Page 51 - Studio International - December 1970

Rothko space. Additional to that I use a tech- accurately as I could in watercolour. Now the old instinct people have- I have- to want
nique of building things up illusionistically in this return to first roots gave me the language to know how it is done. A lot of the pleasure
front of the surface. So this keys directly into I needed to deal with urgent problems of the people have in looking at old masters lies in
art history. Then comes the question "Well psychological aspects of space-perception, and their admiration of dexterity, the mastery in
why do you want to do that ?" The answer is of proximity and distance. technique. There are many pictures, for
a complicated one. It has to do with ideas `In short, I was interested in Proxemics, the example, where it is difficult to perceive how
about visual perception-with Art and Illusion, term coined by E. T. Hall in The Hidden an effect, a finish perhaps, was achieved.
and to do with areas of communication where Dimension. I wanted to investigate the `The instinct to know how it is done is still a
paintings can convey-and have conveyed- different rapports set up between spectator strong one, so I deliberately create and main-
what words cannot. I can best explain what and canvas at certain set distances; one tain illusion at one level in order to expose it
this has come to mean to me by going back to painting, for example, demands a distance of at another. Of course I'm aware of the fact
the time when I gave up colour painting. I about 40 or 50 feet for the image to cohere in that I'm joining in with a well defined his-
read about Eysenck's experiments on colour the spectator's mind. At that distance it torical movement, stemming from maybe
preferences, and immediately felt ready to actually looks like a box with a piece of Cezanne, the Synthetic Cubists and so on. I'm
move in a direction already tempting me. corrugated steel leaning against it. There is a still very interested in art history, in painting
His findings threw me! I like yellows. How point as you walk towards the painting where as a visual history. I don't want to divorce
can the majority of people not like yellows? that gestalt breaks down and gives way to myself from it at all.' q
And prefer blues ! I wanted to rid my paintings another. This can happen within one step-
of anything that allowed these subjective back one pace, you get one system registering;
estimations of colour values, these prejudices, forward a pace, the other does. If you then
to play a strong part in spectator response. approach the painting to within a foot or so of
That is why I moved in a self-conscious way the surface, the magic breaks down, that is,
from colour paintings towards tones, towards the illusionistic magic. When you can see the
greys and desaturated colour. When you quality of the paint, with the canvas extending
think about it, for an Englishman this is not above your head and beyond your peripheral 1 Untitled 1970
really surprising. Since in terms of our Ian- vision, you get instead information about the Acrylic on canvas
scape, the weather, the whole lot is a series of paint as language, though you cannot see what 120 x 144 in.
greys-and I found myself going back to a the language adds up to without going back 2
Lannage Format
situation which was more genuine. You see, again. Large scale was necessary to deal with Acrylic on canvas
I had come to painting in the first place via this problem, especially, I found, if one were 132 x 102 in.
the watercolourists-De Wint, Girtin, Cox to get objects to read illusionistically in front 3
Untitled 1968
and through to Paul Nash. (Did you know of the canvas. Another area of interest in all Acrylic on canvas
that Magritte referred to Paul Nash as the this was the direct effect on the spectator of 120 x 96 in.
master of the object?) A great deal of my the real space between himself and the paint-
training-and I mean before Art School- ing. One tries as far as possible to intrude on to
consisted of looking at atmosphere, looking at his own personal space, prick his bubble. [Barrie Cook's recent work was exhibited at Axiom
landscape colours and mixing these colours as Tut you know, what one is trading on here is Gallery, London, in October—November 1970.]