carry painting on my back. It is so interesting that this comment is coming up a lot in London, where there is a lot of painting and yet I perceive in Manchester I have to justify a reason to paint. She felt it was also ok to take away control form the work and to let things go far more, she felt I almost try to be intellectual (her words!) about the work and maybe I should let things happen. We talked of what is it that makes Richter or Chris Marker so great and how she things a lot of it is how natural their work is, that there is not struggle, but how it has been made naturally. She mentioned how the trinagle motif does contain the allusion to Modernism, through Buckminster Fuller and cubism that I referred to, but perceptively she also said of how it also harks to the doodle. She felt, and almost certainly rightly, that I should let the forms I paint become more like doodles in their attitude.
Towards the end we talked of two of the shows she has responded to most warmly recently, Richard Tuttle at Modern Art and John Thompson at Anthony Reynolds. She felt that they both offer an antidote to the monumental art that is somewhat invading the London galleries at the moment, there was a quiet reflectiveness in these two shows that played against the brashness of a lot of work seen out and about.
We did not talk so much about the film I produced ( you can see it here ) and i wonder if this is telling? However this did seem to get a good reaction from my students who visited this morning, maybe the lightness and humour was something they related to, or the anarchy of fighting in or running through the gallery appealed to them. It was interesting talking to them about the importance of the studio and the residency as being a testing ground for practice and how stepping outside a normal pattern can allow yo to take risks and try things in your practice form another position and stance. I think it was god for them to see me making mistakes and to see the importance of wrong avenues taken with the work that build into successful works. This is certainly something I want to take back. I took them down Brick lane, via the amazing bagel shops to revisit Wilhelm Sasnal at Whitechapel which really is a phenomenal show. The opportunity to return to these shows is important and something I shall miss about London.
This morning Mike and myself did the first of three colours on the lithograph. i am very excited, it is so far from the immediacy of paint, but something that certainly appeals as a process. We hope to apply the 2nd colour tomorrow.
Andrew Bracey – Observing Gallery Behaviour
