JAI LLEWELLYN

T'Bar, oil & acrylic on canvas, 35x25cm, 2013

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I’m working on a few things. I’m putting together a series of miniatures for a travelling show titled, ‘Wandering Museum’.  I usually work fairly small but these measure just 7x5cm and are the smallest things I have ever worked on. At first it seemed like an impossible task but actually I soon became accustomed to the scale and I am enjoying the challenge. I am also working on a series of small canvases given to me by a friend who is opening a gallery and wanted me to do something for her. I am working on eight, 25x30cm canvases.  They are still in early stages and I am just laying down colours and making marks.

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

I don’t have a set routine but most days I try to start by 9am. I start by tidying up a bit from the day before, putting some music on, having a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I may do some preparation or something to loosen me up that doesn’t involve being too careful. My hands don’t work very well early on.  I work through until about 3 or 4 and I find that the best things happen in that last couple of hours. If I work much longer than that I start to get sloppy. Sometimes I allow some time at the end of that day to do something adventurous and experimental which usually leaves me keen to get back into the studio the next day.

 

 

 

Monotypes

 

 

 

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?


I have two studio spaces, one is in the loft of my house where I do most of my painting and the other is a print workshop which is a shared space I use once or twice a week. Working in my loft is a solitary practice, I have time to reflect to sit and gaze at the work. A quiet space (when the children are not at home) where I can spend time thinking and working in a slow and more considered manner. In opposition to that, when at the print studio there is a social aspect, a buzz about the place. We share ideas and opinions and literally have to make room for each other. Both practices offer a release from the other.

 

 

 

 

Loft Studio

 

Print Workshop

 

 

 

 

 

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.


I work in both print and paint. Etching is fast, direct and primitive, you often get just one hit at it. Whereas painting is slower, contemplative and allows for mistakes and change.  The two practices often inform each other and recently there has been a more direct relationship between them. A lot of my newer works have begun with a print, usually a monotype of some kind. When I’m printing I lose myself in the process and I can play, particularly with colour, without thinking about a finished image. Working in this way sets some parameters but also enables me to try out, relatively quickly, variations on a theme. I will take the prints back to the studio at home and work on them further with various media but usually with oil.  I may have ten prints of various sizes and different colours which I will work on at the same time.

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

At the moment I am struggling with canvas. I am coming back to it after working for a long time on paper. There is something about the edge that I can’t quite put my finger on. I have cut the canvas off the stretchers for a few pieces after getting frustrated with the edge, this has worked a few times though it wasn’t my initial intention. It is also the flex of the canvas that I often don’t like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top: Untitled oil drawing 2, 38x28cm, 2013

Below: Untitled oil drawing 3, 40x30cm, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

I do try to experiment as much as possible though I think I am starting to narrow down my use of materials to tried and tested methods and techniques. It is in print where I am still expanding my knowledge and trying out new processes all the time, there is so much to learn and so many possibilities. Saying that, there are some things that never change - I always work on a relatively small and intimate scale and etching is something that I will always do and has its own particular set of rules.

 

 

 

in progress

 

 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?


I think the relationship between my painting and printing will become ever closer and maybe eventually merge into one.  It is impossible to foresee how this will materialise but this relationship is, for me, the most exciting aspect of my work. 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?


I would like to say how happy I am to be taking part in a group show which has just opened at the Proto Gallery, New York. This is my first exhibition in the U.S and is alongside some wonderful artists. I would also like to thank you, Valerie, for asking me to do this interview. It is always interesting for me to reflect on what I am doing.

 

 

 

 

Frequency, oil on canvas, 37x28cm, 2013

 





 

 

 

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



ANDY PARKINSON

Screen (Yellow Band), 2013, acrylic on board, 24" x 24"

 

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

 

 

Well, first I should say that, working mostly in a spare room of my house, or sometimes even in some hotel bedroom (My other job as a freelance learning consultant means I am away from home a lot of the time), I hesitate to use the word ‘studio’. I have two series on the go at the moment. One involves covering high-colour patterns with a secondary black and white diagonal chequer pattern. The other, which is new enough to have no finished pieces yet, is a series of text-based grids that start out in high colour and become a sequence of different blacks. In both cases colour is supressed, pushing it to the edges or covering it almost completely.

 

Can you describe your working routine?

 

 

I have numerous paintings on the go at any one time. Usually, a small painting travels with me and I work on it when I get chance, and then there are larger ones scattered around the house, that I work on when I get whole days at a time. I paint almost every day even if only for an hour. When I get whole days I start early in the morning, 6am in the summer, and work until about 5pm. I have countless breaks for cups of tea and I usually have a half hour lunch break. When I am in a hotel, I might have a couple of hours late on, say 10pm to midnight. The light isn’t so good then and that can be very frustrating.

 

 

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?
 Years ago, when I had a bigger space I used to make much larger paintings than I do now. However the best were always the smaller ones that I did at home so, when I came back to painting in 2010, I determined to keep the work on a small scale, and to work at home. This choice affects the space, which in turn affects the work, especially its scale. The room I work in most is about 12 by 10 feet, so a 4 foot square painting seems large. The room is empty which means I can work on the wall or on the floor and I do both. I also work in another area that is really my office and that space is smaller still.

Veil, 2013, acrylic on canvas glued to board, 12 1/2" x 12 1/2"

 

 

 

 

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.
 

The grid is nearly always my starting point because that seems the most rational way of dividing the surface to create a pattern that relates to the dimensions of the support. I think in terms of pattern and surface as opposed to ‘picture’.  If I wasn’t using a grid I would likely make only colour monochromes, always an alluring alternative for me.

At present I either take canvases that were once finished and paint over them, Or, I deliberately create a new pattern which I then paint over. In both cases I attempt to obliterate what’s underneath, whilst knowing that residual elements will show through, becoming incorporated into the completed piece. What gets painted is determined by a system or pattern, whereas what gets incorporated is largely determined by chance.

Most of my decision making takes place between paintings rather than as the painting is progressing. I deliberately resist improvisation, which I equate with the illusion of freedom. I always work in series and each new painting is a variation on the theme of that series.  What interests me is the ‘free play’ that can be introduced into a pre-determined system.
 

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

 

In my new series I am making use of gridded patterns based on sentences, each letter being coded as a colour, eventually becoming black. That they are different blacks means they can be differentiated, whilst the overall view is a black monochrome. The colours become seductive and I find that I want to leave them in their high colour state. So, I guess the trouble is in having the courage to follow through. Whilst they are in this high colour state they remain unresolved in relation to the system I am working with.

 

 

 

Truth is subjectivity,

acrylic on plastic covered MDF, 9 x 9 ", 2013

 

 

 

 

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

 

 

I think it would be fair to say that I experiment with materials only a bit, preferring to work with stretched canvas or board, and almost always using acrylics because they dry quickly and because I like their synthetic or artificial quality, vs. the seductive beauty of oils. I think I have phases of experimentation and then I tend to settle down into something more fixed. For example earlier this year I was working with marker pen on tracing paper and gluing it to board with the underside of the tracing paper uppermost. This allowed me to work over the colours without them physically bleeding through. In the process of gluing it down, the tracing paper stretched and creases developed which became incorporated into the pattern, almost like a pattern of interrupts. I was also using household paint for the top layers. This led to me making a few paintings on board using this process, and more recently on canvas I have borrowed from what I learned in the earlier experimental phase, for example getting my paint to the same consistency as the household paint I had been using.

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

 

 

I have no idea. I think abstraction is rather unfashionable and I often feel alone in continuing to find a systems methodology very appealing. So I just keep attempting to make the paintings that I want to see.  Perhaps it’s something of an obsession. I don’t want to be cured.

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

 

Only that I have enjoyed answering your questions. How is it that questions are always more interesting than any answers we might give?  

 

 

 

Envelope, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"