IDEA SEED INTERVIEW TOMAS WATSON
Thanks to the magic of Instagram I started talking to this amazing artist and person! His work is a mix of Renaissancesque precision and contemporary experimentation. Working across several media, mixing polarities. Highly skilled chiaroscuro combined with graphic shapes with an obvious love for the human figure.
Looking through your work, I see so much experimentation in technique and visual approach. Can you tell us more about its importance to your work?
Experimentation is of the utmost importance and has always been, simply because by experimenting you discover things and that to me is the essence of why I paint. Too many people restrict themselves unnecessarily with the ideas of others. If you don’t experiment, you don’t develop. Experimentation is not just limited to material, but also to the way the image comes out. I like to have areas of contrast between very finished looking parts and sections which retain the rawness of initial gesture, or parts of high realism against gestural brushstrokes, or loose drawing contrasted with finished painting etc. Experimenting with opposites and coupled with experimentation with material can lead to some exciting discoveries…..among the awful disasters!!
I have noticed also that many young figurative painters are working like this too which for me is a sign that painting and especially drawing is alive and well…
You said that you have an agent in London, could you tell us more about that experience? Why did you make that choice and how is it different in comparison to gallery representation?
Jill George is my London Dealer / Agent / Gallerist . I refer to her now as my agent simply because at present she doesn’t have a gallery space. I have been represented by The Jill George Gallery since 1997. The last 5 or 6 years ( without the gallery space )have been difficult in terms of sales and promotion and in fact that is partly why I have moved with more commitment into the world of the internet. For too many years I relied solely on sales and promotion generated by her and she served me well, I have no complaints but I now feel the need to take more control . I think it is important to find representation and to have shows and to be part of group shows but it seems to be increasingly important and easy to take over a lot of the control yourself via the internet… but it takes time, commitment and energy.
We talked a bit about the artist collaborations that keep popping up these days. What do you think of them, should there be more, or is it a way of separation?
I joined instagram in March and seeing these collaborations moved me very deeply. I realized that it was possible to be a part of a community of your choice and to interact physically as well as just sharing images digitally. I think there will be more of them and there should be. I contacted a few of the artists involved in these projects ( death of a coworker, a moving occurrence, the Lo. Collective)and have started exchanging and buying work from them . The whole process has breathed new life into the way I see things in terms of painting.
What you say about separation confuses me a little because I think for any sort of exchange program to work there have to be certain standards or shared qualities and so automatically that separates those whose sensibilities are equal from those who haven’t put the work in but want to be part of it anyway. What I like very much is the idea that two artists can exchange a similar sized drawing. It has no bearing on value or monetary worth but simply on it’s own terms, a mutual respect….but those terms have to be equal.
Thanks to the internet networking and everything got way easier. Do you think that this opens the doors to everyone and gives them an equal opportunity?
I think that as I said above the possibilities now with the internet are astounding. Certain things got easier such as contacting artists and seeing what they are doing. Seeing daily what efforts they are going to in their new pictures, the failures as well as the successes, the tools they are using etc. All of this makes one aspect much easier than it was but to be an artist is still no easy thing to manage. You still have to sell your work to live and no matter how many hundreds of people may say they like it, how many would actually buy it??
This is something I am actively working with because there is a misunderstanding that has to be overturned. Many artists think that there are people who buy pictures and ordinary people who don’t. In my experience anybody can potentially buy a picture and so I made a commitment to myself that for every picture I sold, I would buy a drawing or something small with some of the earnings. I was astonished at how reasonable the prices were from artists who are really quite famous and also happy because several preferred to trade with me rather than sell to me! I would like everyone to be a bit more forthcoming about buying art. Basically for $200 or less you can get a great drawing by a rising art star . It is not a ridiculous amount of money and helps keep the art world moving. Sermon over!!
Apparently you have some interesting plans and ideas for your upcoming work. What is the thing the currently sparks your interest?
For a long time I have wanted to paint Artists in their studios but was always procrastinating about how I was going to go about it and the effort involved to contact them and set it up etc. Then after seeing these exchanges on instagram I realized I could do it by asking the artists to send me photos which they take. So I will end up with a bunch of photos from each artist which I will then try to turn into a composition. I have no idea how this will develop ..and that is part of the point… my means are limited and therefore I have to be creative and make each one unique and about them somehow.
The artist and the studio is a theme I have been returning to a lot but it is always me and my studio!!
I see the space where the work is created as a sort of potent place filled with potential but it’s physical actuality is one of chaos and mess (at least that is true of my studio). I find the way we choose to spend a large part of our lives creating things to be as important as the works created. Things develop in a certain way, the area we choose to work in has a meaning, the size of the painting changes the dynamic of the room, whether we sit or stand ,are chaotic or neat all have bearings not only on the work but on our characters. By asking for these photos I am hoping to get some sort of an insight into the process and ultimately into the energy of the artist. Now how that will come out in my paintings …I don’t know but it interests me enough that I thought it would be a great theme for my show next year in London. And the response so far has been amazing….
What are the best suited virtual communities for an artist right now?
I don’t really know about these things. I met Phil Hale for coffee in London in November and it was he who told me I had to get on instagram. I didn’t really believe at the time that it could be as interesting as it has proved to be. More than that, I find it a vital source…because look at my situation as an example: I live in a Greek island and have lived thus for 25 years. I need to be remote, I need the silence and lack of interference in order to focus fully on what I am doing. The bad side is that you end up away from where things are “happening” and sometimes that can feel really isolating. With instagram I am connecting daily with artists whose work I love and respect from all over the world…and although it is basically a virtual situation, I think there will come moments of crossover…for example by being part of a group online, maybe that group will hold a show somewhere and you could then be part of it by exhibiting works together. Facebook is basically a good tool for generating followers and to get your work seen but the downside is that there are too many opinions floating around and it seems a lot of angry people out there!!
How do you feel about having a personal web page/domain? Is it important, and if it is when is the right time for it?
I have just published my webpage www.tomaswatson.com I have wanted to do it for several years but again procrastinated until I realized that you need to have a place to send people who want to look at your work. It was surprisingly easy to set up (I haven’t finished it yet , not by a long way but there is enough to see what I’m about and works for sale etc) and I will try over time to get all my work up there. I think it definitely helps to have a site of your own ….just how important it will be remains to be seen.
What is you medium of choice and why? How do you feel about digital work? Is it or will it ever be considered a valid art form?
This is a big question. I suppose oil paint would be my medium of choice but I have been developing systems that mean I can use anything I want. I tend to find that any one medium is limiting by the same factors that make it unique. When I start a work I start it with dry materials, charcoal ,pastels, sanguine etc. then I move on or at the same time combine it with inks , goache and then acrylics. During this stage it is possible to glue stuff on, rip it off…basically do anything using acrylic based glues and mediums, fabrics, paper and plastic. Once the picture has reached a point where to continue in this manner is pointless, it has stopped developing …then it is time to move on to Oils. In order to do that the entire surface has to be sized with a thick translucent acrylic size. This protects everything from the oil. Then you can start splattering the oil about. But from this point on there is no more gluing or mixing of media, it is only oil paint.
I was very interested in digital media and bought an ipad for the drawing apps. But it is no satisfying drawing on glass with a thick rubber thing and then the printed product , whilst amazing in itself never looks more than a reproduction of something and I got very disheartened by it. I do believe there are possibilities with it however and one of the ways is to use digital media in combination with other techniques. With these photos from the artists for example I intend to work on them all digitally, combining and changing…whatever…and then print the result (which may be the starting point for the paintings) onto a sheet of polyester plate which I will then ink up and print through the etching press. Each of the artists involved will get one of these as a thank you.
So in this way digital technology will directly help me and is entirely valid. On it’s own however it lacks that original aspect. Etching also lacks that original aspect except that they are pulled through the press by hand and each one has been inked differently and there is the plate mark etc….so there is an intimacy with an etching which is not there in an inkjet print.
What is kitsch in your opinion? If you think there are motives that have been misused so many times, do you think there is a way to un-kitsch them?
Kitsch is a very interesting thing and deeply misunderstood. In a way kitsch is similar to nostalgia, a longing for something gone, when everything was perfect and beautiful. The symbols associated with Kitsch imagery are in fact triggers to a deeper psychological meaning. Because of this they are always overused and usually overused by amateurs as it is the first sort of thing that makes them feel inspired. As a result there are endless crap pictures of cheesy sunsets. If a sunset is painted with passion however and with an observed intensity nothing can speak more directly to your soul…think about Turner , Lorraine , Monet or Friedrich. I would advise novices to avoid anything sentimental however, to wait until enough life has
passed through them and enough skill has been developed that a painted sunset can deeply equate with a real emotion.
Things can be un –Kitsched because nothing in reality is kitsch. Things just are…. and so if they can be observed honestly for what they are they can transcend any preconceived notions and exist as depictions of something real and meaningful.
Do you have any final words, or something you would like to share with the readers? A question you would have wanted me to ask you?
I am very interested in the use of photography in figurative painting. For many years I had a guilty relationship with the camera , feeling that I was somehow cheating, even though I knew that was not the case or even the point.
As most decent figurative painters will know, the painting happens on the canvas. Whatever you use to start off your painting, it is the painting itself that ends it. There are all sorts of decisions that have to be made during the process of a painting and the starting point (the photograph or drawing or model) is only a very small part of the outcome of the piece. The good thing about using photography is that you can return to it again and again , the bad part is that it is fixed, that it’s 2 dimensional quality has already been decided.
There was a point a few years ago when I thought that hyper realism had gone bananas and taken over. There seemed to be an endless supply of hyper realistic drawings and paintings which are astonishing to look at. I was very disheartened because it seemed to me that the notions of constitutes and what has always constituted good drawing was being overtaken by overwhelming detail. How could you begin to explain to someone who doesn’t know, that the hyper realistic piece is not necessarily well drawn??
I was despairing for a few years because whilst I am happy to see these achievements I was feeling that truth was being lost somewhere down the line.
Then I started to see what the figurative painters are coming up with now and I found new hope. They are using photography not as an end, as something to copy, but as a means . Check out Daniel Segrove, Felipe Alonso, Justin Hopkins, Blake Neubert, Johan Barrios, Sid Watters, Jose Luis Puche, Emilio Villalba, Gabriella Maldonado, Aleksandra Devic, Pamela Wilson etc.
They are generally young enough to have been brought up in a world where digital imagery was a given thing, that working from photographs was normal. Therefore they are seeing what they can do with it, how it can help them and I can see now that there is a really bright future for figurative drawing and painting emerging, which is not stuck in the past but is embracing modern technological advances and moving forward.