David Webb

            

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I paint with acrylic on canvas. Occasionally I work on panel and sometimes use pumice and charcoal with the paint. I also draw; little notes in a small book I carry around with me, and bigger things drawn and painted on paper.

What drives you to make work?

Pretty standard answer: It's all I really want to do, even when it's going badly. Most of my ideas/paintings come from something I've seen, heard or read. Where I've been, what I've noticed, and what I make of it all. Over the past seven years I've focused on painting about a family story of migration.

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

I have two part-time jobs. I teach on average two days a week and make stained glass windows (traditional leaded lights) one day a week. I'm usually in my studio all day on the remaining week days and as much of the weekend as possible. I normally arrive early and stay all day/into the evening. I work on a few paintings throughout the day and usually paint (or at least begin paintings) from small drawings and notes, and sometimes from objects and photographs. I often re-work paintings over months and years. Others come together more quickly. I used to paint in oil and scrape a lot; now, in acrylic, I wash off or layer colour, which I prefer. My studio overlooks Deptford Creek and I like the colour of the mud and detritus. Living and working in a city like London it feels good to still be able to witness what the tide is doing. Occasionally I see a kingfisher.

How long have you been working in that way?

The routine above since moving into the studio in 2003. In terms of the working methods, longer.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

I've been looking at Sienese painters for a long time - the Lorenzetti brothers and Sassetta in particular. Other than that, far too many to mention, but: Corot, Braque, Matisse, Marquet, Milton Avery, Forrest Bess... Of artists working now, Geoff Rigden and Mali Morris are inspirations. Recently I was asked to give three 'desert island' artworks. I chose Matisse 'Interior with Aubergines', Sassetta 'City by the Sea' and Michelangelo's 'Pieta'.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

As mentioned, my work for some time has taken as a point of departure my family, in particular my Grandmother. I also like flags. Mid twentieth century design and architecture. Poets, such as Elizabeth Bishop, Pablo Neruda and Robert Lowell. Travel - and residencies in particular I've got a lot out of in recent years. I am a serious football supporter and made some paintings about stadiums. I like the shapes and they were also about my childhood/family - I remembered evening games under floodlights, getting in early to see all of the red seats and the grass, the brightest green imaginable.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Maybe remind them of something they caught out of the corner of their eye. My aim is not to represent a narrative (or what's informing the ideas) emphatically, but to be a bit evasive, work on representing the sentiment, rather than facts, simply, through colour and shape. This is challenging for me and the viewer. Ultimately I can't control how people engage with my work, but, given that I aim to keep recognisable things somewhat vague, perhaps to engage with them formally.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Van Gogh at the RA a couple of years ago was brilliant. Fairly recently, some strange and fantastic folk art in Nova Scotia. Most recently Klee and Picasso at the Berggruen Museum in Berlin and re-familiarising myself with Monet's 'touch' in Paris. I also thought Merlin James' survey show in the summer at Parasol Unit was very interesting - some very good paintings.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I'm writing this from Cyprus, where I am currently in a group show in Larnaca with some of my ex-Professors - Stass Paraskos and Geoff Rigden. The island is important to me for so many reasons. I have a solo show 'Fragmentarium' at dalla Rosa Gallery, London, 11 October - 9 November. Next year (April) I'm very excited about 'Necessary Monsters', a two-person exhibition with the excellent sculptor Lee Grandjean at Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London. 

Dominic Beattie

                 

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I paint abstractly, on modestly sized pieces of board, I use unconventional materials to quickly make works that fit somewhere between hard edge and expressive abstraction.

What drives you to make work?

It's the most enjoyable activity I do. It's challenging, and it's very rewarding when people get what you are trying to do.

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

I get to the studio early and begin by looking at works made at my last visit, I start trying to make them better, maybe cutting them up and re-gluing them back together in an alternative configuration, or just spray painting over the whole thing and starting again.
When the work interests me enough, I stop playing with it and put it away.
Sometimes it's a fast process and the painting's surface will be flat, other times they are very layered and have gone through many transformations before they achieve any sort of quality.
I generally have no idea how a painting is going to look finished when I start it.
I work on multiple pieces at the same time, so aesthetics will be shared among a certain grouping and then fade away when I have a new idea, or get bored with a mood.
I leave the studio if I can't get into a productive mindset.
About a quarter of my creative time is spent sourcing materials. I mainly use cheap things like tape, marker pens, paper, household paints or found junk, so I'm always on the look out for something new to work with.

How long have you been working in that way?

I started working with the materials I now use, about two years ago when I didn't have a studio. I worked at home so the pieces had to be small and fairly tidy. I made a decision to work as cheaply and as quickly as possible because I felt pretty disillusioned with the amount of money and effort I had previously expended, compared to the results of my labour.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Patrick Caulfield, John Wesley, Nicholas Krushenick, Tomma Abts, Chris Martin, Richard Tuttle. I'm inspired by artists who have a very singular practice and do pretty much the same thing repeatedly for years, regardless of fashion.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

My paintings aren't really informed by visual cues, I never look at something I find aesthetically pleasing and think I can emulate it in a work.
I am inspired by certain attitudes or vibes. Music and sound is really important to me, especially electronic music and repetitive sound or samples, it switches me on creatively.
Also reading about esoteric beliefs or discovering unusual theories about any number of subjects seems to make me want to create, and probably informs my stuff in ways I can't really explain yet.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

To look at it, and use their personal aesthetic values to enjoy it, or not.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The Caulfield show at Waddingtons was surprising, I had seen most of the paintings before but the sketches and maquette/constructed pieces were great to see, they were scrappy and had lots of charm.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I have just started some formal collages that are exciting to me because they are very quick to produce and feel fresh.
I'm showing some paintings at New Order II at the Saatchi Gallery in October, and I have a solo show at Fold Gallery next year.

Terry Greene

               

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make small improvisatory paintings using acrylic paint on canvas (and occasionally on found boards).

What drives you to make work?

It just seems to me to be one of a handful of activities worth doing and that makes any sense. Just in the physical act, the decision making process, applying paint upon a previously worked surface and I'm immediately lost in the practice, the search and personal discovery which takes place. I think like most artists I like to push at any parameters from time to time, to explore some new territory and surprise myself. Each new painting seems to me to offer always new possibilities.

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

I get into the studio usually after an early morning walk on the moors with my dog. The walk is ideal preparation time, allowing for reflection. In my studio I have stacks of (shop purchased) small ready stretched canvases and I always have a number of pieces of canvas, paper and boards on the floor, in various states of beginning. Other works are on the walls and these tend to be the ones I consider are near some state of becoming.

In the studio I attempt to begin straight away. I now work with a newly found urgency, across any number of canvases upon the floor, adding and obscuring stains of colour with new variously generated marks. This is the prelude, the warm up or loosening up period, like in some sports. My thinking at that point is, in part, that I’m engaged with drawing and allowing paint to be paint on the taught or loose plane of the support. This is the initial attempt to begin to open up a space for a dialogue. One piece generally captures and holds my interest and I concentrate on that one usually for the rest of the session. I'm not trying to resolve anything; I attempt to maintain a level of distance and ambivalence towards the painting. The practice is one of trying to be in the moment during the act of applying, removing and the adjustment of liquid colour over the surface - just being present that instant when some form of dialogue begins within each work. I spend the day in the studio until late afternoon. In the evening I may return to continue to paint or alternatively I might work on some drawings.

How long have you been working in that way?

I guess for about 3 or 4 years now.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

A partial list might include: Braque (the later studio series - they still disturb and beguile me); Soutine (those claustrophobic surfaces of painted space and matter, Circa 1921-22 - especially the Ceret landscapes); Morandi (looking at those painted spaces in and around the objects in his still-lifes); Guston (his world appears to be made entirely out of liquid paint); Forrest Bess (if only I could be that direct) and Raoul de Keyser (uncompromisingly beautifully cryptic).

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Travel, walking, streets; in short the world about me. I now realise I really don't have to travel very far from home, I just have to be open and the unfamiliarity of a place can be [re]discovered. That impression or experience is then always available to me to be called upon within the confines of the studio. Music and literature have always been close to hand, and thinking around these subjects have, over time, informed my thinking. My sister-in-law is a member of GIO (Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra) and she recently introduced me to graphic scores - which just blew me away!

How would you like people to engage with your work?

If they take the time to look then I'm happy, however, I would prefer it to happen in an unmediated and open way, without the aid of a statement or explanations, just a simple meeting.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Recently I have begun exchanging works with a group of artists I've meet via the internet, including: Susan S Scott, Keith Murdoch and David T Miller. Their paintings now hang on the walls of my home and make a wonderful impression on me on daily basis.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Yes! Also, I'm just about to make another exchange of work with an Australian artist Inga Dalrymple, which I'm really pleased about!

Andrew Maughan

                

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings.

What drives you to make work?

The feeling that I haven’t done enough! I’m still a believer in paint and excited by its possibilities.

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

I’m in the studio from mid-day till 11.30pm. In one corner of my studio I have a stack of paintings which are finished and have been photographed and the paintings I’m working on or not sure about are lined up along two walls. I spend a lot of time looking at them/not looking at them, working out if they’re even interesting. They tend to have several layers of paint on them, I never scrape anything off, I always keep adding more.

I try to create paintings with no references to the ‘real’ world so I’m not sure they are exactly abstract, more non-objective. I don’t keep a sketch book so all my working out and playing around is done on the canvas. The trick is to not get attached to any of the paintings until they feel right, then I stop. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a keeper, it might be kicking around the studio for months and one day I’ll decide it’s crap and add something more to it or obliterate it completely.

How long have you been working in that way?

My studio practice is still evolving but has been similar to this since I graduated from Northumbria University in 2009. I’ve always had a tendency to play around with paint, just to see what happens.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Dana Schutz, Richard Aldrich, Joe Bradley, Mary Heilmann, Philip Guston, Georg Baselitz, Martin Kippenberger, Thomas Houseago, Aaron Curry, Chris Martin, Rachel Harrison, Franz West, Blinky Palermo, Vincent Van Gogh, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch, Howard Hodgkin, De Kooning, Gerhard Richter and many more!

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Not much outside of art, that’s sort of the point, although I was listening to a Paul Buchanan song called ‘Wedding Party’ recently and was struck by the economy of word. I’ve been trying to figure out a way of translating that into my practice, being more economical, leaving things unsaid, with paint. It might creep in there soon.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I don’t mind, it’s up to them.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Paula Rego’s drawing ‘The Wide Sargasso Sea’ at the Laing in Newcastle is pretty sweet. 

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Yes, lots of shows coming up and I am part CAVE art fair at the Liverpool Biennial in September. Plus it’s always exiting to make new work!

Robert Linsley

           

                  

Can you briefly describe what you do?

In my Island paintings I pour commercial polyurethane enamel paint onto the canvas, then lift and tip it to make the paint flow into a shape. The canvas lies flat on the floor while the shape dries, then I pour another one. Most of the work goes on between pours. Lately been making watercolours, which means back to brushes, but try to apply what I've learned from the pours about letting the image produce itself.

What drives you to make work?

As it happens, I could never have answered this question until very recently. Because the work is ongoing, flowing and momentary, I think I'm really trying to unify my life and my art. Strange that I never had such an intention and normally would never think in those terms, but the evidence seems to be there. I don't want time to pass, but to be lived through, if that makes sense.

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

As above. Since each pour is unrepeatable, a day without painting is a painting that will never be.

How long have you been working in that way?

Since 1998

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

On a deep level my work is possessed by Jackson Pollock, but Picasso might be below that, and what I see as the Poussin-Cézanne axis is perhaps even more fundamental still. I look at Tiepolo a lot. Over the last few years been looking at many great and insufficiently acknowledged abstractionists - as it happens mostly women - Gego, Joan Mitchell, Marisa Merz, Carla Accardi, Helen Frankenthaler, Mary Heilman, Mira Schendel, Lygia Pape, Bridget Riley, R.H.Quaytman. None of these people are unknown, but their importance is yet unmeasured.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

A few years ago theoretical physics had a big impact on me. There is an important research institute in my town, and I've spent a lot of time there and met many very interesting scientists. P.G.Wodehouse

How would you like people to engage with your work?

However they feel, but not through concepts.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Nowadays I am really in love with Frank Stella's Moby Dick series. Can't get enough of it.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Planning a print edition.

Hugh Delap

               

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make small abstract paintings on paper and canvas.

What drives you to make work?

I am interested in how I can visually articulate my experiences using an abstract language. For a long time I have been fascinated by how a painting is made. What drives me is the challenge of using the basic principles of painting (form, line and colour) to create a painting which reflects something interesting to me.

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

I paint every day. At the moment I am working flat out for an exhibition at the end of March. I have been working mostly on a heavy fabriano paper in oils and a small number of canvases. It takes me a long time to make a painting so I tend to have a lot of work on the go at the same time.

 

 How long have you been working in that way?

 I try not to make drastic changes, instead I try introduce new methods, techniques or ideas gradually. I started working in this way about five years ago and it is has been about three years since I started working on paper. 

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Tomma Abts, Thomas Nozkowski, Phillip Allen, Tal R, Thomas Scheibitz, Robert Bordo, Raoul De Keyser, Ronnie Hughes, Paul Doran and Mark Swords come to mind initially. To me these artists speak a similar language influenced by the Bauhaus and geometric abstraction.  Early on as a painter I felt an affinity for this vernacular.

What outside of visual art informs your practice?

I think many things impact how I work without directly informing my practice. The space I am working in, the time of year, books, movies, TV series, everything really. If I find something interesting I will try to make a painting about it.  

How would you like people to engage with your work?

When somebody looks at my work I hope they can interpret it using their own experiences. My work has no single meaning, instead I hope the viewer will make their own associations and allow their own meaning to emerge.   

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I recently re-read an essay by Jan Verwoert ‘The Beauty and Politics of Latency: On the Work of Tomma Abts’. I reckon it is a must read for abstract painters. I am also looking forward to Paul Doran next solo show in the Green on Red Gallery in Dublin, in March.  I hope it will make an impression.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I am preparing for a one man show in MonsterTruck, Dublin opening on the 30^th of March.

Emmanuel Ballange

                           

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I am a French painter and I live in the southwest of France, in Bordeaux. I work on canvas (oil) or on paper (gouache) from preliminary, predetermined geometrical drawings (circles, triangles, trapeziums, peculiar shapes). My paintings are neither illusionistic nor demonstrative.

And, how long that you been doing that?

I have been painting series for the last 12 years.

What drives you to make work?

Shape is Thought. Pictures, paintings are the expression of Poetry which could shake the meaning of the world. An unprejudiced, and as much as possible - undetermined expression. Pissaro said: ‘my conscience became free as did my eyes.’

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

I work in series. I do not work every day since I teach in an Art School to earn my living. When I am in my studio I first work systematically on my drawings and then paint accordingly. Regularity and discipline are very important to me.

They prevent any romantic and/or sentimental drifts: one should paint even if one doesn't feed in the mood...

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Morandi, Bram and Matisse.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) writer and art critic who wrote: ‘one must not seek to express the inexpressible, but to un-express the expressible.’

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I expect the viewer to feel free, tolerant and open to any visual experience.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The Franois Morellet reinstallations exhibition at the Modern Art Centre (Centre Pompidou, Paris) in 2010 and most exhibits at the Jordan contemporary art Gallery in Paris.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

A large series of gouaches which I hope to exhibit shortly.

Matthew R. Murphy

                           

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I am a painter. Canvas and oil are a primary mode. However, I work with a variety of media. The constructions inherently express similar things differently. Depending on the necessities of the idea or my curiosities in material or presentation the work will take different forms. I find my work caught between the world of illusion and the object with no clear way to resolve this. I find some ideas must be objects posing as paintings and sometimes paintings posing as objects, while still other times paintings are simply paintings.

What drives you to make work?

I suppose there are a lot of reasons to make work. One may be simple curiosity, another may be a need to express something or perhaps to draw some meaning out of a particular kind of organization. Much of it is simply sorting through and organizing ideas.

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

I struggle for a concise answer to this question. It is difficult to find time for any consistency in a working process while trying to balance “real-life” and other responsibilities. So trying to cope with a fractured working sequence can disrupt the feeling of the day-to-day. Most days work begins with prepping surfaces. This could mean priming, sanding or wiping so that paint will stick. Sometimes it is shaping pieces for painting this can require a lot of plotting and measuring. Very practical things. At some point painting will happen so this means mixing colors, applying them, scraping and wiping them away and mixing again. Somedays work is simply drawing or collaging, or otherwise working toward generating ideas. I am usually searching for something that is hard to point to. It could be an idea or combination of ideas about color, composition, materials, or perhaps something I have read about or listened to or have seen.
 
How long have you been working in that way?

I am not certain.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

William Turner, Arshile Gorky, Blinky Palermo, Philip Guston and Chaim Soutine to isolate a few.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Many things. Teaching informs my practice.   The carpentry/craftsman work I do provides encounters with new ideas and new materials that can set off or inspire new ideas in the studio. I read a lot and listen to a lot of music - these things help. I do a lot of thinking while riding a bicycle or riding a train. Mostly, I try and keep my eyes open wherever I am.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

This is an interesting question I sometimes think about. I feel that one cannot dictate to the viewer how to engage with a piece. People bring what they bring. But one can direct the viewer. After all we engage with an El Greco differently than we do with a Pollock. So I suppose I would like the viewer to slow down and look closely. I would like them to be actively engaged but receptive.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Imi Knoebel's shaped panels for Blinky Palermo.  

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Whatever it is I'm not ready.