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A presentation given by Brian Graham describing his work and forthcoming exhibition at Hart Gallery, London
I am not an archaeologist . . . . But thanks to the exploits of an extraordinarily varied group of dedicated people who are, I have become the painter I am.
One of them, pre-eminent in the study of early Hominid behaviour, Clive Gamble, puts it very kindly.
He says in my new catalogue essay,
“Brian may not be an archaeologist by training, but his compositions chime with my experiences.”
He continues,
“Applying pigment provides many references to the accretion of time and his canvases are themselves active landscapes, never still, always changing. Familiar elements appear, such as stone hand axes or sea cliffs. These are then scraped down, obliterated, only to be built up again. The paintings are tied both by a range of fine through to course textural applications and a palette drawn from from varying terrain, to the physical presence of soil and a stratigraphy that forms their inspiration. Like a well corroded object they could be X-rayed to reveal the same and other places. Time never stands still and these places are constantly evolving, until the archaeologist comes and strips back the turf to reveal layer by layer, the contents of the site. As a result, there is a sense of experience being laid down and continually being up-dated rather as personality and a sense of self, who we are, are described as a process of sedimentation during life. And in those sediments memory is also contained.
As a result, painting these places never ends. They have to be terminated arbitrarily, a frozen moment, like so many Palaeolithic sites themselves, when stone tools were dropped, the cave walls engraved or the camp abandoned. There is a strong sense in all his work that the canvas has only just been set aside and will be re-visited and changed at a future date. How comparable to boxgrove where many of the flint hand axes appear to our eyes as perfectly serviceable and yet have been left behind. Indeed many that were found show no sign, when put under the microscope, of ever having been used. Yet, when recovered by the archaeologists their biographies start again and it is this feeling of a temporary suspension in the flow of life, that strikes me so strongly in Brian’s paintings.”
Reading this perceptive text has encouraged me to try and further articulate something of my methods and by now, familiar procedures. Of course, I don’t have to; no one is forcing me, twisting my arm.
It is often said that visual artists should not even try to discuss their work publicly and I do believe, in the main, that the images themselves should do the communicating. I remember hearing how one commentator was convinced that we should all have our tongues cut out at birth.
Having thankfully survived that suggestion, I do know that many people who have supported me over the years are interested in where my motivation lies and it might be helpful to give some indication of my creative processes.
But first, I need to tell you about some journeys I made that helped to inform the core material for this exhibition.
My first considered pilgrimage was in the late 1990’s, when I squinted inquiringly down a long straight track at some flint and brick outbuildings. An open gate allowed me access. To my right, a quarry of naples yellow, boosted by suggestions of ochre, amber and sienna, had offered up the robust tibia of an ancient forbear, perhaps half a million years old.
On some visits, I am accompanied by our eldest son. He has established himself as my support system (second camera, map reader, etc), who some time ago, came to terms with the fact that his father could find profound meaning, in different shades of dirt.
Fast forward across the English Channel to a Neanderthal hunting ground. Ancient pachyderm remains, carefully excavated from sediments below a terrifyingly, vertiginous promontory, glistened ominously in pinkish brown granite. The palpable sense of threat in this tainted, trapped, enclosure, contrasted tellingly with the sense of bonhomie that abounds in the much visited island playground that surrounds it.
Journeying anti – clockwise on the M25 and risking meltdown on a searingly hot July day, we were soon plunging into the high humidity of another weed infested gravel pit. A sweltering London was upstream on the nearby Thames. Perfectly refitting, separate fragments, of what was at first thought to be male, but now considered female cranium, caused great excitement when uncovered in three separate excavations. This being, now regarded as around four hundred thousand years old, is thought to belong to a lineage that gradually evolved into the Neanderthals.
A peerless day in the land of the Celts. The narrow, bible black, leaf shaped orifice, set high within a vivaciously abrasive limestone cliff, once housed the final resting place, of this time, an important young man. Museums, literature and websites still refer to him as the Red Lady, because when discovered nearly two centuries ago, he was wrongly attributed as being a prostitute, from Roman times: a painted lady. Truth rather than fancy was that much of his much, much older skeleton was stained by blood tinted ochre pigment.
Armed with the benefit of an accurate map reference, I pinpointed an unremarkable field that borders one of our more elegant cathedral cities. Newly exposed hand axes of flint, in mint condition, indicated clearly that this territory has been occupied for a quarter of a million years, at least. Disappointingly that charcoal found here was not evidence of the earliest controlled use of fire fond within the British Isles. That search goes on.
Early summer and further North. Parallel rows of caves gazed monotonously at each other over a shallow lake. They had been caged defiantly, to protect the precious archaeology that rest tantalisingly within, awaiting resurrection.
Surrey in April. Rain turned to sleet, turned to snow. A numbing North wind was slamming into a solidly imposing, purpose build shelter, remote and alone on a benign island. Inside contemplation followed calm, as a perfectly preserved greensand pit dwelling, restored to its Mesolithic magnificence by the King and Queen of the Royal Family of Archaeology, Louis and Mary Leakey, stared slowly up at us. Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge in miniature, thousands of miles from home.
Thunder on the horizon and lightning from my camera, as flash captured a floor of mortar free crazy paving, laid over a midden created by the discarded armour of sea food. Nearby, a cooking pit, hearths and a secret chamber. Within, a pierced scallop shell, an axe of chert and a smooth rounded pebble. Three purposefully selected objects, carefully positioned and encased in a shoal of shells by pre-farming folk.
Greeted by a pair of appropriately primordial grey herons, I meandered along the straightened north bank of a small, neatly ordered river. Pressing on, I sensed the core of a significant settlement that once clung to the margins of an ancient lake. Recent examination has revealed carefully split and worked timbers. Hard evidence of Europe’s earliest documented use of systematic carpentry. A wooden trackway led out towards the waters edge; the ideal theatre for over twenty ‘head-dresses’ found fashioned from red deer antlers. The imagination runs amok. Forgotten rites and long abandoned shamanic ceremonies, deep within a North Yorkshire vale.
At home, I peer across the bay at an elongated, salmon tinted smudge of cliff, that once provided terrain, for the last vestiges of truly Stone Age peoples in Britain. My unexpected encounter with an Upper Palaeolithic excavation, in a landscape I knew and revered, once instigated a way forward, with a wealth of material that has continued to nurture me.
Back to the site of my first pilgrimage, for another encounter. This time something special awaited us. We had the luxury of a guided tour. In dry heat our committed young expert clarified the ribbons of time that were compressed into horizontal strata, on the cliff face in front of us. We were suddenly within a secret world of flint, chalk and sand, sewn together with wild Buddleia. Standing on an ancient beach, many miles from the present coastline, we had lost our green and pleasant land. Surely, we must have been deep within Africa, Asia or Australia. Blue butterflies fluttered and time stood still.
The journey took place in August 2005. It provided a rare moment of transcendence. Some would probably have seen it as a form of religious intervention. Having set myself up for the encounter, Nothing could have prepared me for the reaction that followed. A sense of being completely humbled combined with a feeling of profound exhilaration; a moment of acute connectedness, as potent an inspiration as I could imagine.
Overwhelmed by an intense sense of place, there was an opportunity to actually occupy the footsteps of our distant forbears… a heady concoction indeed and crucially I was in the right frame of mind to accept it. A moment of epiphany and a compelling reminder of why making art is so necessary; trying to make sense of my encounters by re-assembling their potential on paper, board or canvas.
These sometimes isolated spots are now often blessed with international status and known popularly by the significance of what was uncovered during excavation. So London has its eye; Swanscombe has its skull; Blackpool its tower; Boxgrove its Tibia; Oxford has its dreaming spires, Star Carr its shamanic antlers. Southend has its pier and Piltdown its hoax – but a famous one.
On reflection, my experience reminded me of Paul Nash’s visit, when in nineteen thirty four he encountered one of our finest stone circles for the first time. He wrote, “Last summer I walked in a field near Avebury, where two rough monoliths stand up, sixteen feet high, miraculously patterned with black and orange lichen, remnants of the avenue of stones which led to the great circle. A mile away, a green pyramid casts a gigantic shadow. In the hedge at hand, the white trumpet of a convolvulus turns from its spiral stem, following the sun. He concluded, “in my art I would solve such as an equation.”
In recent years I have often explained that my work evolves freely – one mark suggesting another, with the often chance elements that occur being utilised and adapted in a maelstrom of paint. Lashings of body colour compete with more sensitively informed passages, which seek to create areas of sanctuary.
When locked into these engagements I feel at my most intuitive. I have learned to let go, allow my instincts full reign. But this often frenetic activity has to be tempered, standing back from time to time for measured consideration. A sense of balance has to be re-established, but not to the point of blandness. The struggle is ongoing.
To achieve any reward, the priority has always been to work towards a subject. Inevitably it metamorphoses into another version of the subject, or gains another identity altogether – all the result of moving paint around. The subject itself has to be extracted and then made whole, from the malleable potential of paint. Sand can become sea, ice became vapour.
This will to some, sound opportunistic, but there is no problem with losing any ingredient on the canvas, as long as it can be replaced with something more convincing. Pure abstraction is of no real interest; the organisation of form, line and texture has to serve the subject; for me decoration can be a lazy substitute.
It may also occur to you that my self imposed decision to work from specific sites would have acted as a restraint. I certainly would feel inhibited by a pre-ordained range of material; a still life of my chosen location, set up in front of me. Specialist illustrators have managed to recreate what could have been happening all those years ago. Trying to illuminate what might have been going on then, is not my function.
The renowned Stone Age specialist, Steven Mithen, a former art student at the Slade himself has written, “Archaeologists have a responsibility to make statements that go beyond one’s own personal experiences and subjective beliefs; artists have no such constraints – it is legitimate for them to indulge in self-expression. Indeed this is what they are supposed to do.”
My fascination is forged by the contemplation of a place as it is now, but with the help of some previous research, attentive to how it might have been then. And then,is often many, many thousands of years ago. To register and reinstate these timescales requires deep concentration and constant revision, until the use of intervening layers builds towards an authentic image.
Although powerfully motivated by these many and varied ancestral places, a whole series of problems occur when scrutinising a promising new encounter, which needs to be face.
Where do I fix this place within the landscape? In what condition? Do I consider it from afar? Do I make an internal or external assessment?
It is vital to be aware of these constraints; have them in the back of my mind, because paradoxically they also provide a working framework to build upon. Given time – weeks, months, even years, the works establish a life of their own and in development, several lesser lives. Despite the challenges just mentioned, they somehow fight for the right to their own independence. I have come to realise my eventual goal is an attempt to present the appearance of established composure; a moment to savour, with some sense of organisation emerging from the relentless onslaught of time and terrain. Mankind manipulated the land – I try to recognise, re-enact and celebrate their achievements.
The resolution of a canvas comes from that compelling moment, when suddenly , that last application of scumbled paint has locked something believable into place. Something I can trust.
What that thing is, varies from work to work. Qualities that can be dramatic, calming, unsettling, affirmative or a complex relationship between any of the aforementioned – and more, can all play their part.
The artist Francis Bacon, when asked by Michel Archimbaud, “What does make a painting? replied, No one really knows.” Archimbaud tried again,” But if it isn’t simply a matter of intelligence, where does painting come from? From the heart? from the stomach? from the intestines?” The same answer came back – “Who knows where it comes from”?
I, like all committed artists, have to gratify my own needs, reach my own conclusions and hope, that if I can convince myself, I have a more than passing opportunity of making a genuine connection with my audience.
Surrounded as we are by these images, the rationale for why marks, colours and compositional decisions are made is impossible to justify. They somehow emerge from a combination of discipline and a kind of knowing, born of experience. Risk is an essential ingredient, a way of breathing life into works that stubbornly refuse to co-operate; an integral part of my armoury. By using a wide ranging and still evolving visual language, that has expanded over many years, something noticeable usually arises out of a bewilderingly complicated picture plane. The interplay of forms that matter are those that find their own niche, supporting and enhancing the developing composition.
Mankind’s evolution paralleled by my paintings progress perhaps. Faltering beginnings, dead ends and the necessity to react and adapt.
Information about important archaeological discoveries arrives in various guises, sometimes word of mouth, but often with a media backed fanfare.
Let me give you a newish example. When the East Anglian coastal sites of Happisbergh and Pakefield were found to contain lithic evidence of our ancestors craft skills an amazing seven hundred thousand years old, two hundred thousand years earlier than any previously known british site, I naturally had to go there immediately. Brimming at first with boyish enthusiasm, reason then prevailed as I realised that it was neither feasible or sensible to roar off to some numbingly cold, crumbling cliff faces, bearing the brunt of the North Sea gales.
But the combined package of British archaeology magazine, the serious press and the main BBC one news provided a mouth watering inducement.
The way in which a few artifacts, stones and bones can now be presented, wonderful photography, concise texts, diagrams, dates and reconstructions, inform and excite this artist’s imagination. They can also present a productive placebo, so I still need to make my East Angian safari.
It is encouraging by the way, that age, so far, hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for new discoveries. A high level of motivation is something to cherish, the essential driving force behind any serious creative artist.
The disciplined work of archaeologists allows me the freedom to improvise and speculate from their hard work – proven or hypothetical. My bond with the ancient landscape is complimented by having witnessed the possibilities of live excavation. If earlier dates than expected for newly discovered artifacts are confirmed by analysis, my spirits lift and when I see scientists draw confident conclusions from what appears to be indifferent rubbish, my need to create is refueled. Real excitement ran through watching Richard Leakey probing the parched ground for early hominid fossils in the East African Rift Valley, on television back in the 80s. It was captivating reading Michael Pitts and Mark Roberts detective story about the Butcher and Boxgrove in their co-authored book, Fairweather Eden. And when starting to research the favoured candidates for inclusion in this exhibition, our eldest sons’s co-operation in locating various websites, added to the thrill of the chase.
Childhood visits to the treasure chest that was Poole Museum, started a life long fascination with such places, including a much later rainy day trip to the Victorian splendour of the Russell-Coates Museum in Bournemouth. There, chancing upon an evocative model of the so called Raindeer Hunters paleolithic camp at Hengisbury Head, topped up an interest which grew with time into a passion for my subject.
Before drawing these observations to a close, there is one final and very important consideration to be voiced. We now know that beings were in this land around three quarters of a million years ago. They probably weren’t part of our family tree, but are thought to be the fore runners of the Neanderthal peoples. The idea that they were mindless brutish thugs continues to exist in some quarters, but evidence is available to show us that they had the ability to create beautifully fashioned hand axes, amongst other skills.
Surely these talents link us directly to them. Their everyday handy work, when uncovered, tells us ever more about our shared humanity. I like to think my work is one way of marking their lives; of paying respect to them and their struggle to survive in a harsh and competitive world.
Clive Gamble thinks that artists have a more than passing role to play when trying to comprehend our progenitor’s worlds. He concludes his essay by saying, “If it is to gain imaginative force, the archaeologists experiment in memory requires a different eye and other media, to show how clumsy words are, when applied to the deepest past.
Some years before his death, the French artist, Paul Gauguin attempted suicide on the Island of Tahiti. Before limping wearily up to the mountains, where he took an overdose of arsenic – too much apparently – he painted what he assumed to be his final masterpiece. It was to be his spiritual testament; a huge work bearing the title, Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going?
Many of us are still curious.
Thank you.
Brian Graham May 2006