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| 3 - 30th September 2015, Curwen Gallery, 34 Windmill Street, London, WIT 2JR Artist Talk 22nd September 7pm in the Upper Gallery. |
Bill Pryde is one of the UKs most esteemed screenprinters. His new body of work continues to build upon ideas he began in his 2012 solo show Lonely Churches, Remembered Landscapes with cloisonné interpretations of scenery in Scotland and Suffolk. T
Robin Spalding and Natalie Suggitt joined Bill in his newly developed studio to discuss the new work…
Curwen Gallery: What have you been trying to achieve with
this new body of work?
Bill Pryde: Making work, the physical act of
printmaking, gives me the opportunity of creating immediate and particular
responses to the world I see around me, when I wake up each morning. (All this because I wish to be seeing, I
think the poet said). I enjoy this.
And this excitement, this energy
I suppose, is what inspires me to make the work itself. It is, of course, an
expression of my own mood and feelings… and now that I have moved my studio to Suffolk
full time, I find myself surrounded daily by the enormous and ever-changing
skies and landscape moods of this county, and facing the constant mystery of
the sea, which is not always active, but
often quiet, dark, even contemplative, and holding all sorts of secrets and
currents underneath. And the marshes, that stretch out towards the sky.
Suffolk, and my native Scotland
(which Suffolk reminds me of… the coast east of Edinburgh… same light, similar
vegetation etc), demands a response; they are huge and defiant canvases, moody,
tranquil yet full of force.
I wanted to explore new, more
painterly techniques in my recent monoprints (these mean I only get to do
things once, which I find very freeing; if it works an idea can be further developed,
sometimes spoilt of course! But, as in painting, there can be a similar
spontaneity in monoprinting; things can be covered over, over-printed, though
unlike painting, not removed to start again.
I also wanted to produce some
strong and dynamic work that had a spring in its step, and asked to be looked
at. Recently my attention was drawn to the £5 orchids at my local Tesco, with
their delicate, old and spindly stalks, suddenly producing an outrageous and
youthful flurry of flowers … and I thought, “I’d like to make that”.
I have my own aches and pains
(I’ve just celebrated my 64th birthday) and keep pushing myself... so perhaps
in this way the Orchids are a touch autobiographical… but isn’t everything
really??
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Bill Pryde, Landscape I
Monoprint, 60 x 63cm, £400
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Curwen Gallery: You generally only produce small editions
and monoprints, and because your prints are often unique I feel like much of
your work is closer, in terms of material significance, to painting than
printmaking. Why is it that you mostly produce single prints?
BP: Hand producing large editions of work can be very punishing…. and I’ve found you can never get the size of edition right! If you make 20 of something, the odds are that you’ll only sell three and they’ll end up in the back of a drawer… And it’s always good to have people wanting more. I’ve found that if you put a big editioned piece into the RA (where I’ve always sold out) it won’t get in…Sod’s law really….
It’s the immediacy of the process and technique at one remove that attracts me
to printmaking, the rules and disciplines, there to be understood, and
sometimes broken. There is a great satisfaction in creating colour and
contrasts that have a real temperature. It is only ink on paper after all… but
an image can have its own clarity and definition, its own edge and shape.
I applaud the democracy of the reproductive qualities of
printmaking, but for now I like the idea of a one-off, individual moment, captured
there and then… and finding a good home of its own (On a wall near you).
Curwen Gallery: How do you feel that this new body of work
has moved on since your last show, Suffolk
Churches…?
BP: My last Curwen show was themed. You asked me to do a new
show so I gave myself a project and then documented it. Also it was for the
smaller upper gallery and I wanted the work to work well in the space.
I am lucky enough to have done a fair bit of travelling, and
like many travellers am always drawn to local churches, especialky the lonely
ones, all on their own in the middle of nowhere. Scotland, Suffolk, Iceland,
Lanzarote… four of my favourite haunts. So draw and then print. The prints were
quite detailed, small scale but complicated, very precise. The new work is much
freer, perhaps more ambitious.
Curwen Gallery: You’ve said before that you take a lot of
inspiration from the Scottish colourists. What parts of your work do you feel
continue their ideas?
BP: Coming from Edinburgh I was aware of the Scottish Colourist
tradition from quite a young age, though mainly through reproductions I might
add! The Colourists were a confident group of associated artists, who got
themselves away from the grey mornings of Edinburgh city life and were dazzled
by the dynamic and enthusiastic reach of colour and harmonies that they saw,
mainly in France, growing out of Fauvism. We Scots like colour in our homes,
insist on it, I think. It can be dreich outside… and cold. These painters and
printmakers, and many other of their
ilk, bring excitement and energy into more set situations… decorative, often
domestic - pleasing, joyful…. anything wrong with that?
Curwen Gallery: How do you feel that continuing their
motivations in screenprinting rather than painting has changed the way that the
work is understood? Do you feel that you move with the tradition and how do you
update their ideas for a contemporary audience?
BP: There are some fantastic
Scottish printmakers, very contemporary and dynamic, making work in Glasgow and
Edinburgh and particularly I think in Dundee, currently. Yes, this is part of a
tradition. Scots like tradition, and history, though it might not be
fashionable to say so in England.
I think that printmaking by
definition has to be aware of its own international tradition. We have great
examples of 20th Century printmaking everywhere, Germany in the
first half of the last century, America in the second half. I’ve been lucky enough to work in Indi and see
how screenprinting is only now finding an artistic credibility there, in the
face of digital work too.
The language of printmaking has
many individual accents, but perhaps one tongue.
Curwen Gallery: You mentioned that you are thinking of
opening your new studio as a teaching establishment- what were your plans for
this?
BP: As I’ve mentioned, printmaking
is by definition a very democratic and collaborative art form… Equipment is
often shared and you can be inspired and challenged by other people making work
around you… It can help you raise your game. Printmakers muck in, but there are
rules to be learnt, and techniques and shortcuts to find out about too. I think
printmakers are generous with their knowledge. It could be very satisfying, and
instructive for me to be able to introduce other artists to screenprinting, and
see where they can take it. The idea of teaching short courses allows me to
encourage people to make something of their own, with a bit of technical help
perhaps… but their own choices, their own ambitions. To make something of their own, they might take
themselves by surprise. This could be fun I hope…
Curwen Gallery: How did your time studying for your MA at Camberwell change how you
thought about and produced your work?
BP: I studied at Byam Shaw – small, intimate, encouraging. Then my MA at Camberwell - large, challenging, competitive in the best sense. I learnt techniques from the staff, was able to make work
quickly, and learn, gaining knowledge from my younger fellow students, but
gaining the confidence to follow my own instincts, and learn to be confident
enough to have ambitions.
Curwen Gallery: What has been your career trajectory? Which
exhibitions and opportunities do you think have particularly helped you?
BP: After thirty years work in
theatre and television as a director, where my job was to get the best out of
other people, my job now is to get the best out of myself. Making my own work
for the first time, being only answerable to myself is very freeing. Of course
it takes a bit of nerve. But I suppose I am just happy to have the opportunity
to make the work, to express what I feel about things… and without words,
that’s quite freeing!
As a result of my Graduate show at Camberwell I was asked to
show work by three galleries afterwards, including the Curwen with your own
Graduate Show. (Long may its tradition continue). This has been followed by I
think four or five solo shows with the Curwen, and in the past I have done well
at the RA Summer Shows, though have recently not put work in for consideration.
Immediately after college I joined East London Printmakers and had five or so
very happy years there, with many group shows, before setting up a first studio
of my own.
Other showing highlights have been in Edinburgh (at the
Dundas St Gallery, and more recently at Bonhams), in Kolkatta, at the Nehru
Centre in London, in Aldeburgh and in Saxmundham, Suffolk.
Curwen Gallery: Which artists would you consider to be your
main inspirations?
BP: All artists inspire me, and musicians, and film makers… and
gardeners! I feel Scottish and British… but the English landscape
tradition in printmaking is particularly strong. In the last century…Piper, the
Nashes, Ravillious, Bawden…also Hockney, Caulfield, Bert Irwin, and then across the
water we’ve got Warhol, and the West and East Coast American artists from
Ellsworth Kelly to Milton Avery… Big minds, big countryside!
There’s so much wonderful work out there. I’m grateful I was
able to discover it all when I was 50 (I was too busy doing words before). This
has been like learning a new language, and hearing voices I’d never noticed
before.
Curwen Gallery: What is it about the Suffolk/ Scottish
landscape which particularly captures your imagination?
BP: The landscape speaks and sings.
The author, the artist, the composer observes and attempts to capture a moment.
Curwen Gallery: We are particularly keen on your new still life
works. How do you feel that you make this old painterly tradition relevant to a
contemporary audience?
BP: Still Life… well the name says it all. It’s Still… Life… I don’t
attempt to represent anything, rather I hope to respond to it… its shape, its
form… an object is a landscape, as much as a landscape can be seen as an
object.
Look .See. Respond. Draw. Make.
Enjoy. What more can I say..!!?
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Bill Pryde, Orchid Duo - Turqouise
Monoprint, 74 x 58cm £500
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Bill Pryde's Landscapes and Orchids is currently showing in Curwen's upper gallery till 30th September 2015, open Mon-Fri 10am-6pm (Thursday 10am-8pm) and on Saturdays from 11am-5pm. You can view some of Bill's work at the Curwen Gallery website by following this link.
There is an Artist Talk on Tuesday 22nd September at 7pm in the exhibition space, where Bill will be speaking about his work and answering questions. We hope to see you there!
