I've admired my friend Blanche's art for a while but it was only when she designed the banner for this site that I realised the depth of her talent and saw the range and beauty she creates everyday. I loved photographing her creative space and looking at her work.
Tell me about your work?
My work is a mix. When it comes to visual art much of my
work very figurative in drawing, painting or printing and, occasionally,
sculpture. For some years I have kept finding these elemental, primal figures
moving in chaotic landscapes or textures. Each one is me and they could be
anyone and, for me, they are more expressive than any definable face. I have
begun creating textures out of words. I admire painters particularly who can
capture the sense of something that is emerging, half-formed into being. I want
to explore a balance between form and the formless. I am hoping to take these
explorations to a more immersive, larger scale.
I also have a drive towards what people tend to call
community art projects, though I feel that communicative
arts is a better name. All art is communicative of course, but the
aim of my projects is to encourage a cultural shift towards richer and fuller
communication. I'm interested in philosophies and practices of education and
communication that are concerned with art as a part, practice and ritual of
daily life and not belong only to artists and galleries.
What materials do you like using and what effect do you feel this creates?
In my own work (non-community/communicative) I love to use a mix of materials. Sometimes I paint in oil or acrylic but I particularly love beginning with sketches, moving into the fluidity of inks, adding smudgy charcoal, mono-print or or watercolour backgrounds for atmosphere and then using pens and white acrylic to create highlights. The contrast between washes and pen detail creates a feeling of order in chaos. The chaos is the feel I really want to create, but chaos needs context to be seen, recognized or felt. The figures are often my context - a page of abstract movement suddenly becomes an environment we can imagine ourselves inside when a figure appears in it, rather than being just a surface that we look at from the outside.
At the moment I am in love with oil pastels, they're so vibrant and with the really thick ones you can build up the surface, I did this with my redhead series which also concerns the theme of appearing and disappearing, dissolving and being half-formed.
What are you currently working on?
Well, I was working mostly on portrait painting then I found
this commission for a community arts project in South
London based in the theme of Belonging. It struck a chord and I
felt that a past project I had done and wanted to extend would be a great starting
point for that commission. So I began with that idea and researching the area
and discussing and developing my ideas. I have a
strong drive to encourage other people to find their forms and avenues
of expression. This project is based in letter-writing. I'm planning to set up
letter-writing-chains out of cafes in the area so that each cafe has one long
chain of conversation containing the lives, ideas, fictions and feelings of the
people who pass through. So there will be a narrative, a patchwork story that
belongs to all the people who pass through and that they too belong to. There
would then be an exhibition and performances of the letter-chains by local
people and youth groups.
How is this different from past projects?
Well, as I say this project is inspired by one I did previously; Unworded Letters.
The main difference between the projects is that the first one, Unworded Letters, the letters were written in symbols. This had a host of effects in opening people up, expanding their range of expression and the sense of mystery and interest in those around them. The new project The Letter Chains of Lambeth (provisional title) will be composed of letters written in English with the result that people will create narratives that are accessible to those who haven't been personally involved in the project. The chain idea also means that each of the letters is more intrinsically linked to the others because they are written in direct response to one another rather than in a more isolated ceremony. This means there is a greater connection between participants and the community at large.
Which artists have been the biggest influence on you?
Now this is hard to say. I never really investigated contemporary community arts projects before I began my own, though the work of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada and various other artists I found through MOTA (Museum of Temporary art) have inspired me. Ben Wilson I find inspiring as an artist who works in public, works with his environment and makes art into something that is under our feet, not enshrined on white walls under fashionable lighting.
My projects arise mostly from recognising what I would like to see more of in the world and finding ways to communicate and achieve these things. This involves a lot of direct experimentation as with my Serendipity Project where I went out to bars with all my art materials and asked people to have visual conversations with me. Other influences include the art of other cultures, particularly where art and philosophy meet in a deep cultural understandgin of a balance in life that acknowledges our temporary nature and the cycles of our lives. For example, looking at Navajo sand paintings and Tibeten mandalas which are destroyed after careful completion, Warli art which is observational and ceremonial art integrated into living space and common practice and reading Native American Literature which suggests a different sense of time to the marching linear narrative of progress which I grew up with.
In my own visual work I am inspired by impressionist painters, i will often be inspired and remember the paintings but not the painter. Ones that sticks with me are Egon Shile the way he makes figures both fragile and hardened, strong and sickly, beautiful and repugnant. I like painters who use unreal colours to create their illusions. I really can't stand photo-realism in painting, it's not simply that it doesn't interest me, I find it actively frustrating in most cases where I feel the imagination, technical ability and prowess of the painter has been wasted on creating a copy rather than an interpretation. Of course some photo-realism does warp, emphasise and distort the subject, allowing in the imagination of the painter so I'm not speaking about all photo-realism. But this particular distaste tells a lot, in turn, about what I love: I love the loose, free styles where there's room for accident and those accidents are used in collaboration with imagination to create a greater depth in emotion, atmosphere and expression.
What can you tell me about your work space and your creative process?
Well, I may have mentioned chaos. Chaos is a big factor. I will occasionally rationalise my room/studio to a point and then it will all unravel again. I collect, normally on my way home at some hour of the morning, furniture of all kinds, table tops, sheets of glass etc etc. I collect scraps and throw almost nothing away though sometimes I kick myself into throwing out old lists of things to do and such peculiarities and ignore that part of me that says "but you might use them one day... in a collage, sew them into something, connect and paint them..." and so on.
The process often starts with scraps of old drawings or rough sketched ideas, I find it very hard to work on plain paper - to just begin - unless the work is purely observational, which it is less and less these days. I need texture and background and something to bounce off so these are the things I begin with and a piece of paper with some rough marks or faded lines on it is the perfect start.
Scraps is a key word. My world is a world of scraps and creating onto or out of them is what gives me the greatest pleasure.
How would you describe your personal style?
My clothing style, unsurprisingly, also has to do with practicality. I like chunky boots and big flat clogs to stomp around the world in. Then I feel prepared for anything. I wear lots of layers and have been told I look gypsy-ish in the way I dress since I was a teenager. I like to wrap up really warm in winter and love my boots, leg warmers and thick dresses. I do love waisted clothing as there is a comfy, firm, secure feeling about being hugged at the waist and I don't like a cold gap over my hips. Skirts that flare out when I dance make me happy and I love high-hipped loose-fitting jeans that come in at the ankle. I don't like tight clothing that restricts my movements as I want to be able to cart-wheel and jump up and down and don't want to feel restricted. I take a perverse pleasure in the dorkyness of some of my clothing and knowing that it is, nonetheless, exactly what I want. I have grown not to mind being told that I look a bit weird or foolish, I impersonate Charlie Chaplin to amuse myself on a regular basis so this comes with the territory and the clogs help. But then I also enjoy occasionally dressing myself up kinda nice and in a more traditionally feminine way and surprising people (having a variety of styles, as with my art, feels natural).
I'm not a keen shopper but most things come from charity shops so there's a sense of a find, of history and individuality and I can alter the garments as I please to suit me. I pretty much always get told I look like I'm from another era whether it be 30's, 60's, 80's, another century, or just not quite up to date. In terms of colours I am at home in warm autumn colours mostly, berries, burnished browns, and orange. I do like bottle green and turquoise too. I like to carry warm colours with me into the cold months especially.
Oh and lets not forget hats - come summer or winter I've got a hat on. I like my hats a little bit outlandish too, a step beyond the expected and bright or bold enough to actually make strangers smile. Hats are wonderful things.
You can see more of Blanche's art on her website.
