George Shaw's painting of a council house and a flowering tree is one of the most evocative I've ever seen. I'm kind of cheered by the fact that he's been nominated for the Turner prize.
It makes me reflect on tutor feedback I received on my choice of subject matter. I was criticised for choosing "conventional" subject matter, and this did and still does confuse me. (The fact that OCA courses tell us what subject matter to paint is another issue). George Shaw is described as "traditional", and I'm moved to wonder whether his subject matter is conventional or otherwise. A house and a flowering tree on the face of it sound quite conventional. Does the fact that it's a 1970s council house make it unconventional, because they're not considered "aesthetic"? Considered by whom? When my family moved into one in the 1970s, the aesthetics pleased us just fine!
The fact that he uses enamel paint is unconventional. The technical skill is brilliant of course. But if it was a snapshot it wouldn't be looked at twice, which seems to argue for it not being the subject matter that counts here. Yet, for me, it evokes the all the pleasure and the very particular pain of sunny days in adolescence: transience. The fact it seems to be more frozen than a photo, set in enamel paint, is part of its pathos.
It's the ordinary made extraordinary. Kitchen sink. But in terms of subject matter, this is only "ordinary" for people who have lived that life, surely.
In France, I went to an exhibition of paintings by an amateur painting group, held in the town hall of one of those incredibly picturesque stone villages that are commonplace in Dordogne. The paintings were by local people. There had been one day of freak weather- snow- and the majority of paintings there showed Tremolat under a layer of white. On that day, the ordinary had become extraordinary for them, and they had wanted to capture it.
It was rather a strange sight for the tourists who were there in summer, and wasn't what they would have wanted to buy. The paintings seemed naieve, full of childish excitement, kitsch. They wanted Tremolat in golden sun, the flowers contrasting with the yellow of the stones. The kind of thing they don't get to see in Birmingham every day, and the reason they go there. The kind of scenes that we used to get on jigsaw puzzles, and on chocolate boxes, and which fed our fantasies. (Or mine anyway. Somehow, growing up on the North Sea coast I had a vision of something a whole lot different, something that involved sunflowers and hollyhocks..)
Anyway, I think what I'm trying to articulate, badly, is something pretty obvious about (un)conventionality being in the eye of the beholder. Painting pretty pictures in the Dordogne is called being conventional because it regurgitates ideas of conventional prettiness. But if a platinum-card wielding Sloane Ranger buys a George Shaw because the subject matter is quaint, that's somehow not ok either (though that sounds like a rather fascist statement). If it's all about subverting conventions, then one has to know which conventions one is starting off with.
Pop art that uses images of Hello Kitty and Miffy for example, tends to subvert their innocence and play up their plastic tawdriness, but surely that only works for those- and yes, in this part of the world they are legion, adult and educated - who genuinely find these icons of beauty ("cute" may sound trite in English, but it seems to translate as something far more profound in Asia). For anyone else, it's just pointing out the hollowness of a, um, hollow thing...![]()
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| http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/ |
The fact that he uses enamel paint is unconventional. The technical skill is brilliant of course. But if it was a snapshot it wouldn't be looked at twice, which seems to argue for it not being the subject matter that counts here. Yet, for me, it evokes the all the pleasure and the very particular pain of sunny days in adolescence: transience. The fact it seems to be more frozen than a photo, set in enamel paint, is part of its pathos.
It's the ordinary made extraordinary. Kitchen sink. But in terms of subject matter, this is only "ordinary" for people who have lived that life, surely.
In France, I went to an exhibition of paintings by an amateur painting group, held in the town hall of one of those incredibly picturesque stone villages that are commonplace in Dordogne. The paintings were by local people. There had been one day of freak weather- snow- and the majority of paintings there showed Tremolat under a layer of white. On that day, the ordinary had become extraordinary for them, and they had wanted to capture it.
It was rather a strange sight for the tourists who were there in summer, and wasn't what they would have wanted to buy. The paintings seemed naieve, full of childish excitement, kitsch. They wanted Tremolat in golden sun, the flowers contrasting with the yellow of the stones. The kind of thing they don't get to see in Birmingham every day, and the reason they go there. The kind of scenes that we used to get on jigsaw puzzles, and on chocolate boxes, and which fed our fantasies. (Or mine anyway. Somehow, growing up on the North Sea coast I had a vision of something a whole lot different, something that involved sunflowers and hollyhocks..)
Anyway, I think what I'm trying to articulate, badly, is something pretty obvious about (un)conventionality being in the eye of the beholder. Painting pretty pictures in the Dordogne is called being conventional because it regurgitates ideas of conventional prettiness. But if a platinum-card wielding Sloane Ranger buys a George Shaw because the subject matter is quaint, that's somehow not ok either (though that sounds like a rather fascist statement). If it's all about subverting conventions, then one has to know which conventions one is starting off with.
Pop art that uses images of Hello Kitty and Miffy for example, tends to subvert their innocence and play up their plastic tawdriness, but surely that only works for those- and yes, in this part of the world they are legion, adult and educated - who genuinely find these icons of beauty ("cute" may sound trite in English, but it seems to translate as something far more profound in Asia). For anyone else, it's just pointing out the hollowness of a, um, hollow thing...
