Page 45 - Studio International - June 1973

convincing as the work progressed. Anyway I half having a different colour and along the MV: Yes.
moved off from a linear statement, which was joining edge I would lay bars of colour, usually JP: I think this is pretty true of certain abstract
then essentially tonal and into statements which three, sometimes two, of an arbitrary length. expressionist painters like Pollock. When
were back to areas. That is, they were squares JP: It seems to me that these paintings Pollock painted a picture he stood in the middle
on to which I would flood a colour, super- signalled the beginning of your interest in of the painting and was enveloped in the
imposing further squares and floods alternately perceptual phenomena. Often one of the activity. When the work was hung, he liked the
so that I developed a matted kind of structure horizontal bars was shorter, and there seemed painting to envelop the spectator. All the things
comprised of controlled and uncontrolled to be an ambiguous kind of landscape reference. you have said to me seem to put you in a
statements. But again I became aware of MV: That's right. There was definitely an situation where you are still very concerned
something happening that I didn't like. I attempt to retain, as much as possible, a with abstract expressionist preoccupations.
became very skilful . . . flatness in the picture. Any kind of recession There is a high degree of subjectivity. Having
JP: You mean that they betrayed a certain kind which resulted from using a shorter bar on top looked at a lot of your paintings some months
of facility in the way that they were made ? was countered by giving it a colour which ago, I am interested in the concern you have for
would force it forward. the scaling of the small elements on your
JP: It has been a strong concern of English present canvases. Your paintings consist of
abstract painters, to a great degree, to involve large colour fields which range through orange,
themselves with the concept of the painting as red, black, and some off-beat colours, and
an object. Therefore the space in the painting keyed at the left of the most recent ones are a
could not have any referential reading, and in group of small-scale rectangles above one
fact the attempt was to create a two-dimensional another. Sometimes two, sometimes three
surface. You seemed to have been involved with colours, placed at the eye-level of the spectator.
this. I certainly was at one time. Most painters I was drawn very much towards the left-hand
using formal elements in painting were side of the painting when I was within arm's
concerned with either very shallow space or an distance. Now if you want an envelopment of
attempt to make a self-repairing surface. I the spectator by this extraordinary expanse of
found, for instance, that the attitude of some colour which you use, why do you put those
American painters was rather more open small elements to the left-hand side of the
than this. painting ?
MV: But this openness often led to a cubist MV: Sometimes I put them on the right.
kind of space. Artists like Rothko, Newman JP: Yes — but you put them near the edge
and perhaps Hoffman were more interesting mostly. I saw only one painting with them in
then than someone like De Kooning — and the centre.
partly for that reason. MV: Well, I have had them everywhere. The
JP: It seems to me that the kind of formal thing is, if I put them towards the middle, even
painting which existed in England from about if they're absolutely vertical or horizontal, the
'58 onwards was criticized as being made on the element looks like it's floating in the field, and
bandwagon of American hard-edge painting. if it is floating it must be occupying space, and
Do you see yourself as having been influenced then one gets this feeling that the space has got
MV: Not to begin with. In the first half dozen by American painting ? to be recessive in order to accommodate it, and
pictures I didn't really know what was going to MV: Certainly in terms of scale. The so on. It follows that one gets a reading which
happen. But after a while I could see that I man-sized painting was something that in a sense is figurative, because this little thing
could flood this colour on exactly where I impressed many of us. And the fact that becomes a floating object, and one is involved
wanted it. I was beginning to organize the paintings weren't considered to be windows in where it's floating to, and how big it really is,
so-called irrational side of the painting, which through which you looked into a space beyond. etc., which is not what I want. Apart from the
was totally against my intention. But the JP: Do you think this is one of the reasons that fact that putting a small device like that in
important thing about all this was that I was paintings have got large, because the space has the middle of a very large field draws undue
getting into colour in a way that wasn't possible got shallower ? Reference being to man, the attention to itself and away from the field. But
for me in those earlier cross pictures. As the spectator in scale, rather than a landscape I agree with you; putting it on one side does to
work developed I was becoming increasingly reference. some extent draw attention to the edge of the
involved with colour, and in some ways getting MV: I'm sure that's one reason, certainly in my painting, but what I gain here seems to be
back to the interest I had in colour originally. case. worth it. That is, a large empty field, empty
At the same time there was a tendency for these JP: So you think that your paintings have to be apart from its colour. Something else which
paintings to simplify themselves. So much so large in order to express their content fully ? follows from such a placing is that I decrease
in fact that I began to see quite clearly that this MV: The kind of paintings I am doing seem to the conspicuousness of the element. It's
whole business of relating formal to informal work best when they are large enough to fill vitally necessary, but I want to minimize any
elements with the same image was wearing the visual field from normal viewing distance, compositional dynamic which may result from
itself out, and colour was taking over. That led which is around ten feet or nearer. A problem its presence.
me on to the paintings which I showed first of I've been tackling on and off for years is how to JP: Gestural painting is made from a dialogue
all at the Hamilton Galleries in 1965. Field do very much smaller paintings and make them between painter and canvas, and the painting
paintings divided horizontally. work in more or less the same terms as the large starts to dictate the situation of shape or mark.
JP: Staggered bars, weren't they ? Floated in ones. Altogether it's a very difficult problem; What I'm trying to clarify is the difference
the field of colour. somehow or other one has to make a picture between your position and an abstract
MV: In a way they go back to the cross which encourages a closer inspection so that the expressionist's in terms of communication. The
pictures, because instead of dividing the nearer you get to the painting the more it will subject-subject dialogue of a painting by
picture by a line in each direction in the fill your visual field. Pollock, Rothko or Newman, is that the painting
middle, I divided the painting this time into JP: In fact, the edge of the painting is a dictates the situation, dictates its needs, and the
two equal fields around the horizontal, each nuisance to you ? painter attempts to answer these, to bring the
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