28 June 2011

Sarah McNulty

       
          

 
Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings. I also make drawings, objects and projections in relationship to the paintings. They are primarily abstractions, often with ties to the physical world and destructive elements of it, though ultimately I’m far more concerned with the materiality than any subject.

What drives you to make work?

The possibility of immediate, physical images that may alter experience and reveal greater truths.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I spend a lot of time in the studio surrounded by my paintings, maybe 15 or so on varying surfaces, as well as images, drawings and found/made scraps. I go back and forth between surfaces and scales, which vary between human and handheld. The surfaces of the paintings (their solidity, depth, edge and detail) play a strong role in the development of the images. 
A good deal of the time is spent looking and rearranging various constellations, making dumb work, photographing them to view them differently, reading, listening to music.  The paintings are often worked over, layer after layer, built up and scratched back.  Sometimes they form out of the remains of previous paintings, by re-use of materials or refinement of certain elements of imagery.
Action comes in frenetic bursts after long periods of stillness. I am interested in materiality taking over, when images and objects turn and deceive, suddenly becoming foreign. This happens when they writhe and jerk, as though outside my own physicality. Braced by the tension of making and ruining, they frequently become something not foreseen as an end-point, where a linear route of actions recedes.

How long have you been working in that way?

For about the last 5 years the work has become more focused in the particular direction it seems to be heading.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Guston never ceases to have a wild impact upon viewing. Also Mary Heilmann, Raoul de Keyser, Richard Tuttle, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Manet, and Velazquez have been important recently.  I think the other artists that I spend time in conversation with on a regular basis have the greatest affect.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Natural and manmade disasters, uninhabitable landscapes, decay, absence. I’m also quite fascinated with the idea of beasts.  
I watch a lot of film, and am partial to the uncynical beauty and awkwardness of Herzog’s, and Villi Knudsen’s volcano films are some of my favorite footage. 
I’m also interested in linguistics and translation, whether words or images, and usually studying a foreign language.  It’s been Danish for the last couple of years.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I think that looking at work should be an active process. Ideally, I would like it to really take over when viewed.
 
Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I keep thinking about the scene in Jean-Pierre Melville’s ‘Doulos’ where Maurice digs out a hole in the earth under the lamplight to hide the stash. It’s a beautiful scene, so tactile, all thrashing hands and flying dirt under the glow.
Also some interesting work by Phil Root, Paul Housley and Lydia Gifford in recent shows.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I’ve moved into a new, bright studio not long ago so am looking forward to getting to work in it now that it finally feels like a space I understand. Also the second half of a recent show I was in in Munich will take place here in London early next year.

25 June 2011

Trevor Sutton


              


Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings, prints and other works on paper.

What drives you to make work?

It’s the activity that feels most real to me.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

In recent years I have once again returned to working with grids, after a long period of making glazed, atmospheric paintings that often employed a square or circular format. My latest paintings are constructed and painted with oil and paper collage on board. They refer to solid architectural surfaces – facades and interiors in preference to the skies and smoke of work made in the 90’s and for most of the last decade.

I go to my London studio most days, where alongside making work I read, think and listen to a lot of music.

How long have you been working in that way?

Since I gave up teaching at Chelsea School of Art in 2000.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Roger Ackling, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Jeremy Moon, Mark Rothko.
What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Being in the landscape, being by the sea, being alone, being in Ireland, being in Japan. Music.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Slowly, seriously and enthusiastically

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

An exhibition has just opened in Austria.
DOUBLE VISION: Carol Robertson + Trevor Sutton
Ritter Gallery, Klagenfurt, Austria
16 June – 30 July 2011

18 June 2011

Peter Blundell


                  

 
Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings in oil on canvas on a domestic scale. I use handmade stencils cut from card to create compositions that I cannot fully anticipate. The paintings are built up in layers over time, sometimes I try to ignore what is on the surface at other times I will re-trace the forms onto a new layer. The intention is resolve the painting into a concrete pictorial form. It is very open to begin with and goes through many changes but after a time the painting determines itself.

What drives you to make work?

Painting for me is an outlet, a release that helps me channel thought, experience and allows for an element of risk to be taken into an on-going activity. I enjoy the feeling of being immersed in a prolonged exploration of my own making where I don’t know the outcome.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I work on around fifteen paintings in the studio at any one time. I select a painting to work on for the session. Sometimes I begin painting immediately, at other times I may loosen up by drawing or cutting out a stencil to use. I most often paint flat on a table and begin by wiping down or painting over a previous layer.

How long have you been working in that way?

I have worked in this way since studying at Central St. Martins in 2006. Prior to this, I made more systems-based paintings that were completed in a single session. I used grids and structural motifs worked out beforehand in studies to regulate the flow of paint. My current work is a reaction to that way of working in that it evolves organically and is resolved over a longer period.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

I don’t feel directly influenced by any one artist when I am making the work in the studio, however after a while I see aspects of other artists work emerge in mine. Recently I might have recognised Jean Fautrier, El Greco and Jessica Stockholder, although maybe not all in one painting!

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I guess playing bass guitar and vocalising in Temperatures informs the painting practice in some way. We fall in and out of grooves and patterns in the music which is all improvised so there is a clear element of risk added to a real-time live performance.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I’d be just happy if they engaged with it at all, but I guess equal measures of puzzlement and joy would be good.