Page 40 - Studio International - October1973

that I took up a place at the Royal College of I started to do collages. Then some wooden
Alan Green Art. Then, not really feeling design to be for me, reliefs and assemblages. It was exciting to be
making things rather than just painting them.
I transferred to Julian Trevelyan's print
department; he helped me when eventually I My strict grid paintings started because I
on his wanted to get into the painting school. I hadn't believed the structure supports the canvas. At
done any painting before. I wanted to change
that time I hadn't worked on canvas for years.
because all the things I admired were being And contrary to what most people believe they
paintings well with Buehler, who was helpful in practical were quite instinctive paintings, and not based on
done by painters. At the RCA I got on quite
theories. These early grid paintings have forced
ways, and with Minton until he did himself in. me to seriously consider scale. In all I worked
I'm a fairly regular worker. On average, He was electric. It was the way he reacted to on them for about two and a half years, and used
counting days I don't work, I probably do about your painting, made you think it was worthwhile. to reckon on producing one a month.
five hours a day. But when I'm really working I When Minton did a crit it was really something. My most recent paintings came about
don't stop and may do up to ten or more. He always tried to impose himself. But if you through a need to use more of myself, having
Three days a week I teach. Apart from the don't impose something, how do you make felt completely hemmed in by the grid paintings.
money it's good to be exposed to people people move ? You can be too precious. They actually started by laying an unstretched
critical of your ideas. No one's more critical Then I went to France on a travelling canvas over a small table, and running a paint
than students. But there's a big danger in scholarship, and married, and found you got an roller over it, then moving the canvas and
teaching. You get too involved. You do extra grant when you were married. Actually I repeating the operation. That would have been
ridiculous things, like giving stretchers to went to Italy first, but I couldn't stand Italy; all about in the summer of '71.
students, or thinking the sun shines out of their those cypress trees made me think of Piero I think what I like about columns is that they
eyes. Perhaps the biggest danger is getting della Francesca. have a different kind of speed from blocks. I did
caught up in the administrative game. You can At the College at first I painted still-lifes. I try to go straight into columns. But it doesn't
squander your life chatting up principals. But was looking at French painters, like Minaux really work, because they end up like stripes.
if I hadn't had a teaching job I'd probably have and Buffet, then at Bomberg, Soutine, de Stael. The best paintings with columns happen
bought a place and lived off the State. A lot of the time was like trying to use reality because the blocks merge together, and I find
Financially I don't carry myself on painting, but reorganizing it again. We used to nail things this merging a very difficult situation to force.
though I'm now with Annely Juda, whom I on a table top, then hang the table tops on the Detail interests me; a lot of detail comes
first met when she ran the Hamilton. As a dealer wall and try and paint them. I was more across accidentally, coming about through
she sees things in the long term, which makes interested in colour than most of the people the natural building of the painting, a slit here,
for an easy and constructive artist-dealer there. I couldn't see why they didn't use more and a splash there at first is out of context, but
relationship. colour. It seemed to be mud for the sake of mud. after a few hours you've automatically included
I got into art because it was the only thing I But I learnt a lot about how much you can it in and eventually it fulfils itself in the order of
was any good at. Nothing in my family physically attack a painting. I mean, we used to things, and partly determines events. I like
background directed me to painting, though my paint on hardboard, and one's palette knife paintings to declare their history, but you can't
father used to take postcards and make paintings became really sharp with scraping paint off, so manufacture history, it has to emerge. Nor can
out of them. Actually I was going to be a sharp that at times I literally scraped lumps of you set out to get history. Basically I don't
designer and illustrator. By the time I was 20 I board off as well. When I left the RCA I believe in paddling around looking for openings,
had got my National Diploma in Design. After realized there were other things, and soon after but would rather get straight in and get on.
After all, one statement is as good as another,
and when it gets more critical you are either
near being on top and in control or you don't
know enough about that particular situation,
which makes it a little like another beginning.
I'm interested in chance, though I'm a bit
afraid of it, but I find you've got to have a few
bonuses in a painting. For instance, how it
dries. I put in more cobalt violet in the painting
illustrated here, and when it dried the violet
took over more than I thought it would. I think
this one came a bit early. It put me off my
stride.
The trouble with me is I quite like working in
grey and blacks. I also want to do a white
painting. I don't want to dope up the white with
colours. I want to do it through the whites. But
there's a certain kind of painting I don't want
to do. I like paintings to start ordinary. If you
try too hard you can run into difficulties. I like
very much the opportunity to recycle, even to
recycle paint; not throwing colour away but
saving it for the next painting. This recycling
I'm trying to make use of in the recent suite of

Chek 1973
Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 108 in.

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