PHOEBE MITCHELL

Untitled (opening), oil on board, 51 x 41 cm, 2010

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I'm currently priming 20 fairly small rectangular boards in preparation for new paintings. I'm hugely particular about my priming, building up at least 5 very thin layers of white acrylic gesso, sanding to an incredibly smooth finish in between each coat. Due to recent work commitments this has taken almost 3 weeks, I’m desperate to start painting in a few days time!

Can you describe your working routine?

Once I’ve decided on my primary image (usually a photograph found in a book or online) and have prepared it (enlarging/distorting/fading on the photocopier, collaging or painting onto the printed image) I begin painting on my primed surface immediately. I never map out a picture with pencil or grid it up, preferring to draw with the thinned oils which can easily be wiped away with turps or more paint. My painting process consists of drawing/wiping/drawing/wiping, something which can continue for a matter of weeks. However, when I like whats happening on the board the process can become incredibly quick. A finished painting may only take me a matter of hours to complete but will often be the fiftieth composition to have taken place on that support.

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

My studio space consists of 3 walls, one being completely open and is one of about 20 on a large converted floor of a warehouse in Bermondsey, set up and run by Bow Arts Trust. I've been there for exactly one year and was attracted to the space by the open plan set up which was similar to my college studio space at Central Saint Martins which I’d recently left. Initially I enjoyed seeing what everybody else was up to and the incentive to make lots of new paintings as others would be curious about your work, but I’m hoping to become more experimental in my practice and I think privacy would help during this period. I couldn't afford a space with its own windows so my natural light comes from the opposite studio which isn't ideal so i'm thinking about moving to a more secure space with windows and radiators in the next few months - last winter was unbearable!

Untitled (exotic), oil on board, 36 x 36 cm, 2010

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

Inspiration for new paintings tends to evolve from a gallery visit or a new art book - one that compiles lots of contemporary artists. Its the quality of a brush-stroke and the way the paint's been moved around a surface which gets me and sets off a trail of ideas about how I could incorporate such a mark or consistency of paint into my own work. For the past year, the primary subject of my work has been 'the formal garden' which originated from my love of French Rococo paintings. I use the internet, magazines and books from the CSM library (I make fantastic use of my alumni card!) to source both painted and photographic imagery from which to begin a painting, physically and mentally collaging the imagery until I’ve something to get the brush moving and from there, the act of painting takes over.

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

Subject matter. I'm keen to move on from formal gardens and to rein my abstraction in a little but I’m finding this hugely difficult - possibly due to the process of painting being the actual subject of my work. However, if this is the case then any primary image should work as a starting point for a painting to guide the shapes and plains etc. but I want to feel the compulsion to make visual a certain subject, something I haven't felt quite so powerfully since I was obsessed with the female nude before embarking on my foundation at Camberwell College of Arts.

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

I haven't been very experimental with materials since I began painting in thinned oils on acrylic gessoed boards 3 years ago. I'm happy working within these parameters but am keen to experiment with my source imagery, perhaps working from roughly mocked-up 3D models rather than 2D pictures.

What does the future hold for this work?

At the moment, to just keep on painting! I'm hoping the figurative will re-emerge within my work over the coming months and that a story will begin to evolve, made visible by both the subject of my works and the momentum of my painting. I'm also curious to see whether I return to the oval after working within the confines of 4 straight sides...

Untitled (Lawn), oil on board, 58 x 45 cm, 2010

BRIAN CHEESWRIGHT

Traffic light hat, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm, 2011

What are you working on at the moment?

There isn’t really any ongoing project. By that, I mean that I don’t have half-finished paintings lying around waiting. A picture tends to live or die in one sitting. I can’t really walk away from something in progress. I have to stick at it until either I have made something that satisfies me, or it has become completely hopeless.

Can you describe your working routine?

Haphazard. I try to snatch the odd hour here and there at the moment. I used to spend day after day in the studio, yet very little was achieved as there was no time pressure, and I had few ideas. Now the situation is on it’s head: I always want to be painting, but don’t have nearly as much free time, and so I do lots of day dreaming and mentally gathering source material as I run around doing mundane life-things. The upshot of this is that when finally I do make time to paint, I am much more productive, focused and energised within that small time frame.

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

I haven’t had a proper studio for over 2 years as I can’t justify it financially. I don’t make money off of my art and I supposedly work part-time to make time for painting, so it’s a struggle. The last few places I’ve lived I have used the living room: I have to constantly construct a temporary studio every time I need to work and clean it up and return it to normality when I am done. A lot of times it has prevented me from even getting started. So, yes, next year must be a return to a more permanent creative space. Meanwhile, I guess my sketchbook is my workplace.

Untitled drawings, ink & acrylic on paper

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

I doodle a lot. Ideas can come from thoughts, film, books, paintings or even not thinking. Once in my studio it’s quite common that an initial idea I set out with is quickly abandoned in favour of some other surprise that has happened in the gap between intention and the material. I used to be a very graphic painter at college: I used photos and there was always a very deliberate effect I was intending to produce- now I seek to organise accidents and the painting is about trying to bring something up out of the mess. In these situations I don’t feel I am inventing, so much as breathing life into something already there waiting to be found.

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

Every picture is troublesome. It is all too easy to overcook a painting. My practice walks a line between figuration and abstraction and sometimes an individual picture can pull you off somewhere unexpected. This is exciting, but problematic as it can make it hard to present myself as an artist with a coherent identity. My pictures all make sense to me and I see how they are related, but in terms of dialogue with galleries, curator or the wider art world, artists are meant to have a certain style or theme running through their work aren’t they? The number one thing I am asked is what do you paint? And I never know how to answer. Things are foggy. I don’t have a map. But of course, it’s a good problem.

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

Of course, I would love to buy expensive linen and employ master-craftsmen to build me huge stretchers and to afford artist-quality oils.. .but meanwhile I experiment through necessity. If one week I can’t afford canvas I go routing around in a skip for off-cuts of wood: sometimes the texture of the surface presents problems you have to work with, not against. I have been using oil paints since I was 16 and that’s what really got me into painting. But in the last year or two I have been using acrylic and ink and pencil again which is more spontaneous and whimsical and is leading me to flirt with collage- but basically oil painting is my first love. I think there are infinite possibilities within that medium.

What does the future hold for this work?

At the moment the thing is to just keep on painting: to build a momentum. The more I paint the more coherence I hope to find. Always I hope these paintings are signposts to new things and hopefully to cities of delights rather than cul-de-sacs of mediocrity.

Swan, oil on canvas, 41 x 51 cm, 2011

TONY ANTROBUS

Untitled, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 15 cm, 2011

What are you working on in your studio right now?

Now I am working as always, on paintings on canvas or MDF, quite small, usually acrylic, which have slowly evolved over the summer often switching to collage, gouache, and watercolours to break up the routine and to keep it fresh and look for new ideas.

Can you describe your working routine?

I like to get to the studio early in the day, three days a week and often after work in the evenings if I’m not too tired. I usually sit there and look long and hard at what I did the day before or read the newspaper or a book and have half an eye on the work trying to catch it unawares. This can have a myriad of effects either starting work straight away after seeing some new direction/possibility or sit longer to put off working and do something else instead.

I usually work from early in the day to about 5 or 6pm depending on how well its going. I seem to have an inbuilt work ethic demanding I put in a decent stint. It’s easy to go home when it’s not going well but I usually do things to keep me occupied in the studio and more often than not I am rewarded when something can suddenly happen or look very promising. These moments are actually more useful in the long run. Often it’s a case of WAITING and not doing anything there and then. Only a fraction of the time spent in the studio actually involves painting the rest is looking and thinking.

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

Studio space is about 300 square feet facing east, in an old disused factory in Hackney, London. It has a glass and timber roof, which means it’s on the top floor and is roasting hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. I often work on the floor which means the studio floor disappears from time to time and fight to keep some semblance of order in there and keep it reasonably tidy. Working on the floor denies a top, bottom, left and right to the picture and keeps me on my toes. I love being in the studio, it is a kind of sanctuary in which anything goes and the world can take care of itself. Having a studio in a block and sharing with other artists is a huge plus, meeting other artists particularly painters and engaging in dialogue and receiving constructive feedback as well as forging friendships and a community.

Untitled, oil & acrylic on canvas board, 35 x 25 cm, 2011

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

Paintings start from anywhere, rarely referencing the physical world directly. I almost never know what I’m going to do. But having said that I have recently worked from small collages which have turned out ok but the not knowing what will happen with the painting seems to be the whole point of painting for me but can be really frustrating with endless alterations, u- turns, changing directions, finding new languages, images, so the surface loses its integrity, becomes clogged and gets thrown away.

I work on several at once. Acrylic allows for rapid working and over painting. This is good and bad. I do not have much patience and often over-paint when I know subconsciously I should leave well alone. This has mixed results. Often work can look great one day not so good the next. Some paintings take months to finish while others can be finished in a couple of sessions, literally minutes. Colour and shape and their interplay fascinate me endlessly and the tiniest adjustment of each intentionally or unintentionally makes for innumerable inventions of visual joy. It’s why I paint.

The state of the medium determines the work really, that’s why I like changing it occasionally to get new ideas. The paint one mixes up, in a bowl or palette determines the outcome-its viscosity, strength and colour all have a bearing on the type of mark I’m about to make and then often react to the painted mark often changing to leave either a mess or something that looks promising. There is a sense of perpetual over-painting, layer upon layer, which hides or partly submerges existing colour and exposes a new painting to push forward. 

The more I let go and allow the painting to emerge the more successful is the outcome; tussling in my experience nearly always brings disaster. I need to lose the anxiety and the ego and ‘feel’ the painting as I work and the rest takes care of itself. I try to approach work with a ‘beginner’s mind’ mentality which allows for openness, invention and unpredictability as if I’ve never painted before. I can often produce many paintings in a few hours but very few of them survive the cull at the end of the day. Much of the work gets recycled anyway and reused for other paintings.

The idea of painting in its raw state with support, brush, and paint and the millions of possibilities it offers never fails to amaze me or inspire me. And in the end the successful ones are paintings that not only look right but also feel right and do not need me to interfere anymore. They stand alone, independent and speaking for themselves. Once a painting is finished though I have no interest in them whatsoever even though it may have caused me endless agonies of one sort or another during the making process but once its finished its dead and I gladly move to the next one.

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

My work involves a coming together of contrasting languages, painting styles and searching for new spatial arrangements. This can often seem too much to ask for at times and produces many unsuccessful pieces but it’s something worth risking. I would love to paint bigger paintings but in the past for one reason or another I’ve lacked the courage and made a mess, I don’t know why this intimidates me but it’s something for the future maybe. Small paintings are ok but they do not have the power or presence of bigger ones.

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

I recently started to use oil paint and this has its own problems especially after working with water-based paint for years. It needs a different mentality and patience and decisions have to be more concrete in a way. But it’s something I may experiment with again in the near future. Collage is a medium, which gives me the greatest control and allows for instant chopping and changing. I often put coloured or painted pieces of paper directly onto the painted canvas to disrupt the image- this has often proved very fruitful and allows for new possibilities.

Untitled, acrylic on canvas, 75 x 50 cm, 2011

What does the future hold for this work?

I don’t know really everyday it seems I am maneuvering slowly into position for better more resolved work but I suppose all painters think that. Stay in the present is a constant mantra for me and the future takes care of itself.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would say that exhibitions are probably too few and far between at the moment unless I do it myself. Doing the work seems hard enough without having to go out and sell it. Also doing this interview has made me think long and hard about my work and my methods, it’s something I haven’t done in a long time. Taking time out to actually analyze and examine one’s practice has been enlightening to say the least so thank you.

Teaching in an art college for 16-19 year olds also provides lots of benefits. I find younger minds can have a vision unencumbered by too much experience and history and can be very inspirational at times.

SEAN MONTGOMERY

Darts, 2011, acrylic & gorilla glue on wood, 10" diameter

What are you working on in your studio right now?

Currently I am working on a whole bunch of small scale acrylic paintings and a newly started grouping of crayon based works on paper.

Can you describe your working routine?

I don’t have a set working time of day, but I like to get things done most days. I’m kind of a compulsive image maker. When I go to the studio I look at what’s in progress and decide which painting I want to work on. Then I’ll put on some music or the radio and get to work. When I complete a work, or get tired of working on one piece, I move on to another.

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

My studio space is in the basement of my house. It is very convenient for the commute, and when I want a sandwich. I live in Ithaca, New York. The studio space is exposed concrete and open beams. There are two small windows that let in almost no natural light. I work under exposed Gustonesque light bulbs. There are a series of metal tangs that I can hang little paintings on. This allows me to see a number of recently completed or in progress works all at once. I generally paint in my lap, on the floor, or on a fold out work table, while sitting in a chair. I generally have about two dozen works on the go. The studio is conducive to small scale works, but I can make some medium scale works if I feel like it. I don’t have any ventilation, so working in oil would be a no no, but I prefer acrylic anyhow.

Banger, 2010, acrylic & gorilla glue on canvas, 10 x 8"

Sarge, 2010, acrylic & gorilla glue on canvas, 10 x 8"

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

I usually start with a preconceived icon, often from a found image or small thumbnail sketch. I keep a lot of little sketchbooks and notepads. From there, I begin working with materials. I try to limit my ‘mistakes’, but when something really goes off the rails it often provides a new point of departure to become a new piece I hadn’t thought of.

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

I have several little paintings I am not quite sure how to resolve right now. Either I’ll paint things out to start somewhat anew, or else just let them sit on the wall, simmering, and think about them.

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

I like to experiment with different materials. Although primarily based in acrylic, my works also incorporate a number of unconventional materials. I don’t have an art store in my city, so I try to make good use of hardware store finds. The materials also allow a further link to the subject matter. These include: spray foam insulation, Canadian pennies, foam insulation board, burlap, plastic, Gorilla Glue, spray paint, newspaper and wood.

Bubblin´ crude, 2011, acrylic & gorilla glue on canvas, 10 x 8"

What does the future hold for this work?

Working small and quickly allows me to explore ideas rapidly and develop bodies of work that flow into one another. I am looking forward to broadening my base of source imagery and finding new collage materials to incorporate into my work. I am also working on some slightly larger pieces, moving up from a 8x10” standard scale to 16x20”

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thanks so much for including me on your blog. There are lot of great Canadian artists working right now who often are quite unknown outside of Canada. Among many others (check out the links section on my website), I’d like to mention Eliza Griffiths, Eric Simon and my buddy Vitaly Medvedovksy.

BARBARA CAMPBELL THOMAS

Line pile, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 9 x 8"

What are you working on in your studio right now?

My studio is in a highly experimental phase right now.  I finished a group of paintings this spring that have consumed my focus for the past two years, so now I find myself in a kind of aftermath of that work—still interested in aspects of what I was doing, but also wanting things to move along.  It’s a somewhat uncomfortable place to be as nothing feels quite pinned down or fully articulated, but it’s also an exciting time in the studio.  New questions are surfacing.  A deep love and interest in collage is re-asserting itself alongside the desire to make paintings.  And I am reveling in the amorphous sense of possibility I detect in an investigation into how the innate, particular materiality of collage might condition the innate, particular materiality of painting—and vice versa.  I figure by making, so unearthing possibility in the studio means making a lot of nutty things en route to understanding. 

I’ve got small paintings going that are made out of layers and layers of paint and fabric and paper.  I’ve got a wall collage in progress that is gathering size and sense slowly out of accumulated bits of paper.  I’m working in my sketchbook a lot—making many small, quick collages that help keep my eye moving.  And I’ve been experimenting with paint on various surfaces aside from canvas and paper—my thought is that a lot of these tests will get taken apart and reworked into other paintings eventually.

Can you describe your working routine?        

As the mother of a newborn baby and a six-year-old child, I don’t have set working hours.  Instead I have to be calmly flexible with when and how I work.  So the daily studio routine from my pre-child life has given way to a more cyclical pattern of working a lot during certain seasons, and less during others.  I work most during the typical academic school year, as my older son is in school and I’ve got several days a week when I am not teaching at a nearby university.  On those glorious studio days, I get to the studio between 8 and 9 and work pretty much straight through until my son gets home at 3.  These blocks of studio time are augmented by hours grabbed here and there.  But my husband is also an artist, so we work to help the other get into the studio as much as possible.    

Another habit that supplements studio hours is keeping a sketchbook.  I’m nearly always working on small drawings or collages in a sketchbook that I carry around the house—the portability of a sketchbook and its adeptness at keeping my looking fresh and constant make this manner of working a necessity to me.

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

I work in a renovated studio building just off the back porch of my home.  My studio was a garage in a former life, as well as a meeting place for a local Boy Scout troop.  Since my husband and I bought our house, which is situated on two acres of rural land, we’ve gradually cleaned up the space—whitewashed the whole room, replaced the garage door with a sliding glass door and added sheet rock to some of the bigger wall expanses.  This is the second studio space I’ve had that exists on the same property as my house but stands separate from the living space.  I like working so close to where my family lives.  Practically, having a studio near them is the only way I can consistently get work done amidst the demands of raising children and teaching.  But secondly, I draw from my living environment a lot while in the studio.  I mentioned the fact that my husband is an artist; his studio is a separate small building just beyond my own.  Living with someone who is also engaged in constant dialogue with images, seeing the work he is doing in such close proximity to me, and talking to him about his ideas and images is a real support to me as I work—especially when times are tough in the studio.    

I think my connection to the place in which I work is best described in a recent blog post of mine.  I began with an excerpt from Vigen Guroian’s book The Fragrance of God, “We return through memory to things, places, and events in the past in order to find purpose and direction in our lives.  Meaningful time is elliptical time.”  In response I wrote:

 As I wash my six-year-old son's infant clothes in preparation for the infant son I have yet to meet, I slide back and forth between this present moment of expectation and the first moments of my eldest son's life so long/but so short ago.
Such a collision of living and remembering yield the sort of snippets of color and pattern and shape and visceral experience I gather in the studio--fragmented panoplies that start and stop, compress and expand into orders all their own.  Abstraction is the longed-for underbelly of this life I live and love--the longed-for unseen I try to eke out amidst the adamant/fluid present. 

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

All of my work begins with the intrigue of seeing something I’ve never seen before or with seeing something newly.  The quality of these kinds of visual experiences is what I take with me into the studio—more so than the actual visual experience itself.  So if I am taken by an arrangement of pumpkins and watermelons sitting on our back porch, I care little about the fact that I am looking at pumpkins and watermelons.  I’m interested in the strange formal rhythms of their awkward shapes, and the intensity of the orange and green seeming to hover above the grey porch floor.  But I’m even more interested in the fact that the “daily-ness” of my life is being impinged upon by this slow moment of unexpected, odd visual delight.  In such instances I do feel as though I’m being given a glimpse into another reality—one hidden from me, but existing alongside me nonetheless. 

I look for a similar experience when I make work.  (In fact I think of the studio as a factory for making those experiences visual and physical.)  But over time I’ve found I can never just recreate in the studio what I’ve seen out in the world.  Something always falls flat in translation.  I’ve got to happen upon the experience I seek over the course of working.  So I don’t head into working with any hard and fast notions of what I’m going to make.  I simply start putting color and shape together and I watch what results very closely.  And I tend to work quickly—making lots of visual decisions fast, and working on a lot of paintings and collages at once.  Of course my speed means that I get a couple images that hit their mark out of a lot of images that simply don’t, but my failures simply get taken apart and re-used in collages.  I really like the notion of a studio as a self-generating space; that is how I think about my own studio.  Everything gets used; very few scraps of paper or pieces of canvas or piles of unused paint are ever thrown out.  They get stowed in one of many scrap boxes, or stored in glass jars until they find new life (or give new life) to other collages, drawings or paintings.

A painting or collage is finished when I feel like it departs from me or can stand alone without me.  It has its own momentum.  And in the best, though rare case scenario, an image is finished when it feels like it’s just always been, like it was nearly not made by me—it’s a curiosity I can’t stop watching. 

Green maze, 2011, acrylic & collage on paper, 13.5 x 9.25"

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

It seems that every 5-6 years I hit a wall with painting.  I think what happens in these times is that the working definition of painting I carry with me into the studio each day (comprised of how I understand painting materially and how I see painting in relation to life as I grasp it) expires.  It’s kind of like I meet up with all the unknown limitations I’ve placed on what painting is, or what it could be and now I have to carve out a whole new space for painting in my world.  So I wrestle heartily with the medium for a good long time until I eventually make my way into that whole new space.  This is where I am right now.

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

I experiment with different materials when I am trying to shake myself up in the studio, and when I am trying to push myself forward materially or conceptually.  I also experiment with different materials when I am lost.  Beyond those instances I tend to stick with acrylic paint on canvas and paper-based collages.  I like to think that when I am focusing on a material I am working to know the material better or use it in more complicated ways.  Some days this is true. 

Red & Green, 2011, acrylic & collage on paper, 9 x 8"

What does the future hold for this work?

I’m not entirely sure.  I believe I’ll come to some resolve about my questions concerning painting and collage.  Principally, I think the paintings will get bigger, will probably come off a stretcher, and will meld more fluidly with the medium of collage.  And I think some of the more ordered visual structures I’ve been working with will continue to give way to more chaotic, frenetic structures.   But I’m also curious to see what the presence of an infant will bring to the studio over the next couple months.  My first son’s birth forced changes in working that brought clarity to my approach and to the direction of my work, so hopefully I’m in for the same this time around.

               

Is there anything else you would like to add?

The soundtrack-to-my-working on repeat in the studio this summer is the most recent tune-yards album WHO-KILL.  Fantastic!