The art of Patricia Millns

Painting

Step into Patricia Millns’ artistic world where she

paints using her own script in symbols, where the

Middle East becomes more decipherable. She speaks

to Millionaire about everything – from headgear to

Sufi mysticism – to bring home the point that all

art is life

text Shalini Sethphotographs Santosh Bala

her own script

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An encounter with Patricia millns is like being a part of one of her paintings or installations

– it’s interactive. She draws you into her world, engages you in conversation, making sure you

understand what pauses and empty spaces mean. She counter-questions, taking care to ensure that the words used are precise, falling in their designated spaces to achieve what she set out to create.

“Getting dressed and you coming here is an event. it’s an art event. The choice you make in your clothing, the questions you are asking me… the rings i wear… it’s all an event. Each part of the day is as relevant. To me it is not like this is work and this is play. it all has to be one. it has to be just living your life,” millns says.

She has messages woven into most of her work, including the 500 guthras (traditional middle Eastern men’s head-covering) that she is painting for the Dubai international Financial Centre’s Gulf art Fair.

never mind that it is in a script of her own creation. She paints everything from clothes to shoes and everyday objects because

“not everybody responds to an art work. They are nervous. What should i feel? Should i feel? What do i do? This way, you are part of it. You can touch it.”

millns will identify the symbol for the full stop at the end of the symbol for the paragraph, but no more than that. “i don’t want anyone to fully understand. The whole idea is that you don’t know what it says… it will spoil everything if you knew. Then the magic’s gone. Then i wouldn’t have people questioning the work. Then you would just walk by, read it and walk out,” she says.

Through conversational passages, pauses and challenges, you are drawn into her world anyway. “all these are in my script,” millns says of the 500 guthras. “This is a whole piece. i love just the white. i love the simplicity, which is why i chose guthras to do this piece. This dissolves your identity. So you talk to the person and not to the clothing.

Talismans and a fascination with calligraphic art and traditional clothing are not incidental. The artist – whose works can be seen in public collections in the United Kingdom at the British museum, British Council, royal Commonwealth Society and Sainsbury Collection; in the United States at the United nations and UniFEm; and in the middle East at the national museum Collections of the UaE, Kuwait, oman and Jordan – counts Prince Charles amongst her numerous patrons. “i have also done a piece where i have used the poetry of Sheikh mohammed bin rashid al maktoum, Vice-President and Prime minister of the UaE and ruler of Dubai, for him. i did a piece for Prince Charles which had his poetry,” says millns. She exhibits internationally but has retained a studio base in the middle East for the past more than 25 years.

The middle East is a spiritual base as well. “as i became more and more interested in Sufi mysticism, i realised objects are not important. The object is only to get you through something. So, the surface captures your eye, but it takes you through to what is beyond the object, beyond the surface.

“When you think of Sufi mysticism, the surfaces are used to reflect a feeling. and so i use the object to get me through. i am still tied to objects – i come from a culture of objects. But as i grow, the objects become less and less important. They make life easier, but you go beyond them,” millns says.

“You involve Yourself with

Your clothing – it becomes

an event. if it’s not about

making a statement, what

are we doing here?”

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Having travelled across Europe, South asia, america and arabia, the artist is a wanderer of sorts. “my work is not just here. i show in other countries. i use a lot of references from other countries because it is from my reference point. it is in my head – things that i have. i was very influenced from an early age by Celtic art. i was born in England but grew up in ireland. i felt this was my culture. i loved Celtic art, the mysticism,” she explains.

Until she came here. “The middle East keeps me. There is something about the middle East that has made me feel very much at home, ever since i first arrived. When i first flew into Kuwait, when i saw my first dune, i felt like i was coming home. it’s always been like that, it’s like a spiritual base. it’s a very stimulating place.”

Coming to the region where calligraphy has always been an art form was the next step, and not just geographically. “i always loved the idea of putting the word in my painting. So the word became an image. The middle East has always treated calligraphy as one of the highest arts. it is also a culture where there is no representational tradition. most of my influences

are architectural, the repeated imagery of islamic art. By repeating an image you actually go through an image,” millns says.

The time – and mind-space that one commonly refers to as culture shock seems to have been reversed. “i come from a culture of representational art in Europe and i came to a culture of non-representation. You could go straight into abstraction. it was so liberating! You did not have to go back to trying to reproduce some sort of reality. The reality was the abstract. it was the word, what the word signified. So i have stayed, and i love it,” she says, her hands dancing expressively, expansively.

She says, “Studying iconography (mediaeval illumination and early Celtic manuscripts) led to the study of early islamic period. This developed onto an understanding of the richness of islamic script and the complexity and repetition of imagery and motifs within islamic architectural systems. This forms an important element and inspiration to my work.”

The abstract was reinforced as one of the themes of millns’ life when she lost all her possessions in the first Gulf war. She does not miss the objects. “at various stages in my life, i have lost all my objects. Then, you just start again. it doesn’t matter. Even if i lost everything today, it doesn’t matter. You just start again. after the Gulf war i just had one bag. i had been travelling so i didn’t have any of my jewellery with me and i always like to wear rings. i didn’t have a watch. and it didn’t matter. Because you accumulate again,” she says.

You will find her at various events in the region, always dressed in black, mostly by issey miyake. “That is the first time i saw clothing that was like an artwork that you fitted into. i have worn this jacket as trousers. i have worn it as a scarf. i can turn it upside down and wear it as a jacket with a huge collar. For the first time, i saw artwork that i could go inside. i saw clothing that was fit to the viewer. and they have never let me down. i just love clothes that are artwork that you blend in. it’s not done by sizing. a large woman, a small woman – all can wear the same piece. it just becomes different things depending on the person that is inside it. miyake had the philosophy of aPoC – a piece of cloth. Take a piece of cloth and you can do anything. You involve yourself with your clothing – it becomes an event. and if it’s not about making a statement, what are we doing here?” millns says. >

“It’s all art. It’s all life. It’s all art. Because my work is me. Someone

asked me if there was anything people don’t know about. I said,

look at the work. If you look at it, it’s like me being in Ireland,

that’s me being in Arabia and that’s me being older, wanting

simplicity. That’s me being more passionate. That’s it. What am

I hiding?”

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She has an artist’s appreciation of men’s traditional headgear. “When this is on a man’s head, he stands differently. a man would slouch, but when you wear this, you have to hold your head up, because if you slouch it comes off. The clothing makes you elegant.”

restrictions are not only those that are placed by others – they can also be a choice. “i am wealthy in a non-monetary way. i feel very privileged that i made a choice early to paint and travel. i just left one day because i felt so restricted by a conventional lecturing job and the daily routine of a regular commitment. That is when i said i am going to live a life without personal restriction. one shouldn’t place personal restrctions upon oneself. i do what i do. if i sell, i make money. if i don’t, i don’t. if i don’t worry it comes. i really believe that it does because its importance diminishes,” she says encapsulating her work of 30 years.

a great believer in doing things naturally, even for art’s sake, millns works out of her studio in Dubai and another, smaller one in oman. “i visit Kuwait a lot. But i don’t really have a studio there. But if i need to work and do things, i always find space. Space always presents itself. You need to find space, somebody offers you space. it just comes. always. if it’s the right thing to do,” she says.

But which of these is home? “Home is where i am working. Home is where i am. Home is somebody else’s concept. i never left home. i don’t miss home. You bring home with you. So i am home wherever i am,” she says.

“Creating pictures in not the same thing as being an artist. anyone can be taught to paint; you cannot be taught to be an artist. Being an artist is about expression – you can do it by dancing, you can do it by creating a great garden. it’s an intellectual pursuit. it is not the creation of objects. ”

Those who have watched a child grow, and leave, can understand what an artist would feel while parting with a painting.

“The action is much more important than the object. That is why you can sell a painting. it ceases to be important for the creator once it is painted. Then it has some importance to the viewer. So it’s only a step to go on to the next one. Each work leads to the next work,” millns says. and it is about communication. at this time, and for some time now, it is the colour red that is running through her work. “it is only when you experince the work the way you see them that they become interesting. The way you feel the red, you are excited by the colour. Then the artwork is alive. if you don’t see them, i couldn’t describe them on the phone. as i grow older, red is the colour of strength, of passion, what i feel about my life at the moment. life is for living. and i love the passionate intensity of the colour. and red, when people look at it, actually makes your heart beat slightly faster, like blue makes you slightly calmer – actually, physically calmer. i love red. i just love the warmth.”

Having said that, “colour to me is just colour. my work is my life. i use a simple, minimalist palette. my work is my life and as i get older, possibly more mature. Simlicity in all things is of prime importance.

Little bottles on a shelf covered with a thin curtain reminiscent

of an apothecary’s cupboard draw you to them. “It is one of my

installations,” Millns says.

“Take a bottle,” she says as I peer a little closer trying to see inside.

“Each one has a message...an inspiration...a poem. They are like

messages thrown into the ether like bottles thrown into the sea.”

“How do people react to these,” I ask her.

“I am not responsible for the viewers response or even if they open

the bottles. It is not about that they are my thoughts and poems

they are not created for the viewer or the reader. To pen the

bottle is a personal choice like the reaction to an art work that is

a personal choice...not my directive. The piece will still work even

if the bottles are not opened. it intrigues even more...it conjures

other images of tinctures and healing liquids arranged on shelves.

Years ago when was walking on an beach in Oman I found a

message in a large glass jar. I could not read the Arabic script. I

was intrigued by this and the whole mystique of the event. I never

forgot this...This is my response to that event to the serendipity of

the unknown...”

“I love the idea of a hidden message of leaving it to the elements

to decide if it is found opened and read or if nobody does. That is

more important than the messages...”

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