Adeline de Monseignat
"playing on that threshold of the animate and the inanimate, ‘the uncanny’ became one way, amongst others, that I found to understand my own work."
Could you tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been a practicing artist and where did you study?
I have lived in London for the past 12 years. I first moved here when I was 17 and started painting and exhibiting my work very quickly. As I had a year to spare before starting my BA in Language in Culture at UCL, I made the most out of it and took short courses in acting, sculpting, painting, design and film production, in many of the colleges under the umbrella of the University of the Arts. After graduating from my BA, I did my foundation at the Slade where I started sculpting and installation making, just before starting my MA Fine Art at City and Guilds of London Art School where I expanded on what I had started at the Slade.
Your sculptures play on the notion of the uncanny, that uncertain feeling on whether an object is living or dead. Could you expand on this? What draws you to the “uncanny”?
Freud’s writings imply that sometimes the beauty lies in what is left unanswered. In his 1919 essay, he proved that the failure to define the term made it even more so interesting, making the search for ‘the uncanny’, the strangely familiar and familiarly strange, even more so tantalizing and irresistible. As my sculptures were slowly starting to have a life of their own and playing on that threshold of the animate and the inanimate, ‘the uncanny’ became one way, amongst others, that I found to understand my own work.
The Uncanny, Adeline de Monseignat and Berndnaut Smilde, Ronchini Gallery
Seapod, 2015
In 2013 you made a piece called “The Weight” that was shown at Victoria Miro Gallery, this must have been exciting to have shown at such a gallery. Could you tell us about the idea behind the project and how it came about?
‘The Weight’ was a project for the ARTiculate exhibition organized by Dramatic Need, a charity that helps children express themselves creatively to overcome past traumatic experiences. A dozen of us participating artists, including Rachel Whiteread, The Chapman Brothers and Antony Gormley, were sent children’s testimonies describing traumatic events.
I felt particularly touched by 8-year-old Meine Maipoto’s hand-written text in which she describes the sudden loss of her mother and the separation with her brother. The weight of her words and the weight of her burden filled me with a desire to help make things lighten for her. I therefore built Meine a wall which read her entire testimony, in which each brick that bore a word or two of her handwriting were sold individually, like a piece of a puzzle, a piece of her story, meant to involve each buyer into attempting at lightening the weight of her pain.
The Weight, Victoria Miro Gallery, 2013
The Weight (detail), 2013
More recently you have written, performed and directed a short film titled “In the Flesh". Could you tell us about the project? What inspired you to make the film?
In 2014, I first visited marble workshops in Pietrasanta while on a residency at Villa Lena. I was struck by the way marble dust covered every inch and surface of the studio including sculptors and sculptures so much so that at first glance it was impossible to distinguish which was which. The following year I stumbled upon texts by Alison Leitch (‘Visualizing the Mountain’, 2010) and felt very moved by the way the quarry workers interviewed by Leitch referred to the mountain as ‘she’: ‘She is alive’ they would say, ‘she weeps at night’, ‘we can hear her moving’, and ‘she has a soul’.
Leitch also inserted a beautiful quote by sculptor Dominique Stroobant: ‘Everyone at Carrara knows that stone weeps.... All of us have experienced how alive stones are, that they behave like sponges, can bend, expand and that they have a voice ... for one who listens.’ If the mountain is alive, I thought, then surely each piece of marble extracted from her should surely have a soul as well. I thereafter wrote my first script in which there would be a mother-to-daughter relationship central to the film between marble sculpture and marble quarry. ‘In The Flesh' (2016) is a 5-min short film about a sculpture, of marble skin and human flesh, a creature that yearns to reconnect with her roots and crawl back into her mother's womb, the quarry. By bringing to light the quarry’s ability to ‘live’, the film also exposes its potential to ‘die’.
In The Flesh (stills), 2016
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day/studio routine, what is your studio like?
I am not big on routines, I find them quite uninspiring. It is probably because of this that each project I work on has its very own set of requirements, in terms of space and equipment. I find that this keeps me on my toes and enables a constant learning curve. At the moment I am stone carving in Italy, close to Venice, kindly hosted at the studio of friend and sculptor Gianpietro Carlesso. However only a month ago was I on the set of my film in Carrara’s marble quarries and next month I will be back at my own studio in London. It’s in Lambeth North and is part of Old Paradise Yard, a studio compound which carries its name beautifully. It used to be a school, then a Buddhist centre before being reconverted into artist studios; bricks, wooden beams, high ceilings and a garden, what else.
What do you hope the viewer gains/reacts from looking at your work?
I hope this serves as a reminder on how the world we live in and the nature that surrounds us are well and truly living entities, and that it is our duty to look after it like our own mother.
How do you go about naming your work?
It varies but they often come about after a research on the etymology on each project’s key words.
In The Flesh, 2015
Mother Heb/loleta, 2012
(detail)
What does the future hold for you as an artist? Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
My film, 'In The Flesh', will have an exciting touring life, starting with a private event over Frieze week, followed by a screening and talk at the Freud Museum on 13 November, then the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Exeter Phoenix, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, the RA, Villa Lena Foundation, Pino Pascali Museum and Ronchini Gallery amongst others.
I will also be taking part in a group show which explores the character of Penelope (Odysseus) with curators Alix Janta and Lauren Jones involving great female artists like Charlotte Colbert, Nancy Fouts, Camilla Emson and Becky Allen. Date TBC.
Another group show in the pipeline will be one curated by David Worthington on the theme of folds and creases in sculpture at the William Benington Gallery, which is the one I am currently stone-carving for. Date TBC.
I am also expanding my 'Whispers' curatorial project to a second edition, this time involving 12 new artists whose disciplines span from performance, photography to video installation and sculpture. The process and results so far are truly amazing. Watch this space!
Interview published: 30/09/16
Hannah Brown
"I search for quiet, potentially unsettling places with a peculiar type of beauty."
Could you tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been a practicing artist and where did you study?
I grew up in the West Country and moved to London when I was 19 to study sculpture at Central Saint Martins. This was in 1996 and apart from a year spent in New Zealand and a few months back in Devon I’ve lived in London ever since. During a five-year gap between BA and MA, alongside a lot of part-time jobs, I worked in a shed in my back garden and tried to bribe people to visit me by offering cream teas.
I studied MA sculpture at the Royal College of Art 2004-2006 and it was here that I found myself painting. It started as part of an installation focusing on the English landscape and how it is reproduced and represented. I had no intention of becoming a painter, it just slowly crept in. At first alongside sculptures and eventually as stand-alone pieces.
Washford Pyne 11, 2016
Washford Pyne 12, 2016
Looking at your landscapes there is a feeling of being on edge, as you look into the dark woods there is that fear of the unknown. Is this your intention? If so could you talk about the thoughts behind this?
It is intentional in that I search for quiet, potentially unsettling places with a peculiar type of beauty. I favour views away from the well documented vista and views that have something a little strange about them, even if it is just in their banality. In recent years the scenes I paint have become more closed in with the horizon line, and sometimes the sky, not shown.
This is partly because I’ve started depicting places in London such as Victoria Park and the areas that I want to paint are smaller because there’s so much more infrastructure. It's also because I’m drawn to scenes that have the possibility of being read in different ways. By that I mean an image that doesn’t give away its location with a landmark or by being well known. I often crop the view to produce an image that it is open enough in its references that, for example, although it may be a view taken in Devon it might look like Suffolk to one person or even Denmark to another. This ambiguity leaves space for the viewer to enter into a dialogue or begin imagining a fiction.
Maryam Park 1, 2015
You only paint places where you have physically been, do you feel it’s important that you were actually there in the landscape?
I’m not sure if it’s important to the viewer but it’s important to me. As Malcolm Andrews observes in The Search for the Picturesque there is a paradoxical desire to seek the picturesque within the natural environment and then promptly alter it by creating one's own version. At the moment I can’t see myself painting from found images or even another person’s image of a place I have been. It would feel like there was information missing. Although I’m making still images, I feel that time is very important to my work. In Poetics of Space Bachelard says that space contains compressed time. The time spent in the landscape absorbing sounds, weather, seasons, terrain and the reverie that accompanies this activity stay with me when I’m making the painted version of it. In this way I feel like the paintings are compressed or distilled versions of the time spent there.
The reason to visit the places I paint is not because of the wish to make a truthful record of the topography as I remove information like buildings and roads. It probably has much more to do with my physical need to spend time alone in nature. For me nature is a refuge and when I’m painting, in part, I’m replaying the experience of being in the landscape.
Having said this, I often take screen shots as I’m watching a film or drama and occasionally use these as colour references for the quality of light. I’ve enjoyed seeing the landscapes in The Walking Dead. There are relatively long shots that just show the trees. Although you expect something to come out of the bushes at any time, it doesn’t always happen. I like the way an innocuous view can be imbued with such anticipation.
As well as painting you also make sculptures, could you talk about the process of making these and how they relate to your paintings?
After falling in love with the language of painting, it took quite a while to get back to making sculpture. As I predominately make representational work, the sculptures, which were of fences and rocks, seemed too much like props and discussions about artificiality arose. I didn't think this was helpful alongside the paintings so for a number of years I stopped making sculpture altogether.
In 2015 I started again with an exhibition for Milton Keynes Arts Centre called ‘The Winter Girls’ which was based on English ceramics from the 1930’s with kitsch motifs of nature. The sculptural processes are quite different, as are the aesthetics; I often get asked if I share my studio, as at first glance the two elements of my practice can look quite different. What connects them is the exploration of symbols of nature and how we bring these into the domestic sphere as well as the surface layer of paint present on almost all my work.
I make the sculptures using plaster and clay. I then lacquer and paint them before adding Liberty prints or curtain tassels. I’m a really messy worker; the materials get everywhere, which means I can’t make paintings and sculptures at the same time. The speed is so different, as is the physicality; they’re made quite intensely and there’s more room for gesture as I use brushes to apply the plaster.
The Workers Hymns I, 2015
The Workers Hymns II, 2015
The Workers Hymns III, 2015
What do you hope the viewer gains/reacts from looking at your work?
I feel that painting is a conversation. I hope to open a dialogue about nature and the way we use it, commodify it, own it, and project emotions or identity onto it. I am deliberately exploring these concepts in predominately domestic sized objects as the notion of bringing the natural world into our homes by way of landscape painting and ceramics or fabrics with tropes of nature is well established. By doing this I am able to draw upon a familiar visual language.
The conversation doesn't have to be spoken, it can just be an exchange of thoughts. As I've mentioned, I’ve had responses that the landscapes remind people of places they've been to or know, such as a Danish friend who says they remind her of home. I think this is wonderful as it means the image in the painting has transferred from one person’s memory to another.
Visiting a place and finding a view or scene I wish to paint (and in some way collect or own) is just a starting point. I hope the work has a life beyond me and that it can become a shared experience.
I’m sharing my viewpoint: the corners of fields or riverbanks that catch my attention. I guess initially I’m saying ‘look at this’. Of course there’s so much more to the conversation about landscape painting but this is where I start. As the John Muir misquote goes ‘When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.’
What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?
I saw the Ragnar Kjartansson exhibition at the Barbican on the last day. It was packed but I’m so glad I went. As I walked into the installation of The Visitors I was almost in tears, it was so emotive and such a beautiful experience.
In the summer I went to see Pablo Bronstein’s performance at Tate Britain, and in a room just off from the Duveen galleries was a display of Walter Sickert pantings. I’ve never been much of a fan of his work (not enough green or foliage) but the paint application and economy of marks stunned me and I spent a long time with the work looking at the way the painting was built up.
Earlier in the year I visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for the first time and enjoyed the wonderful display of 17th, 18th and 19th Century landscape paintings that they have there, especially the smaller works displayed on the balcony that runs around the top of one of the galleries.
I loved Benjamin Senior's exhibition at Bruce Haines, Mayfair and I’m looking forward to going to Amsterdam soon to see Caroline Walker’s show at Grimm Gallery and Avery Singer at the Stedelijk Museum.
Installation view, Blow Up, Parafin, London 2015
How do you go about naming your work?
With difficulty! I used to give the work more romantic titles but I was concerned I was leading the viewer too much towards a particular response. I try not to tell someone how to view the work so I now title it with the name of the place and a number for the order they were made in the series. I enjoy the names of the places I paint, particularly the Devon hamlets and villages such as Woolfardisworthy, or Columbjohn. There's a place called Zeal Monachorum that I haven't painted yet but would like to because of the name. I find naming a show easier and allow myself more poetic titles such as ‘Time Hangs Heavy’, which was a phrase used in a Robert Goddard book – a crime novel set in the West Country. I also listen to Radio 4 in the studio and write notes on my desk if I hear something I think might be useful.
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day/studio routine, what is your studio like?
I‘m no longer working in a shed. Since graduating 10 years ago I’ve had a studio in Hackney Wick. I’m in a really lovely studio block with artists that have become good friends. We often have coffee or lunch together and pop in and out of each other’s studios to discuss our work. It's a community and I feel really fortunate. Sadly it won’t last forever as the area is changing and a large number of new developments are being built.
I don't really have a routine as it depends on the type of work I’m making but I keep a studio diary where I log the hours that I arrive and leave with brief notes. It can feel very abstract otherwise; I like being able to look back and track what I’ve been doing.
Not Just Yet, Installation view, Cross gallery, Dublin 2015
What does the future hold for you as an artist? Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
I’m in a group exhibition called Landing that opens on the 28th of September with Anna Freeman Bentley and Freya Douglas-Morris. It’s organised by Kristian Day in association with the Herrick Gallery. I’m also in a group exhibition called Solid Gone curated by Mark Beldan that opens on the 29th of September at The Back Room in Holdrons Arcade in Peckham.
Next year I will be doing a project with dalla Rosa and taking part in an exhibition in Poitiers with the Arborealists.
I’m currently working on a new body of work that is much larger and I’m enjoying this change of scale. I’ve also found two new sites that I would like to paint; the field next to Tesco that is soon to be built on in the town I grew up in and sections of the River Lee that run through Hackney Marshes and the Olympic park.
Interview published: 30/09/16
Hugh Mendes
"these series of obituaries are never ending. In a way, my own obituary is the logical conclusion."
Could you tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been a practicing artist and where did you study?
I seem to have been at it most of my life. Perhaps from the age of about six I thought I would be an artist. I studied painting (BA) at Chelsea Art School, in the old days pre UAL when it was a small independent art school on Manresa Rd. Staff included David Hockney, Euan Uglow and Craigie Aichison. I learned a lot from all of them, mostly in the 'life room'. I then had a long break from academia before studying for my MA at City & Guilds of London Art School, where I continue to teach. This return to a full time practice and an academic environment was triggered by the death of my father.
I had been a practicing Buddhist during the intervening years, much of it spent living and teaching in San Francisco. This all contributed to a new and very focused approach to painting. Also to working with Still Life, in the sense of Vanitas. It was on my MA that I started using newspaper clippings with other objects to create small still life paintings. Like a lot of artists, I had lots of images and clippings on my studio walls. Paul Hedge from Hales Gallery came into the studio one day and casually asked if I had ever tried to paint one of the newspaper clippings. I thought it would be too hard, but it was a challenge and the rest is history as they say... just a casual remark!
Obituary: Margaret Thatcher, 2014
Obituary: Alexander McQueen, 2010
You are recognised for your ongoing/obsessional series of obituary paintings, could you tell us how this series started? And where do you see it going in the future?
Having begun working with newspaper clippings, especially with the 9/11 series following my graduation on that day in 2001, it was a couple of years later that I became interested in the Obituary pages of The Independent (now itself sadly deceased). I began a correspondence with the obituary editor at the time, James Fergusson. He was using some unusual images, which intrigued me... Over time they became quite dominant within my practice, though I do still work with other subjects such as war, terrorism and to a lesser extent politics. It was interesting that the obituary paintings seemed the most popular, were exhibited internationally, especially in the USA, and sold well. At some point I started using The Guardian more for my source material and have maintained a correspondence with them; a kind of intermittent dialogue.
As to the future, one is never quite sure. My current series has become focused on Obituaries of Artists. Of course these series of obituaries are never ending. In a way, my own obituary is the logical conclusion. Goya managed a fantastic final painting of himself dying in the arms of his doctor! It is in the New York Met, but was in London recently...
I was on an art residency this summer in northern California and executed a specific proposal to paint objects from the land there, like rocks and sticks. It was interesting to engage with a somewhat different 'one off' project. Though still with the overall context of Still Life and the 'found' object. The paintings were more table based than wall based, though there was also a reference to a wall in most of the paintings.... not so different to the newspaper based paintings really!
Obituary: Anthony Caro, 2016
Obituary: Lucian Freud, 2016
Obituary: Robert Raushenberg, 2016
Your paintings of newspaper clippings are effectively: A picture within a picture as a picture. Could you tell us the thoughts behind this? Does it also question the ownership of images?
Yes. This has been quite well written about by Frances Woodley in her recent article about my work, to accompany the show. Also the title of the forthcoming show refers to this, referencing Barthes 'The Death of the Author', questioning the notion of 'authorship', etc. Being from a newspaper, they are in the public domain. I buy that piece of paper and own it. In painting it of course I create a one off original object.
There is an interesting and current debate around copyright, that I have been following. Luc Tuymans recently fell foul of this in the courts. Richard Prince actually had to destroy some of his works. As far as I am concerned everything is up for grabs. I guess this is a kind of 'postmodern' position. The first part of your question is answered within the history, and contemporary context, of Still Life painting. There is an element of Trompe L'oile, as well as Vanitas, etc. I continue to study and teach this subject. I am always looking and questioning, thinking and experimenting and it helps to be employed within a very good academic environment.
Obituary: David Weiss, 2016
Obituary: Ellsworth Kelly, 2016
As well as Obituaries you also paint about world events, notably: the 9/11 terrorist attack. In 2011 you had a show (to mark the 10th anniversary) with a series of works based upon the newspaper clippings of that day and the years after. As an artist was this a tough subject to tackle?
I was glued to it on my graduation day in 2001. My first solo show was a few months later, titled 'Into Manhattan's Memory' and featured about 20 paintings of images from the immediate aftermath of 9/11. I then followed the story into the 'War on Terror', the invasion of Iraq, and so on. So I had been painting these images for the entire 10 year period. It was good to have that 10 year anniversary show. It was neatly concluded with the killing of Osama Bin Laden, just before the anniversary, so I included his obituary painting in the show. Also included in the show was some original news footage of the events as they unfolded. As soon as I turned on the telly that day and saw the second plane fly into the twin towers, I started video taping. I still have that tape. The footage follows on from an episode of 'The Simpsons' that I had recorded the night before. It is a somewhat extraordinary juxtaposition! Of course an element of Still Life is juxtaposition (of objects).
The anniversary show, titled 9/10/11 was hosted by Kenny Schachter in his London gallery. He was living in New York on the day and witnessed everything with his young kids.
Yes it is a difficult subject and I had some flack with my first solo show. Some people found it shocking, disrespectful; one far right American magazine even accused me of promoting terrorism, etc. Ten years later, it was more acceptable perhaps and I was interviewed on Radio 2 and featured in The Independent, etc...
In the run up to the show I thought I should do a special piece, something a bit unusual, respectful, meditative... I made a piece called 3000 names. In 'The Times' obituary of Osama Bin Laden, they listed all 3000 names of the people that died on that day, alphabetically. I worked out that if I copied and wrote out all the names, as an obituary piece, at an average of 75 names per day for 6 weeks I could do it. So that is what I did. I had a Pentel automatic pencil, which I was worried would run out of lead before I finished. However as I wrote out the last name, the tiny stub just dropped out. It was a beautiful moment. That piece, on three A3 pieces of paper now resides in the Nobel collection in Zurich. The entire collection is based on newspapers in art, from the beginning of the 20th century, and includes Schwitters, Warhol, Rauschenberg, etc.
Obituary: Osama Bin Laden, 2011
3000 Names, 2011
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day/studio routine? What is your studio like?
It is a good size and is full of paintings and newspapers, not surprisingly. It is quite well ordered, has a good big window, so lots of natural light, which is important to paint by.
I start the morning with a coffee and The Guardian. The first thing I look at of course is the Obituary page... who died? I will meanwhile be looking from the couch at whatever painting in on the easel. I will usually make immediate corrections or adjustments. They jump out at me as soon as I enter the studio. I will also be checking e mails, of course. Being self employed means I function a lot through this medium... Here I am in the studio at my desk, writing on the computer!
I will usually spend about 6 hours on a good studio day painting. It is a slow process, meticulous, with a lot of attention to detail. I teach two days per week, so have up to five for painting, though I like to spend weekends with my wife and socialising as well as going to shows...
What do you hope the viewer gains/reacts from looking at your work?
I have mentioned a few responses above (to the 9/11 works). I hope people will just look and perhaps see. They are meditative paintings. Perhaps contemplative. This is an aspect of Still Life. A viewer might consider their own mortality. Of course this can be challenging. In the Obituary series, it is perhaps a chance to reflect on that particular persons life and the relationship the viewer has to that life. In the case of the Artist Obituaries of course that includes the body of their work and their contribution to our human history, etc. They are memorial pieces and that is part of their function.
I also hope that a viewer will just appreciate the paint on a surface. They are very much paintings and function within the history of painting and art generally, not just Still Life. I hope they have their place and can be appreciated as such. I really try by best with every one to make a beautiful painting/ object.
Obituary: Chantal Akerman, 2016
What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?
I just saw the Richard Serra drawings on the opening day, at Gagosian. They are quite extraordinary and are a good example of why an artwork really has to be seen in 'the flesh'. They are black and have a beautiful quality of texture and surface in particular.
What does the future hold for you as an artist? Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
Well I have this show 'The Death of the Artist' coming right up. It feels significant, like all my work has lead up to these artist obituaries. They are a logical conclusion in a way, of my practice. I am the next dead artist. Without being too morbid, it is symbolic. I paint my inevitable demise with every brush stroke!
It is also my first solo as a represented artist with CHARLIE SMITH LONDON. This feels significant. I still have an ongoing relationship with California and the art scene there. This show was originally going to open in LA, and I still hope it will go there next year in some form or other...
Meanwhile, Paint, Paint, Paint....
Interview published: 30/09/16