Entry - 4.10.21

 

I

I looked out the passenger window barely conscious of the shabby businesses and rundown houses that bordered the service road of Sunrise Highway, a conduit that had been an inescapable and abiding feature of my environment since my earliest childhood. Our family home was situated a few blocks from the highway, only a sprawling shopping plaza providing a critical buffer between this active thoroughfare and our residential enclave. Having experienced a number of transformations during my youth, this once sluggish byway punctuated with countless stoplights had evolved into a multi-laned superhighway sandwiched between two service roads. Now, whenever out in our yard, day or night, I experienced the rumbles, roars and squeals of cars and trucks racing by our neighborhood, a background din so persistent that regular exposure had deafened my ears to its presence.

I don't think my circumstances would be that different from most other kids growing up on Long Island in the 1960's. With the end of World War II, an insatiable demand for housing had spurred a development boom that eventually consumed every last scrap of available land however rugged, marshy or sloping. During this frenzy of development, historic Long Island was eradicated and the natural landscape subdued. A network of roads was established to serve the exploding population, and with every passing year traffic congestion grew worse and worse. Small errands within just a few miles of home would take forever. And while counties and municipalities rushed to address the needs of communities that seemed to pop up overnight, only the most essential services were provided. There were few cultural institutions. Public transportation was unreliable and inadequate. For real employment opportunity, New York City was your only reasonable destination. Long Island had been turned into an extended bedroom community provisioned by numerous shopping centers and malls and served by an enormous network of school districts. My mantra in those days was: suburbia is a place with all the problems of a city and none of its amenities.

But I wasn't thinking about the deficiencies of Long Island that day. I was embarking on an endeavor that would take me to New York City for an extended stay, and I was occupied with my private thoughts, still plotting out the details of how I would proceed with my project. As my father exited onto Deer Park Avenue, my mind turned to logistics – how I would navigate the trains and subways with my unwieldy gear and what objectives I needed to accomplish each day once I had reached my destination. Though my plans were a bit involved, I was excited at the prospect of getting out of the family home and immersing myself in work.

About a year earlier, while living in Brooklyn during my grad school studies, an untenable situation had developed with my apartment-mate which necessitated an urgent call to my parents seeking their permission to return home for an extended stay. They did not hesitate to give their okay. Even though my relationship with my parents was quite good, I was still deeply appreciative of their ready willingness to take me in again after my fairly brief foray into “independence”. As an expression of gratitude, I began tackling many of the niggling chores that had been left neglected of late around the ol' homestead. I spent weeks out in the yard mowing, weeding, raking, edging and trimming. I particularly recall inching along the street-side curb on my butt in the summer heat, pulling out the stubborn weeds that had penetrated through the asphalt and always refused to surrender easily to their fate. How many times as a young boy, head bowed between knobby knees splayed out from the legs of my ridiculously short shorts, had I performed this very same duty? After all my struggles to obtain an education, I couldn't help but feel a little amused at my situation... and disconcerted too.

Meeting my college expenses and getting established in an apartment had badly depleted my meager savings, so I had made an effort, somewhat ineffectually, to obtain local employment. Throughout my grad school years, I had served as a consultant at a state agency, had tutored children in NYC's Chinatown and had worked as a clerk at a 7-Eleven, never earning a substantial salary but always securing just enough cash to get by. A financial award from my college and a school loan had been instrumental in keeping me afloat as I had finished up my studies. Now that I was out of grad school, a quickly dwindling reserve of savings was all I had to meet my expenses. But all the same, I never felt constricted and, oddly enough, always seemed to have sufficient funds to meet my immediate needs.

As we proceeded along Deer Park Avenue, a two lane thoroughfare that, passing through some residential areas lined with shade trees, had retained some semblance of charm, we didn't talk much. My father was a quiet and gentle soul seldom asserting his presence forcefully on his children's lives. His impact was in deeds and not words. He was the epitome of dependability, always available to assist us, without complaint, in our youthful ventures and high jinks. His parenting style was definitely “hands off”, but, if you needed him, he would be out the door and on his way in a matter of minutes, day or night. The silence we shared wasn't awkward. One of the greatest comforts of familial relations is that the need to entertain or impress is nonexistent; too many years of daily essential contact had transpired for such trivial concerns to matter.

My father pulled into the railroad station parking lot, and I directed him to move out of the regular flow of traffic passing by the terminal to drop off travelers. I would need time to unload and organize my supplies. Once the car came to a stop in an inactive sector of the lot, I started to open my door when my father extended his hand to me. He was holding a wad of bills.

“Listen,” he said, “I appreciate the work you've been doing at the house, and I'm sure you might need a little money.”

I was very moved. Though we had never wanted for necessities at our home, I knew that money was always tight, leaving virtually no room for frivolous extravagances. This contribution certainly meant a real sacrifice for him.

“No, Dad. Really. I'm doing okay,” I replied, conveying as much confidence as I could muster. “I've put some money aside. But I'll definitely let you know if I get desperate.”

I got out of the car and retrieved from the backseat a large, handled shopping bag and a backpack crammed with clothing and supplies. After slipping on the backpack, I fed through the open passenger's window an extremely long and bulky item that resembled a sail-wrapped spar. I crouched down into the car to say goodbye to my father and thank him for the ride, and he sort of smiled at me. “Hey. I know you're going to make it. You work so hard at it.”

I grinned. “I'm not so sure about that. But thanks.”

While I heaved my “spar” upon my shoulder and headed for the station, I felt a bit flummoxed. As I have stated earlier, my father was a man of few words. I believe that up till then I could count on one hand the number of conversations we shared that could have been categorized in the contemporary lingo as “heavy”, and here he was prognosticating optimistically about my future prospects... just as I was rushing to catch a train with my arms loaded with a ton of shit. I was far from certain about what he meant by “making it”. I wasn't even sure if I had any firm idea of what I was trying to accomplish, what achievement would leave me satisfied and if I even held faith in such an elusive concept as “success”. But one thing was clear to me: having witnessed my years of persistent effort, my father empathized with me and was becoming concerned about my welfare. I was grateful.

I entered the station, bought a ticket, then climbed the concrete steps to wait on the platform. When the train arrived, I clumsily boarded and squeezed through the heavy metal doors that opened onto the passenger compartment. Making my way down the aisle, being very careful not to inadvertently whack anyone in the head, I scanned the overhead racks to find a span long enough to accommodate my “spar”, which when standing on its end was nearly as tall as myself. I was peripherally aware of disconcerted and irritable stares following my activities as I hoisted my load onto the rack and took a seat. As the train accelerated out of the station, I pulled a book out of my bag, then slouched down in my seat, feeling relieved to have completed this first leg of my journey.

Gerard Wickham, Portrait of My Father, 1981

II

I had known John Matthews ever since my younger brother Tim had enrolled in his mother's cub scout pack. At a nearby schoolyard Tim and I would often run into John and his grandfather, a stocky, elderly man with a thick Irish brogue. Tim and I would be walking Sam, our Terrier Spaniel Mix, while they were giving Pepper, a purebred German Shepherd, an outing. Eventually, John started joining our band of neighborhood kids who socialized and played sports together – in particular participating in our daily half-field, self pitch baseball games throughout the summer months. John didn't have an easy time penetrating this tight-knit company of youths who for the most part shared a history that had commenced in babyhood. Being an outsider, he suffered a lot of ridicule and derision, but he never let it dampen his spirits, continually reappearing on our doorsteps ready to endure whatever new abuse would be meted out that day. I couldn't help but admire him for this.

Gerard Wickham, Portrait of John Matthews, 1980

With time, John successfully integrated into our band and, having weathered a storm of persecution for years, had developed into an independent, confident freethinker who pursued his interests and goals unfazed by the approbation or criticism of others. On his own, he competed with the swim team for years, cultivated a taste for serious literature and developed into a capable musician, traveling into the city to jam with Old-Timey performers while still in High School. Later on, after dropping out of NYU, he traveled widely throughout the United States, alone and with just a few bucks in his pocket.

Gerard Wickham, Portrait of John Matthews, 1980

After my journey on the Long Island Railroad and the NYC subway system, I arrived at the apartment John was subletting from a friend, a hairdresser who used the location both as his living quarters and for his business needs. The place was a modern and attractive, ground-level studio situated (if I recall correctly) in the eighties a couple of blocks off of Manhattan's Museum Mile. The walls and furniture were austerely white, a sign of the most contemporary taste at that time, and the floor was fashioned from highly polished, blonde wood. Because his friend actually worked on his affluent clientele in the unit, he had installed a quality sound system complete with a set of bathroom speakers to entertain his guests during hair washings and cuts. It seemed to be the perfect location to execute my task.

Gerard Wickham, Portrait of John Matthews, 1981

As planned, I set to work almost immediately, extricating my stretcher strips from their canvas cocoon and constructing a perfectly squared frame on which to spread my already measured and precut rectangle of canvas. I needed to get the first coat of gesso on my canvas before dinner, so it would be dry and ready for a second coat upon our return. At that time, I commonly added sand to my gesso to enhance its texture, and I retrieved a coffee can filled with Fire Island beach sand from my bag. After a few hours work, we headed out the door to enjoy a meal at one of the many local establishments, and later I applied my second coat of gesso to the canvas before going to sleep on the sofa.

Each ensuing day followed a predictable pattern. After a quick breakfast, John would leave for his job at a nearby lighting store while I prepared for a day of painting. Having selected the music that would accompany my efforts that day, I would set up my palette, mix up my thinning medium and then paint throughout the day. When John returned in the evening, I would finish up my work, clean my brushes and dispose of my palette before going out for dinner at a nearby affordable restaurant, selected by John whose weeks of living in the area had provided with an invaluable expertise. Then we'd head out for a night of drinking prior to returning to the apartment and starting the cycle once more. It was a rigorous routine, no doubt, but also one that sparked intense creativity and provided a sense of profound intellectual satisfaction.

Gerard Wickham, Portrait of John Matthews, 1983

As with most of my more ambitious works, the idea for this painting had germinated quite a while ago and had been kicking about my brain for some time. John, being a serious musician, had often introduced me to a lot of great new music. There was a piece that he played for me repeatedly which featured a narrator who in a booming, pompous voice shares his observations concerning the ladies of Paris. His pronouncements are all shallow and clichéd and, in my opinion, were intended to expose an underlying chauvinistic bias in the male perspective. My not-so-perfect memory suggests that the piece was written by Philip Glass, a composer about whom John was particularly enthusiastic at that time, but of that I'm far from certain. (Can anyone help me out here?) Anyway, I began to entertain thoughts of painting my own image of the ladies of Paris within which I would defy the offensive, hackneyed platitudes, exhibiting both a sexist and cultural bigotry, that were commonly promulgated in the media. My intention was to present a ring of four nude women who, rather than express the uniformity and anonymity of the stereotype, would, in pose and gesture, represent very specific attributes. Furthermore, opposing figures in my ring would exhibit traits that negated those of her corresponding partner. In a very abbreviated and immediate fashion, I hoped to lure the viewer into anticipating the satisfying affirmation of a familiar and comfortable perception only to discover that the image refused to permit that. But I want to make clear that my intentions were not pedantic. I had no interest in educating or enlightening my audience. My motive in creating this work was in presenting an image that embodied coinciding perspectives which seemingly negated each other.

To achieve this delicate balance between perspectives, I relied on technical and aesthetic devices that essentially cloaked specificity within a complex layering of surfaces and a linear network of gestural brushwork. I used no source material in this work, relying wholly on my imagination in its creation. There was no need for preliminary sketches, since the evolution of my conception contributed to its aesthetic character. The adjustments I made, the repositioning of figures and the distortions I imposed upon them, enhanced the visual allure of the painting while promoting the ambiguity I desired. I began by roughly laying out my composition on the canvas in super-thinned oils, then blocking in general areas of tone in thicker paints. I regularly reevaluated my efforts, sometimes deciding to scrape off wet layers of paint and at other times choosing to wipe off or smear it to permit the subsequent reworking of an area. In applying paint, I used a variety of brushes ranging in size from very fine to extremely broad, and I often worked with a palette knife. In wax-coated paper cups, I mixed up solutions of thinned paints which I applied to the canvas in rapid strokes, commonly working mechanically, relying on intuition to guide my hand. As the painting gelled, I became more comfortable using impasto, knowing that the basic structure of the work was established and would not change too dramatically later on. I painted my figures in tones of garish pinks and peaches, suggesting the lurid imagery of pornography which I presented incongruously within a high art setting. At one point, I indicated summarily a generic city skyline but, finding the reference too concrete and dissimilar to the rest of the painting, subsequently eradicated it almost entirely. When I sensed the work was nearing completion, I “redrew” the composition in dilute solutions of pure black and white applied in broad, gestural strokes. This process provided the image, up until then a loose arrangement of planes of color infiltrated by lines, with an overweening structure that more aptly suggested form while emphasizing anchors and thrusts within its composition.

As is my usual practice, I allowed for a final day of labor once the painting was ostensibly realized. I spent hours examining the work, scrutinizing it up close, then distancing myself from it or selecting different angles from which to view it. I addressed details that disturbed me, tonalities that needed adjustment and compositional irregularities. On this day, most of my effort was devoted to seeing rather than painting. When John returned from work that day, I happily informed him that the painting was complete.

Gerard Wickham, Portrait of John Matthews, 1983

I should add that throughout my stay John had been regularly discussing with me his intention to install full-spectrum lighting above the painting. He explained that most artificial light sources only provide light from a small segment of the spectrum, while full-spectrum lighting, as it name suggests, covers the entire spectrum, making it much more akin to natural light. Within his responsibilities at the lighting and décor shop, he had been installing these lighting systems in the homes of many wealthy Manhattanites and had seen firsthand the impact they achieved, particularly on artwork. He would be able to obtain all of the components from his shop for next to nothing by purchasing open-boxed items gleaned from returns or upgrades. I was skeptical and didn't encourage him. To my way of thinking, a painting is an independent object and, as such, must function within whatever lighting is available, whether natural, incandescent or fluorescent. Undaunted by my lack of enthusiasm, John began preparing for the installation, returning from his job each day with some new item. Eventually, in the evenings when I wasn't painting, he was up on a ladder, drilling, hooking up wires and positioning power tracks.

On the last evening of my stay, with his installation complete and the painting finished, wired and hung, still quite wet, upon the wall, John turned on the new lights and we stepped back to view The Ladies of Paris. I was amazed at how big a difference the full-spectrum lighting made. The painting really sang. I believe I can fairly state that we were both pretty satisfied. I had added a successful major work to my oeuvre, and John wouldn't have to share his living space with an abomination. We went out one last time to enjoy a celebratory dinner and down a few drinks. In the morning, I packed up my things, took one last look at the painting and headed out for home. The entire process had taken about a week, more or less.

Gerard Wickham, The Ladies of Paris, 1985

III

During the following months, John informed me that he often observed individuals outside his apartment stopping to examine The Ladies of Paris, which was hung beside huge windows that opened onto the sidewalk at street level. On one occasion, he responded to a tapping on the glass to find a group of young women gathered at the window who wanted to get a better look at the work and learn a little more about it. I must admit that my interest in executing this painting in situ was both practical and promotional. I wanted the work to be very large. It is, in fact, the largest single-paneled painting that I have ever created. I knew that, once the canvas was stretched and the painting executed, conveying it on public transportation would become an impossibility. But I was also motivated by a longing for exposure, specifically at a location that would experience a lot of street traffic from a potentially sophisticated, art-wise public. So I was very gratified to learn that the painting was inspiring interest.

Unfortunately, within a relatively short time, John informed me that his sublet was over and he had to move out of the apartment. But he would still be living in the general area. So, on a quiet evening, he and I carried The Ladies of Paris along the sidewalks of Manhattan, squeezing through crowds and rushing across streets to avoid traffic. If I had to move the painting today, I would carefully wrap it in several layers of thick plastic tarp and secure it with tape and rope, but I didn't think like that then. I was used to transporting paintings, often still wet, on buses and subways in all kinds of weather and never thought to cover them. My existence was a little more helter-skelter; there simply wasn't the time or the money to be dainty. Consequently, without any protection whatsoever, we lugged the painting through the city, with me painfully aware of the fact that just one strong gust of wind could be disastrous for such a large work, possibly misaligning or snapping the stretcher strips and distending the canvas beyond repair. I definitely had some misgivings but plunged ahead anyway. Naturally, it being New York City, pedestrians stopped us on the sidewalk, asked to see the painting and provided impromptu reviews on the street corners. Somehow, we pulled off the operation without a hitch.

Following a second move through the streets of Manhattan, I realized that The Ladies of Paris had to find a more permanent and secure birth. Therefore, much to John's chagrin, after one of my own moves within Brooklyn, we drove the U-Haul truck into Manhattan, fetched the painting and then stored it, resting on wooden supports and covered by a drop cloth, in my parents' basement – a sort of somber turn of events for a work whose origins were so social and public.

Afterword

I only painted my father once, though I drew him on multiple occasions. While posing for the portrait included here, he predictably fell asleep, his chin dropping to his chest leaving only the crown of his head visible to me. I used whatever information I had already gotten on the canvas and a lot of imagination to complete the portrait, while he enjoyed a profound slumber. A detail I noticed while examining the image in preparation of this blog entry is the reflection in my father's glasses of the long bars of fluorescent lighting secured to our kitchen ceiling which nearly obscures his eyes completely. Another observation is that he is pictured wearing the lightweight gray sweater that he favored above all others during the last decade of his life.

At the time of our drive to the Babylon train station which I recount at the beginning of this entry, I hadn't an inkling that my father would die in about a year and a half from complications arising from what should have been minor surgery. Our abbreviated conversation that day remains a powerful memory that has come to define my father for me.

On the other hand, I painted and drew John too many times to count. He was an ever-present fixture at my parents' home for many years, always amenable to pose whenever requested. He would often bring along his guitar, and I would sketch him while he performed his regular repertoire of traditional folk music and Simon & Garfunkel songs. Later, when we were both living on our own, John would stop by my apartment now and then and accommodate me by posing for a few hours, which was critically helpful in my first year of grad school during which I was still painting expressionist portraits.

In the years following my execution of The Ladies of Paris, John and I experienced a gradual deterioration in our friendship often resulting in misunderstandings, minor collisions and inane confrontations. Inevitably, a final falling out occurred resulting in the severance of all communication between us. That happened over thirty years ago. Now and and then, mutual acquaintances will mention John and provide a few murky morsels concerning his activities. Hilariously, I believe he ended up living in Paris.

In spite of my father's rosy prediction concerning my art career, I think I can reasonably state that professional success has eluded me. While pursuing my studies, I always believed that hard work and persistence would ultimately yield great fruit, and the positive reaction of my instructors to my work apparently endorsed that perspective. But I also realized once my schooling was over that many other factors, some within my own personality and some determined by random circumstance, would impact more significantly on my prospects than the quality of my work. After some years of futile promotional endeavor, I chose to accept a secure position at a government agency and remained there until my recent retirement. During that time, I continued to work diligently on my artwork, and perhaps my output over that period might demonstrate to some small degree how industry in isolation can result in a different kind of achievement. I guess, if that's what he had in mind that day in the LIRR parking lot, my father was clairvoyant.

In my estimation, The Ladies of Paris remains one of the most concise, effective and satisfying articulations of a technical and intellectual approach to painting that I initiated in the early 80's and explored for nearly a decade. Though today my artwork looks very different, I still view this painting with both great pride and pleasure. Having survived those early hazardous moves, the painting has since experienced better treatment: being transported properly and protected from moisture, extreme temperatures and accidental damage in storage. For nearly the last thirty years, this painting has sat in my current home's upstairs studio. As of this writing, The Ladies of Paris has never been exhibited publicly.

As always, I encourage readers to comment here. If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.

Entry - 10.11.14

“All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary.  All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.”

-          Wassily Kandinsky

Once towards the end of his life, I heard him make the following rejoinder to a journalist who seemed to be astonished by his crippled hands:

“With such hands, how do you paint?” the man asked, crudely.

“With my prick,” replied Renoir, really vulgar for once.

-          Jean Renoir (on his father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir)

“Remember that a painting – before being a war horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote – is essentially a flat surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order.”

-          Maurice Denis

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.”

-          Andrew Wyeth

A few years ago, I was planning on starting up a website on which I would display my artwork.  I thought that it would be a good idea if, rather than just presenting screens of images, I included quotes that would help the viewer better understand what I was up to.  So, for a number of weeks, I would, as they occurred to me, jot down my thoughts concerning my work and process, which I later organized into a couple of sensible categories.  Nothing as spiritual as Kandinsky or as pithy as Renoir or as profound as Denis or as poetic as Wyeth – just informative explanations and observations.  Anyone who has read a few of my blog entries should know that, when it comes to writing about art, I try to present readily graspable concepts, to justify my assertions with comprehensible evidence, to avoid romanticizing.  I would say that it is my intention to write “plainly” about art and leave it to the individual viewer to furnish the mystery.  When I was finished, I had a couple of pages of material which addressed my development and production from my student days until the present.  Unfortunately, the website never came to fruition, and I completely forgot about my collection of quotes until about a week ago when I came across it while searching through my computer’s folders for another document.  After reading it through, I thought the material was presentable and determined that I would devote a blog entry to it, inclusive of a number of images relating to my words.  Recycling is a good thing.

Student Works:

“Early on, I was drawn to the work of Edvard Munch, James Ensor, Egon Schiele and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and soon developed an Expressionist style of portraiture, whereby I rapidly recorded my sitter’s features in broad, thick brushstrokes of pure tones.  My goal was to lay bare the hidden personalities of my models, exposing their eccentricities, ticks and anomalies.  I suppose my thinking was that by exploring these things in my models, I was ultimately critically examining the social milieu in which I had matured, in which I was at that time living.”

Wickham - Franziska Normann-Young (Acrylics) - 1980

Wickham - John Matthews (Oils) - 1981

Wickham - Lisa I (Oils) - 1981

“I feel privileged to have studied with a number of capable artists during my years of formal education: Howardena Pindell, Sam Gelber, Lee Bontecou, Philip Pearlstein and Allan D’Arcangelo, among others.  There was definitely no dominant stylistic approach stressed during my years of study.  Teaching methods ranged from strict technical instruction to the promotion of free-spirited, unrestrained personal exploration.”

Wickham - Pat Lohrs (Oils) - 1983

Wickham - Dichotomy (Oils) - 1983

“I finished Grad School about 25 years ago and, since then, have gotten very little feedback on my work.  Though I believe there are clear benefits to working independently, I miss the dialogue, the sense that there is an interest in my work.  It’s a bit like running a marathon without the crowds or finish line.  It’s all got to come from within.”

“My years of studying Art were some of the best in my life.  I didn’t realize at the time how fleeting this period of concentration on intellectual development within a supportive and attentive community would prove to be.”

Drawings, Watercolors and Prints:

“Especially during my undergraduate days, it was important to me that my drawings were immediate, that I committed to a line before my pencil even touched the paper.  Line was essential – the more emphatic, the better.  If left to my own devices, I used almost exclusively a 6B pencil, would never erase a line and eschewed nuanced shading.”

Wickham - Figure Drawing (Graphite) - 1980

Wickham - John Matthews (Conte Crayon) - 1980

Wickham - Self-Portrait (Graphite) - 1980

“Drawing was stressed throughout my college education but particularly during my undergraduate years.  Students were required to fill an entire sketchbook for each studio course every semester, so I always carried a pad and pencil with me everywhere I went.  It was a very demanding activity, especially when my schedule included several studio courses each requiring an independent sketchbook.  After several years of following this discipline, I developed into a fairly capable draftsman.”

Wickham - Sneakers (Graphite) - 1981c

Wickham - Hands (Graphite - Study for Oil Portrait) - 1985

Wickham - Pears (Graphite) - 1983

“Today I seldom draw except for making preparatory sketches for paintings.  These drawings have little or no artistic merit, serving solely as sources of information for other works.  When I recognize the quality of my earlier sketches, I regret having lost that hard-won virtuosity.”

“I studied printmaking at Stony Brook which, the coursework being focused on addressing technical issues with the goal of producing consistent, sizeable editions, didn’t inspire me creatively.  At the same time, I discovered the prints of Munch and the German Expressionists and was floored.  I found the work to be innovative, elemental, defiant and, most importantly, emotionally gripping.  Thus began my decades-long independent exploration of printmaking techniques, primarily linocuts and woodcuts.”

Wickham - Martin Kyle-Milward (Linoleum Cut) - 1997

Wickham - Terre Anne (Woodcut) - 1999

Wickham - Dawn Bodden (Woodcut) - 1998

“I was never comfortable with watercolors but a few years ago started experimenting with them because of their portability.  In the beginning, I would often take a ride in my car, see an interesting view and park on the roadside to spend an hour or two on a painting.  It was a great release for me to work on something immediate, something not so precious.  Over time, I naturally drifted back to the figure and hopefully brought to my paintings some of the looseness I had acquired from the early landscapes.  I’m still learning the technique.  I’m truly a novice.” 

Wickham - Unionvale (Watercolor) - 2007

Wickham - Richard (Watercolor) - 2008

Abstractions:

“I tend to grasp things too tightly, to refuse idiotically to give up that with which I’m comfortable.  It was that way with my portrait work.  It had dried up long ago.  All the spontaneity had been sapped out of the process.  Yet I couldn’t give it up.”

“It’s a simple walk over a bridge.  Nothing momentous.  But when you get to the other side, you look back and recognize that you’ll never go back that way again.”

“Two realizations pushed me to make headway in my development.  First, I recognized that my early portraits were actually all self-portraits, in that I was seeking in my sitter indications of the very deficiencies and inhibitions that vexed me about myself.  Second, I understood that I did not hold faith in the kind of critical analysis I was engaged in, one that purported to pierce through façades and reveal a hidden truth.”

“I became obsessed with dualities and contradictions.  More than anything, I was interested in images that seemed to embody opposing energies: creation and destruction, birth and death and sex and violence.  It wasn’t until many years later that I discovered that there was an entire genre of art that addressed the Eros-Thanatos relationship, that Freud had been interested in similar pairings.”

Wickham - Untitled (Oils) - 1984

“I wanted to free myself from didactics and pedagogy, to present images that embodied the ambiguity and amorality which was inherent in my world.”

Wickham - The Beach (Triptych-Oils) - 1984

“I worked loosely and intuitively, experimenting with brushwork, mediums and grounds and employing the full range of techniques that I had mastered over years of study.”

“Abstraction was key to duality.  It permitted me to suggest activities and processes without branding them.”

Wickham - The Ladies of Paris (Oils) - 1985

Recent Paintings:

“Eventually I found that the abstractions had become mechanical, that the process of disguising or obscuring detail wasn’t as engaging”

“It didn’t happen overnight.  No, it was more like a stuttering, inconsistent transformation that literally took years.  But slowly my interest in the figure was rekindled.”

“In the early nineties, I spent a year or two addressing technical concerns, especially seeking to better understand how energetic brushwork and impasto surface layering related to illusionistic imagery.  In my explorations, I chose to restrict myself to painting small scale, frontal portrait heads.  This wasn’t wasted time.  In the end, I developed a more organic approach to painting in which technique was determined by immediate purpose.”

Wickham - Urs Diriwachter (Oils) - 1994

Wickham - Franz Amrhein (Oils) - 1995

“I didn’t walk away from the themes I was exploring in my abstract work.  I just addressed them in a different vocabulary.  Duality, contradiction and ambiguity continue to inspire much of my work.”

“I appreciated the boundaries, took pleasure in submitting to the discipline that working from the figure demanded.”

“My paintings often suggest a narrative that seeks an elusive resolution, that presents a drama that defies apprehension.  I sometimes call them incomplete myths or charged moments.”

Wickham - Ball and Cup (Oils) - 2000

“I am interested in themes of fragility and vulnerability because within them is an implied potential for significant and disastrous change.  On an emotional level, empathy seems unavoidable.  We cannot help but get sucked into the drama.  What’s happening here?  Where will this moment lead?”

Wickham - Winter II (Oils) - 2004

Wickham - The Edge of the Woods (Oils) - 1999

“The work has become more quiet and subtle lately, less suggestive and dramatic.  I’m more interested in nuance than before.  Perhaps this has occurred in response to my perception that artwork that is outrageous and explicit, regardless of quality or content, can find a ready reception in today’s market.  I want to avoid any path that seems too easy.”

“It is really absurd to be doing easel painting in 2011.  I recognize that, but I cannot give it up.  There’s something addictive about the intensely private dialogue I maintain with the medium.”

“I don’t need a committee to approve of my projects.  I don’t need to secure financing to make my concepts reality.  I don’t have to locate a site that will accommodate my creations.  I don’t require a work-crew to assist with construction.  I don’t have to consider critics or the marketplace.  I don’t even have a public to react to my work.”

I encourage all to comment here.  If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.

Entry - 12.30.13

In my last entry addressing the work of Antonio López-García, I observed how the “realist” label is haphazardly applied to artists with very diverse aims and techniques and questioned whether, at this time, the term has any meaning whatsoever.  I think the Modernist Revolution created an artificial gulf between those artists who depicted recognizable imagery and those who did not, with the result that many artists found themselves grouped into a camp with which they felt no particular philosophical allegiance.  That being said, I would feel comfortable applying the label “realist” to López-García.  In his work, he strives painstakingly to document the external semblance of his subjects, recording minute details during exhaustive sessions and taking measurements to ensure the accuracy of his observations.  As much as I greatly admire his work, I cannot help but raise the question of whether, by focusing on documenting a visual or physical reality, the artist has neglected to address the emotional facet of his subject matter.  Perhaps López-García would respond that it is the responsibility of the viewer to provide the emotional context to his paintings and sculpture, which I think would be a fair answer, but I, being ever of two minds, have to wonder if an artform which attempts to portray subjective, emotional responses to subject matter may more successfully capture the human condition.

 

In a previous entry, I wrote about my early interest in expressionism, an interest that continues to this day and, at times, became fairly obsessive.  For many years, I painted in my own “expressionist” style and explored woodcut and linocut printmaking techniques, modes of replicating images favored by the German Expressionists, particularly the “Die Brücke” group.

Wickham - John Matthews - 1983



I recognized that an immediate technique that emphasized critical features while minimizing superfluous detail, that permitted color to function as an expressive element untethered to visual reality, could serve as the perfect vehicle to capture the ephemeral nuances of human emotion.  I was fascinated by the expressionist work, in particular, the portraiture, of late nineteenth and early twentieth century artists like Edvard Munch, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Egon Schiele.  The visages of their subjects seemed more “real” to me than those depicted in art previously.  Their images mirrored the literature that I was interested in at that time, writing that unflinchingly dissected the motives and perspectives of complicated and flawed characters, work produced by such authors as Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev.

Munch - The Painter Paul Hermann and the Doctor Paul Contard - 1897

Heckel - Portrait of a Man - 1919

Kirchner - Sitzendes Madchen - 1910

So in a roundabout way I now arrive at the main subject of this entry: Chantal Joffe.  As is probably the case with most individuals interested in art, I enjoy combing through the vast arrays of images that result from random searches on the internet.  It’s a very democratic process that doesn’t favor established artists over amateurs.  For instance, a search for “Dutch self-portraits” could bring up a masterpiece by Rembrandt straddled by a work painted by a Haarlem art student and a cell phone selfie of a grandmother from Amsterdam.  The viewer will open a thumbnail if it impresses or intrigues him, usually without regard to its source.  Many times while doing this, I have been disappointed upon inspecting a full screen image of a thumbnail that caught my attention, but, on the other hand, I have come across many gems that I would probably never have discovered through any other means.  It was during one of my random searches that I happened upon the work of Chantal Joffe.

 

I was previously unfamiliar with the work of Chantal Joffe.  Even now, after doing a bit of research on her, I’m not sure what kind of a reputation she enjoys in the art world.  I do know that she received serious art training (BA in Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art and MA from the Royal College of Art), has shown her work in many solo and group exhibits and has received a number of awards, the value of which I am ignorant.  Though born in Vermont (1969), Joffe is an English artist, currently residing in London.  She generally works from photographs gleaned from a number of sources: advertisements, family snapshots, fashion magazines and pornography, but I did find one interview in which she talks of working from the live model.  She prefers painting women, at times accompanied by children.  Her technique is loose and painterly, her energetic brushstrokes spanning the length of her sizeable canvases.

 

Joffe - Anna B -2012

Joffe - Brunette with a Bob - 2012

Joffe - Green Dress Black Knickers - 2009

Joffe - Kristen - 2010

Joffe - Megan - 2010

Joffe - Self Portrait with Esme - 2009

 

Joffe - Self Portrait (Year Unavailable)

 

Joffe - Topless in Purple Gloves - 2009

 

Joffe - Untitled - 2010

 

 

 

I was surprised to learn that the sources of her imagery are often commercial or salacious in nature because her paintings exude an intense aura of intimacy.  Of course, Joffe is not trying to replicate a photographic image.  She eliminates detail, paring down the information provided by her source material to a minimum, and hopefully, in the process, capturing the intangible essence that initially caught her attention.  She distorts, again partially out of that same sense of economy that permits her to generalize but also to intensify the viewer’s connection with her subject.  For instance, the ashen flesh tones in Self-Portrait with Esme remind us that this is an intimate scene, that these bodies, hers bloated and sagging, the child’s fragile and twisted, are not commonly on display, that under normal circumstances they would not see the light of day.  The exaggerated contrast between darks and lights emphasizes the fact that this image is derived from a poor quality snapshot taken with a flash, a personal family photo documenting a moment shared between an adult and a child.  Or in Megan, the atrophied and twisted legs sheathed in black tights lend an aura of vulnerability to the model.

 

When looking at Joffe’s work, we should have no doubt that we are witnessing the results of an artist imposing her imprint on a facet of reality.  Her canvases with their intuitive brushwork, energetic splatters and drips of paint and blatant distortions of form and color attest to this fact.  Through an illusive alchemy, she transforms banal subject matter into powerful images that thoroughly engage the viewer, suggesting that momentarily the veneer that shields the private from the public has been penetrated.  Without a doubt, Joffe is tapping into a deep emotional core when approaching these works and uses her source material merely as a framework on which to hang her very personal and subjective interpretations.  Her willingness to empathize with her models and assert her personal emotional response allows her work to document a subjective dimension of being, a critical component of any art that is purported to merit the label “realist”.

 

Let me know how you respond to Joffe’s work.  Am I seeing something that isn’t there?  Or do these paintings move you too?  Please comment here, or, if you prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.