Page 33 - Studio International - June 1972

you are. A device to do that. I wanted it all on
the surface. They were simply that. That was
the whole reason for it, to get them really up
front, to mark with surface wires, and that was
the canvas surface, and make it an obvious
point of reference, then to push anything else
forward that could be in front of that. That's
all it was. Touch has a residual grid in it, which
came back into the painting at a certain point.
It's only in a portion of the painting. It was just
an attempt to re-establish the surface of the
painting.
Drawing is too thin, usually, drawing is to
get rid of the shit before I can get to the
painting. Or drawing is looking at the painting
after. I do a hell of a lot of drawing of the
painting after I've finished it to know what I've
got. And usually the more the painting is
obviously colour, colour chromatics, usually
the drawing's more tonal. I want to know what
I've got. I don't want to let it go away until I
know what I've got. And drawing helps me to
understand. So I tend to draw a lot after the
painting, after the painting's finished.
I don't see it as preparatory to the next
painting—I see it as an explanation for me of
what's there at that particular moment. It's
very often not for the next painting because the
next painting goes off somewhere else. Because
I've done that kind of painting and explained
through drawing that it's going to become a
certain kind of painting. I tend to go the other
way then.
At the moment, I'm much more interested
in paintings that don't succeed than paintings
that do. I'm interested in irritants and things
that don't look right, aren't right and give me a
bad time. I can paint a good picture, I can paint
a handsome painting, but I don't want to do
that.
I want to paint a very honest painting,
something that's direct, that's a piece of me,
whatever I'm into at that time. My
understanding about what art is and all the
other things besides. I mean, what screws me at
the particular moment. I'm very interested in time I touched the canvas I had real problems (Above left)
Sometime II 1971
painting something like a bloody bullet out of just with touching the canvas. That really can 2.44 x 6.1 m
the blue, so it comes direct. I'm very interested hurt sometimes. And a friend of mine, Alan The artist, by courtesy Reese Palley, New York
in that. I don't want to fuck it up by painting Cote came in, and he said something like (Below left)
shit, something that produces good handsome `Wow, the colours are naturalistic'. And I Untitled 1972
paintings, or can do. The more you get hadn't thought of that at the time. Someone 3.05 x 2.44 m
screwed by this idea of painting the more you else had to tell me. Because I was trying to Acrylic on canvas
The artist, by courtesy Nigel Greenwood Inc
realize that what you've got or what's there for just put colour down. It was hurting to do it. (Above)
you, it's just for you and what's there for It was blues and browns. Normal old colour, all Untitled 1972
anybody else is them. The idea of teaching the landscape colours, and that. But I wasn't The artist, by courtesy Nigel Greenwood Inc.
painting—someone to paint—is irrelevant putting them down that way. I didn't think I
really. All you can possibly do is to tell them that was putting it down that way. So I just did the
they're okay. It's what they've got, is important. pictures. I just ploughed into it. So I've got a bluish, you know there's a lot of blue—it's a
You may not agree with that. couple of paintings which I'm taking to Venice. very naturalistic colour situation. And it's got
At a time in America I was having a bad The one painting is a sort of darker version of a lot of depth in it. It moves, it can run about a
time, and I thought it was something to do with the painting I showed here last summer. I felt mile if you want it to. I've got to choose
getting into painting. I did a lot of painting I wanted to have a link between five months between the other pictures. The other picture
when I was travelling. I painted and did a lot before, when I was trying to bridge the gap can be a red picture, it's a picture that's about
of notations of landscapes and it was an easy between those months of travelling and painting two years old. And a light green picture. When
transition from the studio back into landscape. in a studio situation. So that's the painting I'm I get there I want to see the light. q
But then coming back to the studio again going to show. Then I'm showing the very
became a very difficult transition and every light one—the painting's a better painting—light [From a conversation with Tim Hilton.]
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