Page 30 - Studio International - June 1972

John Walker it. It's instead of asking someone else to decide six months. They go back over two years,
what's good or bad after producing the things. actually. The green one was the most
on his painting I'm not interested in showing them to someone, difficult. That's the painting with a lot of history
in it. And it took at lot of painting. When I look
I'm not interested in what people want to look
at, I'm interested in what I see. And so forth. at it I see a lot of ghosts of other paintings
I'm watching them all the time. I find it harder underneath it. And I've got a real thing going
to paint now. for that painting, because of that, because it took
I'm not so much interested in phenomena at so long-because it was a lot of paintings which
the moment, in that I'm not looking for would have produced that painting. It wasn't
something to happen. I don't know what a hit-it-and-leave-it picture. I went through
ambition is. What do you mean by ambition ? a lot of paintings before I got that. In an
And the part about the New York situation. abbreviated form it was going to be an orange
What I found about New York was-and we painting. I couldn't get orange together, and so
come back to this idea of being not then it became a blue painting on top because
The more you get into painting the more you-I approximate-is that the Americans were and blue can kill the orange. The painting was
don't know, I just enjoy painting. I enjoy are beautifully articulate. They have ideas and worse after about four months. It never got
looking at paintings. The more I paint, the more they're articulate about them. And I don't left alone, it was wet constantly. It was a case
I tend to want them round me-good art to look think anything that has been painted in this of watching it and waiting for it and then holding
at. In other words there aren't any good country has been less in idea but just in the it. And it's when you hold the painting, when
reproductions ... I need it to look at it, to feed articulation of the idea. I think that's the you walk away from it, it's a critical moment.
off it. You see, I enjoy the sort of monastic differential, that's all. And you realise when It's not a planned situation, though I know
clarity paintings give me. They are looking you're there and when you're painting in New that I'm going to walk into the situation, the
inward, and I enjoy looking inward. I'm going York that you cannot be approximate. studio situation, in the morning, and I know at
into painting, and they are going out of it. Someone'll grab you and honestly take you a certain time it's going to let me go at night.
I'm a painter, and I respond. You know, apart, if you are less than that. And less than That's the situation. It's no more than that.
Vermeer's view of Delft has been with me for truthful, about what you want to paint. That's it. It's a life-style really rather than a
ten years probably-it's a huge thing, it's When you paint something it has got to be painting.
always there. And likewise, you just name it. perfectly honest and perfectly truthful. And I don't make plans I sit down and I make,
If you commit yourself to be a painter then that's the only way. And that's what New York you know, I've got notebooks, and notebooks
you're open to painting. And it takes those taught me. That you can't get away with and notebooks full of paintings, but somehow
people on. They don't get excluded. You name fudge. All the time you've got to be right on the they never get painted. They're just there to
it, I-can talk to you about two hundred paintings edge... you've got to be screaming, almost. clear the shit. So you can penetrate to the
intimately... I enjoy the whole idea of Well, I don't mean screaming as such. I mean paintings. You can't programme it. I do try to.
painters. I enjoy the whole activity of the thing. it just as a word, the way it sounds. I mean I've got this painting, and I've got that
It means a lot to me. I didn't meet most of the people, that wasn't painting. And logically this painting should
At the moment I like bad art, and I like bad the idea of my going to New York. The idea come now. And so I-the notebook gets rid of
paintings. You know, I'm in love with of going to New York was to meet people who it. Or the drawing gets rid of it. It gets rid of it
painting, I can say that at the moment, I'm were sort of with me, within the, at the same and it gets me into a different situation. I'm
unashamedly in love with painting. So I can time, the same age, more or less. The people always repeating myself, you know.
even enjoy bad paintings. By saying that, I who had been confronted by the problem of I came out of making very figurative
don't know whether that's anything to do with making pictures in 1972. paintings. My hero was Goya, when I was a
the clarity of what I think I'm thinking when I never did get to meet people that I knew student, and he still is. I made a lot of paintings
I'm in a studio situation. But it seems made good paintings or were making good about the first war and autobiographical
fundamental. If you're going to get into paintings. It's like Noland you know, I saw the paintings, using my father's experience of the
painting then you're going to get into El Greco, paintings, but the people ... I met Ray Parker. First World War and then I felt inadequate that
and you're going to get into Matisse, and I said to myself, I think he's a much better artist I didn't know more about it, and the only way
you're going to get into-you name them. than people think. I didn't like the last Nolands. I could relate to it was through his experiences.
They're just there, and you just need them I thought they were prematurely shown. They So I painted a lot of paintings which were about
sometime. You really do. This is your only weren't resolved. They were too approximate, those kind of things that went on for
occupation and they are the only people you've they weren't familiar enough. There wasn't individuals who were involved in the fighting
got. This may be a fault, most of the people enough mileage of paint. There wasn't enough in the First World War. And because of that-of
you've got are dead people. It's dead art. doing of them. course Goya was very important-because I was
Well, the best artists are generally dead. At the moment I don't find it an easy thing an artist and he was an artist and he endeavoured
That's the terrible thing about it. That may to paint paintings. It doesn't come joyfully to to convey the kind of feelings about war and
be the difference. That may be why Barry me. It has done, and I'm sure it will again. I'd been painting these pictures for a long
le Va, or Terry Atkinson, do keep on wanting For the last six months, or something like that, time, I began to change. Why do you change
to confront you with a living situation. there's not very much in it that's come without painting ? You change because you become,
They're asking someone to get involved. I a lot of perspiration or agony or whatever you you know ... why do you change shapes, or why
don't ask that. All I'm asking is to be allowed to want to call it. That's to do with the do you change images ? You change because
paint, to make paintings. I'm not asking for articulation of the problem. I mean I've got the suddenly one day you realize you're repeating
any involvement by anyone. I'm just asking problem, and the agony's become that I've not something. It's not carrying the powers that
that, you know, just leave me alone. been able to put the thing there. painting can have, because you've done it once.
I tend to watch the paintings much harder You know ? I see it, you know. I can see it One of the first showings of American
than ever, recently. This has happened over the when I go to sleep at night-what I want. painting that I'd seen-other than the show in
last 8 or 12 months. This is it. Suddenly I find And I've got a head full of dreams -but how do 1959 at the Tate-had in it the painting which
myself watching the paintings more than you make sense out of them ? held me the most and is still very relevant. It's
actually painting the pictures. Death's very near Some of the Venice pictures are of the last a Pollok painting, called Number Twelve—