Tuymans, Donachie et al. talk about painting light, drawing shadows and work that surprises at the Drawing Room and Turps Gallery
The Drawing Room’s three-person exhibition, DE.FI.CIEN.CY is built around the work
of the long dead and fashionably obscure Andrzej Wróblewski. But of course most
visitors will be there for the star of the show - Luc Tuymans.
Over at the Turps Gallery the inaugural show, Tutti Frutti, featured the work of 14
painters. Any connections between the artists, apart from a shared interest in
paint, are pretty much accidental because they were independently selected by
three artist/organisers, without a theme in mind aside from that suggested by
the show’s title which literally translates as ‘all the fruits’.
I went to artists’ talks at both of these non-commercial spaces
and it set me thinking about galleries that concentrate on individual media and
the practitioners that are loyal to the spaces.
At DE.FI.CIEN.CY Tuymans
in conversation with the show’s curator, Ulrich Loock told us that if there was
a book to go with the show, which also features the work of Rene Daniels
alongside Tuymans and Wróblewski, it would be Raymond Chandler’s Long Goodbye – a fitting choice as the
show has the noirish atmosphere that seems to epitomise Tuymans oeuvre. Tuymans was mostly his taciturn self
only becoming illuminated when he talked about popular references such as his
drawing of a flying monkey from The
Wizard of Oz. One of the more interesting discussions was about blue, a preeminent
colour in the work of another Tuymans favourite, fellow Belgian, Léon
Spilliaert. Loock encouraged Tuymans to explain his own connection to a colour,
which could be seen as another manifestation of his downbeat Belgian ness.
Tuymans explained that when he was young he could only paint in his studio at
night and the yellowish artificial light meant that his work generally had a
bluish tinge to balance the colour.
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Luc Tuymans, Nikko, 2014, watercolour on paper, 29x42cm,
private collection, courtesy of Studio Luc Tuymans
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And what about drawing? It has, says Tuymans, a sense of
decisiveness because unlike painting it cannot be changed and subsequently the
painted line has a very different quality to the drawn line. Because of these
differences Tuymans prefers to exhibit drawing separately from painting, unlike
other artists (such as he somewhat disapprovingly noted Marlene Dumas), who are
happy to mix them up. My struggle with this magnanimous idea about drawing and
painting is that to all extents and purposes the drawings on show in DE.FI.CIEN.CY are, as far as I can see,
only drawings because they are on paper. They are mostly made with paint. But
maybe this is a minor detail. Other little nuggets of Tuymans info that I
gleaned were that he considers the Arnolfini
Portrait the first conceptual painting and that shadows are very hard to
paint because they are non-colours.
And so onto the Turps gallery, the latest addition to the
Turps Banana empire, which recently opened in a defunct South London estate
alongside the Turps Art School. Marcus Cope led a discussion with a number of
the Tutti Frutti artists, co
organiser Katrina Blannin
and an engaged audience of painters.
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| Painters talking at Turps Gallery L to R: Daniel Sturgis, Kaye Donachie, Katrina Blanin, Katrin Maurich, Nick Goss, Marcus Coates, Unknown Nick Goss's work can be seen behind Marcus Coates |
Kaye Donachie, best known for loosely painted depictions of
women, talked about her Tutti Frutti work
which rather than a painting is a cyanotype on canvas. A cyanotype is a basic
photographic process using a light sensitive chemical, the resulting image, as
suggested by the name, is always blue. Donachie’s desire to ‘paint with light’ led
her to the process and the resulting work has, it was noted, the quality of an animation.
One audience member wondered if the resulting image always had to be blue – the
answer I think is in the name. Printing it seems is very much in vogue with
painters. Nick Goss had also included printed sections in his large work, which
was inspired by glimpses into the Turkish Sports Clubs around his Green Lane’s
studio. His and Donachie’s mix of figuration and abstraction is very prevalent
in contemporary painting – and maybe this desire to get away from a too literal
reality while retaining some of its structure explains their experiments in print
making.
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| Works by Kaye Donachie and Erin Lawlor |
Artist Erin Lawlor said that too much intention kills her
gestural abstract works and that she was always waiting for the work to
‘surprise’ her. Many painters believe in the power of happenstance which explains why they
so often struggle with concept driven mainstream art education, which can seem
to kill the spontaneity that is thought to be so important to
‘good’ painting. It is certainly true that the creative process involved in
painting is hard to quantify and for this reason it does seem to be at odds
with much of the cerebral art world. Katrin Mäurich knows when one of her individually
shaped wooden paintings is finished because it ‘looks like a little dance’.
This esoteric, vague language has made painting an art school outsider. Which
is why the Turps School is thriving. It has stepped in, knight in shining
armour to save painting. But in reality state art education should be
addressing painting in a more satisfying way and students should not have to resort
to independent art education. I am not calling the ethos of the Turps School
into question here but there will no doubt be other less scrupulous
establishments opening up that rip off less knowing artists. We should all be
campaigning against cuts in art education, as Bob and Roberta Smith are so
commendably doing, or art as a whole will become a marginal activity.
The Turps Gallery, we were told by Katrina Blannin, is there to fulfil a
need that is unaddressed by other galleries – it is a place for painters to put
together painting shows. I have reservations about limiting a gallery to one
specialism, but it seems that there are plenty of takers for this form of
exhibiting. The Turps Gallery grand opening attracted over 400 people to the
modestly sized space, so separating painting from the rest of the artworld is
obviously popular, but could it also be dangerous? Not giving painting the
chance to connect with other media and taking it away from the conceptual,
could well result in the confirmation that painting is the irrelevant and
reactionary medium that so many art school tutors have told us that it is. I
for one want to stay connected to ideas and don’t want to be painted (or drawn)
into a corner.
DE.FI.CIEN.CY
Rene Daniels, Luc Tuymans, Andrzej Wróblewski
curated by Ulrich Loock
21 May – 11 July 2015
TheDrawing Room, London
Luc
Tuymans was in conversation with Ulrich Loock was on 21 May 2015
Tutti Frutti
Carla Busuttil, Graham Crowley, Kaye Donachie, Tim Ellis, Nick Goss, John Greenwood, Erin Lawlor, George Little, Katrin
Mäurich, Charley Peters, Audrey Reynolds, Daniel Sturgis, Richard Wathen, James White
organised
by Katrina Blannin, Juan Bolivar & Caterina Lewis.
24 April
– 24 May 2015
Turps Gallery, London
Tutti Frutti artists' talk was on 24 May 2015
