This waffled blurb could actually become something far more coherent, I could like to spend some time later looking into this notion…

Throughout the History of painting light has played a central and crucial role. A painters ability to excavate light from the stuff of paint has been a continuous fascination. The nature of the search and the type of light found has shifted, as if in some dialectical discussion with the zeitgeist itself.

 It seems that before now the various incarnations of light have tended to be the product of a meaningful, often spiritual search.

 A discussion with a friend yesterday made me reconsider in more depth the changing role of light in paint. He commented how the invention of electriicty must have significantly changed our relationship with light. before this point its existence, from either than sun or flame (notably in the form of candlelight) seems to be rooted to various religious belief systems. The sun as a symbol of God’s creative power, the candle as a ritulisitc tool in a various guises.

 We need only look to the type of light seen in medieval manuscripts or renaissance nad post renaissanace paintings. The type shifts hugely from an illuminated manuscript to a late Titian alterpiece or late Rembrandt self protriat. In eahc case, however, the light seems to glow from an inner depth, it seems to be conujured the medium itself. It seems weighted with a deep and moving spirituality. The light itself seems to be a manifestation of a deep and profound set of beliefs, imbued with a spiritual energy.

The invention of the electrical light bulb is a facet of the enlightenments wider program. Technological and scientific developments led to the deconstruction of previous belief systems and the arrival of doubt. Man repositioned himself as the centre of his own universe.

 The late modernist program seems, to me anyway, to be an attempt to find a new set of absolute ideals by which to measure ourselves and lead our lives. If we look to the late painting’s of Rothko it seems that this is one of the purest examples of this search for a new spirituality, a humanisitc one in his case.  The result is a form of light no less powerful, no less imbued and rising from the paint itself, than that seen in any religious altarpiece. The transformation of paint into light runs parallel and the notion of light as a motif of a deep spirituality continues. The context and framework of such a belief system seems more fragile, having been searched for rather than being the proudct of a certainty.

The biggest shift, however, for me, seems to be in the light of paintings beyond this date. The attack on the ideals and monolithic structure of the modernist program, as a whole, has led to the fracture and doubting period of postmodernism.

Along with this more philosophical and wide ranging shift have been contiued developments in the existence of light itself. We now have light everywhere and in various false forms. Television screens, computer screens, cities which never sleep in dark, mobile phones flashing constantly. We are surroudnign by a constant hum and glow of artifiically created light. Running parallel to this is a seeming lack of any credible and singular belief system to hold onto. Everything has been attacked, deconstructed, doubted and exposed as bankrupt. It feels, to me at least, a fragile and fasle existence, empty of any sense of divine prescence.

It seems both false and impossible to have the kind of light in painting now which exists, with great power, in a Rmebrandt or Rothko. Rather our light is more superficial, more surface based, more artificial. it is the light in a Daniel Richter painting, figure glows as if radioactive, burning form inside but due to some nuclear disfigurment or x-ray malfunction rather than any divine prescence.

Or the figures of Neo Rausch, a sickly sweet green or yellow glow often emminates, as if form within. it seems powerful and moving, but consciously false and unreal.

I think it is this form of light, deep and movign, yet false and artificial, which i want to imbue my figures with.

The Whale is back in town!!  Yeehaa its been a while.  Hello fans, and hello strangers, lets acquaint ourselves and be friends.

Painters who strive to remain open in their practice, where the act of painting avoids finding a solution/meaning sometimes until the very last brushstroke.  What techniques and systems do artists develop in order to reach this aim?  Matthias Weischer, Neo Rauch, Phoebe Unwin etc.

A painter whose context appears to remain open right to the death is the type of artist I most want to emulate.  Those decisions which can totally alter the direction of a work, when the work seems to be heading down a set path are the bravest of decisions, and you hear the great artists of the past talk about these moments in interviews and books.  These are defining moments in a works trancendence because they move apparently from an area of received wisdom into area’s where they end up discovering their own wisdom and resolution.

Phoebe Unwin, whose show was recently on at Wilkinson gallery in London tries to solve this issue by coming to the painting with no preconceptions of what she is going to make, this sounds like it could be a bit of a short cut or fake out, although actually when you try to follow the same path, you realise how hard it is to successfully do.  In essence the whole journey becomes about trying to resolve a problem whilst simultaneously denying yourself any notion of what it is you are trying to resolve.  Any point at which you begin to find a comfort zone, you force yourself out of it, towards the unknown.

Matthias Weischer achieves something similar, taking on board Cezanne’s principle of the questioning eye to constantly reinterpret and alter the spaces which he is creating.  Objects resolve only to be lost in memory and time.  It is interesting for me to think whether this solution in the soluble is indeed found through the constant questioning and rejigging of the spaces and objects, or whether its all in fact a clever illusion, where Weischer paints in objects, fully aware that he will again paint them out, leaving only traces of their existence.  It is probably somewhere inbetween, much like the case of the happy accident, where a good painter is able to create an environment in which he/she knows certain effects can be created, without ever having full control over the outcome.  Neo Rauch exists again within a similar space, however, he seems to be reacting almost immediately as the painting is being produced, it becomes much more about the intuitive, autonomous reaction to what is going on at that very moment.  As such, it is completely plausible that a tree can pop up sticking horizontally out of the side of the painting in an instantaneous reaction to the composition that is being developed, and then will alter the rest of the composition from then on, as Rauch strives to weave a certain sense into his dream images.

I come to this problem, just as I start to take more of an interest in the sculptural scenes that I am producing to aid in my paintings reality.  And so, the painting and sculpture are forming a symbiotic relationship, neither directly copying the other, but being produced at the same time in order to constantly throw up interesting opportunities and opening which the other disipline can take advantage of.

Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge University invited a series of contemporary painters to give lectures on the role of the human figure in their work. The following is my notes for my lecture.

Why I paint the human figure.NB The following is merely notes written in preparation for the talk, it therefore has a fairly loose and conversational feel in the writing.

Read the rest of this entry »

I found myself digging about in the paper bin at Christ’s today. I felt like a fox. I was looking for old newspapers to search for images in. I filter through the newspaper most days to find something, often not aware what i am looking for, which could stimulate a new ingredient for a future piece. It might be a standing figure who could turn into a protagonist, a group of footballers jumping for a corner who could become one figures sequential move through space or a snap from the holiday section which could translate into a painting laced with melancholy and nostalgia. The search tries to not be preconceived.

 The bin provides a fertile compost heap of potential. The newspaper is a cocophany of noise. Melodrama, hyperbole and scaremongering are par for the course in a system which reflects our wider Western psyche with it’s proliferation of imagery. We are literally drowning in visual stimulus, yet we become dead to it, drunk and hungover on the drama of it all.

There seems to be something enjoyable about rediscovering those moments and images which were to be lost to the bin. Holding them, elevating them, painting them, celebrating them and putting them through a juicer to transform them.

I was reading an iteresting catalogue essay on Daniel richter’s painting’s last night. One point in particular stood out.

In talking about the comedy in his work it comments that nothing is funnier than the presentation of the sole of a figures foot.

This seemed a ludicrous statment. Then i was looking at some images I have been making recently, of figures squirming figures on beds. A number of them have twisted and contorted in such a way that the sole of there foot is presented both towards the ceiling and the viewer. They do seem to be the figures who have more wit. Yet i just can’t work out why this would, or perhaps is, funny.

Article in TCS, October 2008.

Forgiveness and forgetfulness according to De Freston
“Between somewhere and Nowhere” Works by Tom de Freston at the Cast Gallery, Museum of Classical Archaeology

Pablo de Gandia

If art is the exploration of humanity at its best, worst and most intimate, then Tom de Freston is definitely exploring human despair for regeneration. To forget, the cleansing experience of Lethe and of course the free-fall of experience and fear.

Icarus II is every man, the fall from grace into the reality of life, the experience of pain and discovery, illuminated within the darkness of the world. Indeed the heroic pilgrims of de Freston’s work are excerpts and metaphors for humanity. Dramatic movement is the key to the expression of experience in his work. Figures fall, swim and shift through the almost rigid settings that frame them, opening the discourse of the inevitable dichotomy between humanity, immersed in the unpredictable sea of feeling and experience, and the seemingly rigid, orderly and predictable setting of life.

But the show is hardly a helpless cry of despair. Ironic cracks in the drowning and falling have left some hope to the viewer; Venus makes shy apparitions that could remind us of Adam’s truth: a man’s salvation from tragic ecstasy might well be found in womanhood.

De Freston poses an intricate, (though incredibly plain and instinctive) interplay of gestual symbolism and human desire with the theatrical performance of society, but he can afford to explore it. For not only his painting is thorough and technically refined, but he also seems to possess a fine perception of composition, both conceptual and spatial. This enables him to coherently place his lonely heroes in a context that succeeds perfectly in conveying the pathetic grandeur of the fall of mankind. Well used geometric spatiality leaves room for almost conceptual composition, which considering the skilful and innovative use of glosses, greatly enrich the works once the juxtaposition is achieved.

This exhibition brings to us a striking collection of “moments” from the history of our own feeling and experience; the foolish and pathetic tragedy of every lonely pilgrim. From The Calm Climber of TESCO’s falling to the suffocated cry of Swimmer of Lethe, the pathos of each moment is clearly challenged and explored with sincerity and sense of humour. I heartily recommend this show. Amongst the pale plasters of Classic glories de Freston’s works have much to say about the ongoing mystery of existing.

  In October 2008 I had to give a one hour presentation of the ideas and themes within my work. This was in conjunction with the exhibition at the Museum of Classical Archeology, Cambridge University.  Attached, below, are the notes for the talk. I have to give a few more later this year and it will be interesting to see how they evolve from this one.  Read the rest of this entry »

The relationship between the artist and theory is very different to the one the philosopher, critic or historian has. For the artist there can be a certain elasticity in the understanding of the source. They can manipulate and formulate ideas for it for their own, selfish, and painterly ends. The accuracy of understanding is secondary to the impact, influence and development within the artists own practise.

Review by Emma Hogan of ‘Between Somewhere and Nowhere’
Published in ‘Varsity’- October 2008http://www.varsity.co.uk/archive/679.pdf
*****
Tucked amongst the busts and reclining classical figures in the Sidgwick Museum of Classical Archaeology lies an exhibition of Tom de Freston’s extensive work. De Freston has been awarded the 2008-2009 Christ’s College Levy Plumb visual arts scholarship, and is not only talented but extraordinarily prolific. From scraps of paper and backs of envelopes in a display folder to his large oil paintings, Between Somewhere + Nowhere shows not only his finished pieces but also the work leading up to them, and is an exhibition all the more exciting for it.
De Freston obsessively experiments with the human form, cavorting it across the canvas, bodies twisting in distress or leaping into water. His paintings echo or question the work of Francis Bacon, and he sets his figures in similar areas of confinement.Similarly, displayed amongst the permanent collection in the Classics Faculty, his paintings, drawings and sketches crumple the heroic status of the classical statues lying around them, making it more than just an exhibition of paintings, but instead a dialogue, a response.Yet perhaps the sheer volume of work on display is somewhat overwhelming, and this exhibition will need to be seen again.
Alongside large-scale paintings such as the stunning ‘Swimmer of Lethe’ series, where a series of male bodies leaping into water are conveyed through silhouettes painted in oils and washed over with gloss, making the canvas sparkle as though actually wet, are smaller works.De Freston’s sketches are intimate and well-worth seeking out amidst the larger, darker pieces on display. From rows of old men huddled in a line to a man walking a dog on a beach, these pieces seem to capture life in snatched moments, and are a counter to the occasionally oppressive brilliance of his painted work. Yet even these small sketches can pack a punch – one in particular, entitled ‘To the entombment’ haunted me afterwards with its three figures lugging an indistinguishable person or thing into a building.
Looking at the titles of his work such as ‘After the Bacchanal’ and ‘Icarus’, it is apposite that De Freston has been placed in the Classics Faculty – and at times, illuminating, as when the curved reclining gure of ‘Danae IV’ echoes that of the statue of the Son of Niobe underneath it. Yet though such flickering shadows occur in De Freston’s work, his style and force is ultimately his own.

Recently drawings I have been making have been onto surfaces preprepared with a variety of marks and colours. Spray paint, inks drips on and paper soaked then stained with colours. Its initial purpuse was to push through some ideas and to evolve certain uses of colour and mark making. It seems to have become more important than that.

 The image laid on top (arrived at through monoprinting or projections normally) is entirely linear. it is merely a structure; a skeleton. It is, obvioulsy, hollow and transparent, revealing all the marks and surfaces which sit beneath it.

 Certain bits of the figure then get ‘filled’ in. I might, for instance, paint up a head. This more select addition of makrs and colour is obvioulsy, however stylised, towards mimetic ends. Adding colour to describe flesh and form. This sets up a surface dialogue.

Suddenly there are two levels of colour. The marks which sit on the surface without any direct mimetic function. They are detached from such specifics. they are primarily about certain formal delights, about the celebration of the makrs making and presentation on a flat surface. Due to their context and the nature of the image they obviously acquire other roles. Thye take on rhythm and melody, supporting or feeding into the mood of the picture.

The other level, as previously discussed, are those areas of consciously mimetic additions.

The interplay is between areas of the figure which are left and those which are covered. The former creates a sense of a hollow and transparent figures. One which we can reach through and behind to the colour on the surface. The very same colour which we read entirely as sitting on the surface. It has, an odd kind of spatial complication. This fluctuates and pulses with the solid areas, the points where the skeleton is given flesh, where it takes on a sculptural quality.

This gives us two paces, two melodies intertwining with each other.