Michael Bird author and art historian in discussion with Simon Williams in studio No.5 in Porthmeor Studios, St Ives on 29th October 2018.
Michael: So Simon we are standing in front of a big painting it has a kind of big flat blue background and a big impact thing going on in the middle of this painting what is it called?
Simon: Chevalier
Michael: So could you tell me about it
Simon: In an introduction to one of my works of art, the thing I struggle with a little bit is the title then looking at the work because titles for me operate more as markers a means to identify a piece of work.
Michael: So does the title come first?
Simon: the title comes after after the work, really.
Michael: Where does chevalier come from
Simon: With Chevalier I was looking at that words and I was looking at the description of it being a sort of flamboyance and that's some thing I felt was a the heart of this picture with this really impactful intense yellow, nucleus of energy that I have put in this piece.
Michael: the nucleus of energy is an interesting idea the background is very flat mat colour, but in the middle you are using a very different technique there, could you say a little bit about that and how you create that explosion there.
Simon: Well those folding silk like qualities of paint there done with a pallet knife and its a process....(pause).. a rehearsed mark I suppose. My work is very much about creating a vocabulary of marks its an intuitive reaction to placing marks on a canvas and then feeling my way as to whether I need to adjust something that be colour or shape...... so I don't have a set idea of what the composition is going to start out or end up being its more of a process of putting paint on and intuitively reacting to it.
Michael: when you say a rehearsed mark what do you mean by that?
Simon: I mean I kind of Know...... I know how to make these folds of paint, so its something I have practised a number of times a to create a technique that I know will make three dimensional marks.
Michael: and is that important the kind of activity what you call the rehearsed mark these very distinctive folds of paint and the calmness and the flatness of the background is that important.
Simon: it is I guess they feed of one another everything I do is very intense in terms of its activity everything tessellates jiggles and moves around.. that something I really like but I guess if the whole canvas was covered with that activity then it would become too noisy and too difficult to look at perhaps
Michael: and there is something about these marks that remind me for example street art, graffiti is that a big influence in your work
Simon: it is absolutely it is something I want to reference ….. because its a visual stimulus for my work.... a visual stimulus that and cartoons which are something that I grew up with and is in the back of my psyche when ever I put paint down on a canvas
Michael: but street art and cartoons there is often a text you will see such as the big tags scribbled on the side of the railway tracks but you don't use text do you?
Simon: I don't I have got a desire to, but I find its quite contrived..... when I do it... and soon as I feel that contrived nature of it, I shy away from it so....I think there is a familiarity perhaps about some of these marks that you feel you understand it and people have often have said to me 'that looks like a piece of print' and I really like that it challenges the visual perception of the viewer when they come to the piece they think the can decode process but there are marks on there that when they actually look they see its physical paint
Michael:: so people think that maybe its made using some kind of graphic technique like screen printing or something like that but actually its a very traditional painterly approach hands on pallet knife and brush
Simon: it is in the very core of my work the desire to bring together what we know of gestural abstraction, graffiti and cartoon with referencing of modern culture of the iPhone and iPads that's why layering texturing is so important to me that creating a three dimensional space
Michael: lets move on to this painting even bigger painting with even more going here... you have got still the dark flat quite calm background but the painting is full of impact and energy what is this painting called?
Simon: this painting is called 'Gum Boot' and the title refers to the dance that has developed overtime in South Africa where the gold miners they used to give them Wellington boots because they where stuck in terrible conditions often chained to their work stations.... they where given Wellington boots to stop ulcers that where created standing in water all day and the miners developed a way of communicating to one another by tapping and drumming on their Wellington boots.. I was thinking about this at the time of making this painting.... its not a representation of that but its an energy I suppose wanted to imbue in the work and that's why I called it this title 'Gum Boot'.
Michael: that's interesting so the boot thing is about dancing moving but its also about communicating as well but not in a literal way not through words.
Simon: So its a sound and I often...when I look at some of my own work I hear sound or imagine sound in my head.
Michael: that's interesting there is something about this that reminds me when you see sound visually as a graph when editing sound....an energy
Michael:Simon as well as the canvases you are going to show you have some works on paper is their a strong relation ship between the two sides of the work for you?
Simon: there is the works on paper are something I really enjoy because unlike canvas where you can put paint on and easily take it of you can't with paper its something very committal about it so I rather like that dangerous relation where it feels that you have this valuable piece of paper and that when you put oil paint down you have got to resolve the mark. I have made some larger pieces that will be shown in the exhibition.
Michael: so here it does look very much as though you have been using a technique that look s like a print looking at these flat bars of colour, but its all done with oil paint?
Simon: it is, in this instance done with oil paint and a lot of masking tape. I really like the quality of screen printing for a long time I have wanted to emulate that in the marks I made, so this way of preparing paper with alkyd primer has been a game changer enabling me to put oil on with out it degrading the fabric of the paper.
Michael: and you think this freedom that you have got, this freedom of mark making is feeding through into your canvases
Simon: I do and in something like this piece I'm putting on these planes of colour to play with the visual perspectives, you know longer read the predominate image beneath you start to read these individual planes that is something I like to explore different ways of seeing
Michael: and on the trestles here we have got work in progress...where do you start?
Simon: I spend a lot of time priming the canvas which is ironic as I can end up putting lots of paint on so I try to create a fast surface for the paint with an even grain.
Michael: and do you work... the canvases are lying horizontally on these trestles do you work all the way round or do you have one particular angle to work from
Simon: I do and that's something that is great about having a studio as large as this between the trestles I can have a really large piece of work with the only limitation being how far I can stretch to make the mark
Michael: and has all the work been made for the show been made I this studio
Simon: yes within the porthmeor studios
Michael: has that effected your work
Simon: when I show people work they say 'can see you are by the sea at the moment' perhaps it does rub off... there is a lot of pale blue colours and as you look up now to the blue sky of St Ives it must be having a litmus effect.
Michael: you said that cartoons where important in your work tell me more about that
Simon: I think it is quite rare as an artist you are able to identify exactly why or when you where stimulated by a particular thing....for me a couple of years ago I was sorting through child hood books and one book I picked up and flicked through it upside down I was really shocked to see compositions and dynamics of space form and colours that I use on a day to day basis being revealed to me when I turned the book around and realised that this was one of my annuals as a child.
Michael: what was it called?
Simon: it was bugs bunny annual (laughter).... 1972 something about that had etched into my mind so it was a really joyous thing to find again, it made me realise why I like hot pinks why I like pale blues and the contrasting black lines around everything it was all contained in these books.
Michael: so its the colour and the vitality, cartoons have this slightly unpredictability, energy which makes them exciting.
Simon: yes it is but I've struggled for a long time to find a painted mark that had the graphic qualities that I liked. I wanted to find a mark that had that graphic power I think that's why using this oil paint with the pallet knifes allows me to push paint up and create a crisp edge but its not to premeditated it still has a freedom and energy to it something that has been a consistent them within the work.
Michael: but it has this sense of quite sharp graphic definition
Simon: it does I've loved for years painters like Albert Irvin who put a record of time down by their use of the gestural mark and that's what I think a gestural mark contains this moment in time this action and energy and that's something I love.