Rita Kaisen
Artist
Thursday 14 March 2019
Monday 27 August 2018
Question 3
regarding the 'pebble project'
S.W:
How a spectator/viewer physically
approaches a painting is always interesting, standing far enough back
for any image to properly register, but then hopefully drawn in to
study the brushwork. I'm so glad you mentioned this. What
do you think about when you are actually applying the paint?
R.K:
One of the problems I had back in
Devon, before I decided to go 'back to basics', was 'over-thinking'
and 'over-analysing' my work. An artist can, in my experience, think
the art work to a death.
I could not turn off the 'inner
censor', and it was a major distraction. Thankfully painting and
drawing the pebbles changed that destructive thinking pattern.
I love to really look, (and to really
see!) and you need to concentrate totally when wanting to really
look, and really see. The somewhat awkward process of looking through
a magnifying glass, and then at the canvas, backwards and forward,
and through the act of painting, discovering more and more detail.
There does not seem to be room for any unwanted thoughts while I'm
involved in this process.
Sometimes I will think of other
things... I will suddenly remember something from long ago...or a
dream I had the night before. Sometimes these memories are quite
intense.
If the work is not going well, my
thoughts might start to drift...and then it's best to take a break.
But mostly, if I'm working well, my
thoughts are only about the painting process while I'm painting. The
'analysing' is done when I look at the painting in between the
'painting sessions'.
Tuesday 21 August 2018
Question 4
regarding the 'pebble project
S.W:
'It sounds like you have carefully
eliminated a lot of things and honed a process to allow 'flow' in the
making part of your practice; and then are able to step back and
analyse more critically. Is it possible for you to tell me more about
the analysis?
Are you happier with some works more
than others? If so, what is it about them that makes them more
successful in your eyes?'
R.K:
An 'elimination' of sorts has to take
place during every painting project. The process might be divided
into stages, so that the first stage is looking for, and selecting a
stone to paint.
The next stage is looking at, and maybe
sketching the selected stone. Then comes the painting process, and
during this the 'intent' will evolve.
I think a painting I can be happy with
is one where the paint has become 'something in itself'...
when the subject-matter has been
drained (so to speak), and the real stone is the one on the canvas,
(although at this point, not a stone at all!) The canvas is also
gone...I work to saturate the canvas so that hardly anything remains
of the canvas weave.)
All of this is of cause mostly 'a
feeling', but it's the process of actual painting that allows that
transition...the 'detection work', and then a transition into a sort
of abstraction, or 'new truth'.
I start off by looking intensely at the
stone, and gradually end up shifting that intense looking to the
canvas...in there lies the 'analysis'...if you can call it that.
Tuesday 14 August 2018
Question 5
Regarding the 'pebble project'
('Single Striped Pebble', Oil on canvas 86 x 78 cm)
('Single Striped Pebble', Oil on canvas 86 x 78 cm)
S.W:
'You
talked earlier about avoiding narrative meaning, and I would argue
you have been successful. Instead, you have created something
deliciously enigmatic and mysterious, yet your titles are dry and
matter-of-fact. Can you say more about your titles? Are you tempted
to call your paintings something more mysterious?'
R.K:
My titles are carefully thought out. I
deliberately want to give a very dry 'pointer', rather than a more
enigmatic title. By giving the paintings matter-of-fact titles I hope
to give the viewer a factual starting point, to allow the further
reading of the image to be free and open-ended.
I have called the painting: 'Single
striped pebble', because that was my starting point. It was what I
was looking at, initially: a pebble with a single, thin stripe
running round it.
Lets imagine some different titles for
a moment. I could have called the painting: 'Large pebble found on
sunny Devon beach' (already the title gives (unpleasant) emotional
pointers).
I could have gone full-on Howard
Hodgkin, and called it: 'Birthday cake on beach love was dead'... Or
perhaps more abstractly poetic: 'Fracture of spirit'...'Emotional map
#3'.... 'Meditation on divided space'. Etc. etc.
All those titles makes me cringe... I
feel strongly that the only 'right' title is a factual one.
To call my paintings 'untitled' would
also be wrong to my mind... If I call the painting 'untitled' it
somehow suggests that I'm asking the viewer to tell me what they are
looking at. I guess the irony is that we do in fact, as artists, ask
that question: ...what is it you/we look at??... but I think the
image needs to ask that question by itself.
Sunday 12 August 2018
'Thinking about painting/thinking
about drawing'
Oil paint, and
charcoal on primed canvas
Rita Kaisen
The idea that painting and drawing can
somehow be combined is an old obsession of mine.
Many attempts at this 'combination
idea' ended with me pulling my hair out in despair.
I came to (largely) separate the two
distinctly different ways of expression. The work produced for this
exhibition was an experiment, and it has reminded me of how
co-dependent the two disciplines really are.
This painting/drawing was a deliberate
question: when is a painting a drawing?....when is a drawing
no-longer a pure drawing?...and why? And most importantly: does it
even matter??
This is not a comfortable work, and
this was not plain sailing. It's never easy to draw, or paint, but
this was difficult for other reasons than the usual ones.
It was very difficult to keep the
questions I was asking myself at the top of the agenda... I forced
myself to leave certain marks, (quite a lot of marks) because they
felt true to drawing, but less so to painting.
The image is a painting/drawing of a
small stone. The stone is largely grey/black/white, but with a tinge
of red and blue in the dominant white stripe.
I originally wanted to keep the image
monochrome in line with the idea of pure drawing, but simply had to
put the red and blue in there! (and again: is drawing necessarily
monochrome??)
the yellow was a happy accident. I used
Buff titanium/mixing white.....it's a tube of paint I bought to bulk
out the white in the undercoats, to save on my Titanium white. It
shows up as yellow, and happens to be almost identical to the colour
of the raw canvas. That tickles me, because of the huge importance of
the paper, or ground, in drawing.... especially if a drawing is to be
viewed as original and not a reproduction.
Some prominent questions:
- Monochrome ? …... No, not necessarily.
- Ink, pen, brush, pallet knife ? …..... Not really important.
- The base/surface ? ….. not really important.
- Drawing digitally, with shadow etc. ? ….yes, any tool.
- Line, dot, line becoming a shading.... 'taking the line for a walk' ? …. Yes, all of that stuff.
- Can drawing and painting be combined ?? ….. yes... and no!
- Is drawing and painting totally different things?? ..... yes.
- Is painting and drawing co-dependent?? ….. yes, to me.
- Does it matter?? ….. yes, to me.
Saturday 11 August 2018
Question 1
regarding drawing
S.W:
Stephen Carley describes drawing as 'a
form of collating, remembering, archiving, information gathering.'
What is drawing for you?
R.K:
Drawing is a lot of different things to
me.. (and a lot of things besides!)
The sketch ..the quick recording of an
idea, for sure, but I have never really been a 'sketch book artist'.
I tend to write about my ideas in notebooks, and a quick drawing
might be needed, but really only a doodle...having said that.. I do
quite a lot of doodling!
As I'm now mostly painting from
life....I use drawing as a way of 'getting to know' the object/pebble
I'm going to paint (Stephen's definition in a way?).... But when is a
sketch a step towards something else ?.. and when is it a work in
it's own right?? (an issue that kind of separates modern art from the
classical, traditional 'method'... probably starting with Cezanne who
(maybe seen in retrospect) elevated the 'sketch' to a work in it's
own right … he also had some pretty weird, and contradicting ideas
about drawing!)
But when I'm doing relatively quick
drawings of the object I intend to paint in order to 'get to grips'
with the shape and structure.... I think this makes my approach to
painting quite traditional. I do value those drawings too though...as
they 'express' something that the painting can't.
Drawing is also a separate, and
entirely self-contained expression for me. In a way I paint what I
can't express in drawing, and draw what I don't feel I can properly
achieve in painting. My paintings are observational, and my 'graphic
novel format' drawings are born out of a totally different
culture/genre, and set of ideas.
I spent years trying to 'combine
drawing and painting'.. and I'm not even quite sure what that really
means anymore (only that I was never happy with the results) ... I
think good painting depends on good drawing, but my drawing is not
dependent on my painting... only in that one can't substitute the
other, and both feed of each other.
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