Marion, (wife and primary sponsor) and I went to see the exhibition of Dale Chihuly’s glass work at Kew yesterday. I’d seen the piece of his that’s hanging in the foyer of the V&A and been impressed by its sheer scale of ambition and technical complexity. On walking around Kew this impression was reinforced. However, the more I saw, the more I began to feel that the work was shouting at me and pushing me back a bit. I wasn’t repelled, but not drawn in either. I was impressed, but not falling in love, and I’m not entirely sure why.
Is this what sculpture does though? It says; ‘stand back and look’. You can go up close, but there’s no way ‘in’. I’m confused about this. I’m continually drawn to sculpture. I feel a strong understanding, affinity and empathy with it. But, I think, maybe, I’m not feeling intimacy.
This has made me think about my own work in this context. My general disposition is to be outgoing and seemingly confident, which is largely a defensive strategy to stop people getting too close. A key driver for my work is to find ways to breach this defence and be more genuinely expressive. I don’t think my work is brash, but does it push people back or draw them in?
In addition to the large outdoor pieces, there was an exhibition of smaller works indoors. I enjoyed these more. They felt more organic and, perhaps because of their size, more intimate to me.
What I was possibly more interested in was the vegetation. I’d not been to Kew before, and I really enjoyed the different houses with plants from different climates and habitats. It’s not the plants themselves as individual things that interest me as such; it’s the general effect of the extraordinary range of textures, the shades of green and the patterns of leaves and stems that fascinates me. From micro to macro scale, there seems to be worlds within worlds.
I think I need to explore this more; how to draw on this experience, this overall sense of the textures, colours and patterns in my paintings; – without getting hung up on not being able to ‘draw’ the plants as ‘things’.