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'The Yellow Studio - (after Bonnard)' 30x60cms oil on canvas
What a ground to work on (below). I nearly stopped there but it's not enough. New challenges in this painting: looking into the sun through the door of the studio early morning, image dissolves into light...
Partrick Heron and colour was the catalyst for this years autumn courses in Porthleven but you cannot discuss the paintings of Patrick Heron without reference to Bonnard...
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Monday p.m.
Observation, idea, information (drawing), action/process, dissatisfaction, analysis, risk, doubt, despair, understanding, surprise, clarity, exhilaration...
Mon a.m
Sunday p.m
On the walk to the studio early morning: from a familiar viewpoint - the unexpected. A triangle/chevron popped out of the landscape (second -left in the drawing) which then linked to the triangle of the steps to the studio on the left-edge and then my eyes shifted to the right, razoring in on the triangles as shapes or negative spaces between structures and telephone wires in the landscape. An entry/motif/context to move the painting-exercise from Saturday forwards.. The heavy drip on the right edge is distracting: I don't want a downward movement there. Needs tidying up tomorrow- to make another triangle...
drawing for Day 2
Saturday p.m
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'Orange & Lemon & Small Violet' 1977
In my own work, colour is always paramount. At Canterbury Art College in the early eighties, colour liberated my painting. How could it not? I was introduced to the sensuous canvases of Matisse and Bonnard and taught by Stass Paraskos, Thomas Watt, Mali Morris & Geoff Rigden, with visits from Patrick Heron and Terry Frost.
I have always remained ambivalent towards Patrick Heron, the painter: for every stirring painting, there were disappointments. (the 1994 exhibition at Camden Art Centre springs to mind, where the paintings were shocking not because of what they were, but what they weren't). The exhibition at Tate St.Ives exposes his range, from the powerful to the limp. I may have my own preferences, but the colour-saturated canvases, painted to the edge, are his most distinctive, radical work. I believe the painting above 'Orange & Lemon & Small Violet' is a great painting - his masterpiece - and viewing it, I was as physically affected as when in front of a great Matisse or Bonnard. The scale and saturation of colour seduces - the proportions/imbalance of colour outrageous, different. The uniqueness of Heron's shapes - the terrific tension of the hanging orange. The exquisiteness of surface and edges, painted with a small brush. Endless questions, spatial games: is the orange in front of the yellow, is the yellow in front of the orange. Is there a receding space or simply a smaller shape? The best question of all - what am I looking at?
I was also moved by 'Two Reds with Emerald Fragment' and by the colossal 'Cadmium with Violet, Scarlet, Emerald and Venetian' with it's characteristic 'inter-penetration' of shape and negative space, leading the eye across and around the painting, 'bouncing off the edges'. I gave time to these paintings- they demanded it and I'll be back again on Saturday.This is painting as pure and sensuous as it gets, the western tradition of image and ground made irrelevant and subservient to the senses.
For me, the spell is broken and the paintings less interesting in this period, when forms/shapes overlap or 'appear' to.
'Cadmium with Violet, Scarlet, Emerald & Venetian'
In contrast the paler, later works are disappointing. There is a sketchiness to them: confident, yes, but where is the invention, the reflection, the going back,? The missing elements are doubt and depth. Decorative; is this an artist running out of ideas? These linear paintings, with the white canvas prominent, just don't move me - they fail to grip the eyes like the best of Heron's work. Why couldn't the late garden paintings be as rich, alive and pulsating as 'Camellia Garden' from 1956 or 'Scarlet Verticals' 1957. One cannot help but think of Monet's late Giverney paintings - how revolutionary, tactile and sensuous they are.
'Camillia Garden' 1956
The hang is wonderful but themed instead of chronological. Whether intended or not, this had the positive effect of the paler, garden paintings giving us a breather between the hits of colour. A chronological arrangement would have shown us that 1977 was a very good year.
Of course one can only praise his championing of the St.Ives school and certainties about the direction of art* but my view - which is probably career suicide for a painter living and working in Cornwall! - is that Patrick Heron made great paintings but is not a great painter, in that the quality and invention were not sustained over a complete career. For me, the giants of the St.Ives painters remains Peter Lanyon, Wilhemena Barnes-Graham and later Sandra Blow. However the exhibition did not disappoint; the new space at Tate St.Ives is fabulous, the paintings can be seen at their best and I went away uplifted and looking forward to mixing some colour...
*'What one should be doing is leaving oneself open to the invisible suggestions of one’s’ own reflexies when stimulated through the eyes. To make oneself available to previously uncharted rhythmic movements, suggestions and devices – this is the great ideal’ Patrick Heron 1987
'Scarlet Verticals' 1957
A good wall...
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The latest Freedom in Painting workshop at Creek Creative explored the powerful opposites of black and white.
Each 2-day workshop explores a different aspect of painting to challenge and inform the participating artists. My own practice is dominated by colour but black has been increasingly creeping in over the past few years, and giving it some thought, I concluded that there is usually a reason behind choosing a black and white palette over colour- there are undeniable associations. In advance of the course, I asked the artists to think about what black & white means to them, both symbolically and emotionally and to resond to the question: Is silence black or white or grey?
Other questions were posed: are black and white colours or non-colours? What's the difference between a black and white painting and a drawing?
A brief talk on the use of black and white in painting, historically, from 'grisaille' to Gillian Carnegie (with Spain and the USA in the fifties prevalent) was followed by the first group exercise. Each artist artist was given two pieces of A4 card - one black, one white- glued together along three edges. The artists were asked to tear, cut, collage, improvise, to produce an idea/template for a painting. Would black dominate or white? Newsprint was the grey and and I handed out pieces of a glossy cut up Rembrandt painting (shame!) as a contrasting black. Some very inventive results which led to some remarkable paintings. Have fun matching the studies to the paintings...
A short critique of the studies was followed by a demonstration exploring, discussing, mixing the different tube blacks and whites and made blacks and whites on a grid-structure, including using my first ever tube of Paynes Grey which every other artist in the world seems to have. The artists repeated the exercise onto a grid on their own canvas, another way into painting. This exercise too, led to some strong and eclectic work. My canvas was also the beginning of a new painting in the '20 Books=2 Paintings' series, where black & white are significant in the narrative.
The rest of the time was spent developing the two exercises into paintings and we concluded the workshop with a invaluable review and critique of the work. Congratulations to the artists. For a perspective on the workshop from one of the participating artists please visit artist Margaret Ramsay's Blog. Click here
A gallery of a selection of paintings - where you can view on a large scale - can also be seen on the Freedom in Painting Group Facebook page here
GALLERY
ARTISTS COMMENTS ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
Hard work, challenging and really enjoyable thanks particularly to the quality of Ashley's teaching but also to the other participants. I certainly learnt a lot from all of you. AIDEN FLOOD
It was a great workshop and some really good work emerged. Huge thanks to Ash and everyone there who made it v special. PHILIPPA LANGTON
A huge thank you to Ashley for this week's painting workshop. The best yet! TEDDY KEMPSTER
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4. 'Porthleven 20' 80x80cms
I've recently found some images of 'Porthleven 20' in progress - a much-loved painting soon to be shown in 'Cornwall, Colour & Coast' at The Old Fire Station Gallery in Henley.The sequence shows my enduring fascination with the dialogue and tensions between straight-lines and curves, pared-down representations of male/female and the man-made and natural elements in the landscape. I had a lot of problems with this painting, stemming I think from the three near-equal divisions within the perfection of the square.
The painting came alive when the nonsense of the clocktower/horizontal was removed - which of course took the eye to the left - and with the introduction of the large paler pink-shape curving to the right. The idea came from looking again at Degas's wonderful 'La Coiffure' in the National Gallery, with the curve of the face and the hair sweeping to the right. This clockwise-movement movement was reinforced by the procession of straight lines cutting across the form. Clarity.
The parelell angled spikes of the slipway make a great entry to the painting. Still fond of the s-shape in 1., a purity of drawing which was a breakthrough in this piece which came back in later paintings in the series.
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'La Coiffure' Edgar Degas