portraits by neil shawcross

Irish Arts Review

Portraits by Neil ShawcrossAuthor(s): Brian McAvera and Neil ShawcrossSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 19, No. 2 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 72-79Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25502864 .

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INTERVIEW

Portraits by

Neil Shawcross

'My work isn't about ideas, it's about creating exciting uses of paint',

the artist tells BRIAN MCAVERA.

1 Neil Shawcross

(Photographed by

Bobby Hanvey)

2 Neil Shawcross

Seamus Heaney. 2000. Oil on canvas.

198x91 cm.

(Courtesy of artist) Photo: Bryan

Rutledge.

3 Neil Shawcross

Michael Longley. 2001.Oil on canvas.

198 X 91 cm

This interview took place in the artist's studio, which is fairly near the

centre of Belfast and is roughly a mile from the art college where he has

spent most of his working life. The studio is in a loft with views out over

Belfast. The space itself is cluttered and crowded, so much so that one might won

der how the artist ever manages to paint there. Posters, examples of children's art,

and his own art jostle with a veritable altar of consumer packaging in the form

of boxes, tins, packets and the like, neatly arranged and flanked by magazines in cel

lophane wrapping.

The artist himself, rather like the simple but elegant colour combinations of his

paintings, is dressed in a white linen suit and blue shirt (Fig 1). Being a gregarious

and sociable man, he produces sandwiches and a rather good bottle of wine

during the interview.

Brian McAvera (BMcA): Neil, you were born in 1940 in Kearsley, Lancashire.

By the age of fifteen you were in Bolton College of Art, and by eighteen at

Lancaster College of Art where you ended up teaching part-time until 1962?

which was when you came to work part-time in the then Belfast College of Art.

Almost forty years later you still retain your Lancashire accent. How do you

consider yourself to have been shaped by your early background, and what impelled you towards art

by the age of fifteen?

Neil Shawcross (NS): I don't feel I'm from Lancashire. I'm very much at home here ? never had any

desire to live, or exhibit anywhere else though I love going to America. When I arrived I was immediately

aware of the quality of the art here, John Turner, Romeo Togood and Tom Carr, and soon felt part of it.

My training had been in drawing and painting in oil, whereas here I soon developed my interest in watercolour.

I did have a long training in Lancashire. I've a twin brother. All we did from pre-school days onwards

was draw and paint. I hated school generally but the art sessions interested me. Life became wonderful at

Junior Art School [In those days you could transfer to a junior art school if you showed promise]. Half of

the time was spent on arts and crafts, rather like what Foundation in art school is like now.

I don't know where the interest in the visual arts came from. My parents played a lot of music and my

two older brothers are musicians but there was no art on the walls. From my teens I would have been bring

ing in reproductions into the house, which I could hang. My parents weren't aware of the visual arts but

they liked theatre. Yet my interest in art is there from my first memories of school: sketching on the black

board! I loved the seven or eight years of studying painting, one long Foundation course really. It was a

7 2 I

IRISH ARTS REVIEW A U T U M N 2002



17,

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IS an,

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INTERVIEW

4 Neil Shawcross

Francis Stuart

1979. Oil on canvas.

152 x 107 cm.

(Courtesy of the

Ulster Museum).

7 4 IRISH ARTS RE V I E \\ A U T U M N 2002



Euston Road School kind of grounding, which is why I was so

comfortable with Tom Carr. There was nothing I wanted to get

away from [when I came to Northern Ireland]. I do find the

industrial landscapes of Lancashire very exciting. Any photo

graphs I take are always of architecture, and very much separated

from my painting. I'm a figurative painter but I don't like people

in my photos. I find American architecture very exciting, the

sense of scale, the monumental quality -

similarly with

Lancashire. My father and grandfather were from mill back

grounds, though I don't think that permeates into my work at all.

Red and green have a fascination for me ... the drama ... it's

the most satisfying contrast of colours for me (Fig 11). I do

remember often walking into the centre of Bolton, four to five

miles away. There were two very pleasant houses, bungalow

types, different from the usual industrial architecture. One had

woodwork painted in green, the other was red. I do remember

always feeling a tingle that the colours triggered in me. I always

felt good looking at them.

BMcA: You have always taught, and from 1968 it has been

full-time. Apart from the financial security, what are the posi

tives and negatives of this in relation to your art practice?

NS: No negatives. I'm with the activity of drawing and painting

every day, either doing or observing. You're working with excit

ing, young, gifted people, observing so many ways of applying and

using paint... If you are open to it, it's a learning experience. It's

only twenty hours a week maximum. If I wasn't in Art College

I wouldn't necessarily do any more painting than I do now. I've

always kept part of the day for the studio. In my work the actual

time in the studio is not crucial. It's in my head ... it's being with

people, observing children ... that's my research. In terms of the

Caldwell Gallery exhibition [Belfast, March 2002 which featured

still-lifes and nudes] I've always taught life drawing and painting

(Fig 9 and 10). I organise the life room activity. In the previous

year students were mad keen to do figure drawing and were fond

of moving poses. Robert, the model, is a painter himself. He

knows what's required. Gets into terrific poses and gestures.

During a morning he'll do maybe thirty to forty different poses.

I rarely work with the students but I'd take out pen or pencil and

jot down poses on the back of an envelope or scrap paper. The

notes for these sessions resulted in about half of the last show. I

felt that the little drawings worked as groups very well so I used

a grid format to translate them into paintings. They all became

female! I used Robert's gestures but it's the female image that

engages me (Fig 7). Nudes. All nudes...Bonnard, Matisse, aspects

of every nude you've observed in Fine Art, drawings of Margie

[his wife] done years ago. So I joke with Robert and call him

Roberta! The painting behind you Brian [a nude in green against

a red background] is of Robert?but I do a little bit of surgery!

When I'm painting the big nudes, or still-lifes, I never have a

model, unless it's for the portraits. Everything else is shorthand

notes or memory.

BMcA: Obviously you work mainly at night or at weekends.

Can you tell us what your normal studio practice is - when

you work and so forth?

NS: Most days I'm in the studios in Art College, observing, advis

'K w4 5 NEIL SHAWCROSS:

Stephen Rea as

Oscar Wilde. 1990.

Oil on canvas

198 x91 cm.

Photo: Ed Smyth.

6 Detail of Fig 5.

Private Collection.

Photo: Bryan

Rutledge.

AUTUMN 2002 IRISH ARTS REVIEW |

75



7 Neil Shawcross:

Reclining Nude.

1987. Watercolour.

122x91 cm.

8 Neil Shawcross:

Sir Terry Frost 2001

Oil on canvas.

198x91 cm.

Painting is an ongoing process, you're always pushing it, learning, it's a physical and emotional relationship with paint. I use physical and still life images to trigger me.

76 IRISH ARTS REVIEW AUTUMN 2002



interview

ing, learning, 'doing' little sketches occasionally ...

maturing ...

sifting through the head. I have in my head

Before Bonnie [his granddaughter] and After Bonnie.

Before Bonnie I would always make a beeline for my stu

dio, mid-afternoon, circa three to three-thirty. I always

have an agenda. Painting is an ongoing process, you're

always pushing it, learning, it's a physical and emotional

relationship with paint. I use physical and still life

images to trigger me. Over the years you build up

knowledge of what paint can do. A constant activity. I

don't need to think, as it's a continual cycle. I'd work to

seven or seven-thirty and then go home. After Bonnie,

I'd always go and see her. We looked after her when her

parents were at work. Bonnie came to us early in the

morning. To help them out?we live in Hillsborough,

she's in Belfast?I would bring her back to Belfast after

college, and then work in studio. I still do that?go and

see her?and extend my studio time here. I arrive at six

and work on still-lifes and nudes and so forth. For the

portraits, however, I use the big studios in the college.

They can be used at any time of the day, depending on

the availability of the sitter or studio. The recent por

trait of Terry Frost was painted in Dublin in

Hillsborough Art Gallery where his exhibition was on.

He sat for me one morning. It's always only one session

for a portrait (Fig 8). I use the college studios a great

deal at night also.

In terms of my work process I stretch paper a good

deal and would prepare maybe a dozen surfaces, a tech

nician's job really but I do it. It's almost like taking a day

off. I love the company of radio, music or talk but

mainly chat. Any Questions. Front Row arts review. It

keeps me informed as well.

My work isn't about ideas; it's about creating exciting

uses of paint. The images I select are as simple as possi

ble. They give me the freedom to extend and push bar

riers. All this stuff in the studio [altars of empty cereal

boxes, packets, tins, magazines, books, children's paint

ings etc.], it's me loving to be stimulated by colour espe

cially. My house is coming down with stuff! When I'm

in America I get great pleasure walking around the

hyper-marts. The graphics! The colour!

BMcA: Was portraiture you first love? And isn't

there a contradiction between saying that you like

simple forms ? and doing portraits!

NS: At Lancashire we were allowed into the part-timers'

class, taught by a Mr Marriner. We could work in studio

with him. He always brought in 'characters' to pose as

he was teaching portraiture. He didn't instruct us, just

let us use the model. With two or three of the ones I

worked on, life drawings and paintings, it was the only

time I felt that I had impressed someone. A group of the

staff made it obvious that they liked the work in this area. I didn't know what the hell I was doing?never have

been conscious of what I was about. I have a slide of one

9


77



9 Neil Shawcross:

Nude Studies 2001

Watercolour and

ink. 81 x91 cm.

10 Neil Shawcross:

Still Life 2002.

Oil on canvas.

74 x 74 cm.

of the earliest ones?just a head?occasionally I did full-lengths. It

was only later on when I observed children drawing people that I

was amazed to see that some of them started at the feet and

worked up, like drawing a tree. I was fascinated by that method.

I loved their line drawings and how they would put paint on.

That's influenced me a great deal in the portraits. I don't like

commissions. I much prefer particular people to trigger me off.

Ted Hickey knew my work well and knew I'd respond to Francis

Stuart (Fig 4). There are some people that immediately I see them,

the painting is done in my head straightaway ? I see it so clearly.

David Cook, the Lord Mayor ... I had seen him at one of Mercy

Hunter's parties and thought that he would make a great portrait.

I've been lucky. There are only half a dozen portraits that I've

been requested to do.

I met Terry Frost at his eightieth birthday party and found

myself sitting opposite him. I said I would love to paint you. Six

years later he was back and I did!

With Colin Middleton, Stuart, Seamus Heaney, Michael

Longley and Cook, there's a presence in them. The theatre

coming out in me and them. It's all about paint though Brian. In

portraits I'm still trying to push my experience of paint.

BMcA: How do you approach doing a portrait? How con

cerned are you with getting a likeness?

NS: I have an image of the person I'm aiming to get, but not at

the expense of the paint. If it's not exciting for me, how can it be

exciting for the observer? I weight it all towards the activity, the

line that's in it, the thick areas of paint and impasto, the throw

ing of turps to give the chance element of the washes. I give paint

the opportunity to do something for me (Fig 6). I am responsible

for going a certain way but I do allow the paint to go an extra mile

for me. Fortunately the people I paint are such definite characters

? I paint a lot of people with beards?though for every ten male

portraits there is only one female! It has to be a strong enough

image to get a reaction from me.

I once painted Stephen Rea as Oscar Wilde (Fig 5). Rea's such a

skinny guy from Belfast. How was he going to play Oscar? He was

at the Lyric Theatre and was magnificent. Two and a half hours

on stage. He had on about ten layers of clothing. At the beginning

he's 'heavy' with the cape and astrakhan coat and so forth. As

each scene changed he peeled off a layer of costume. At one point

he was wearing a purple velvet suit with orange cravat, green

carnation and smoking a black Russian cigarette . He got into a

particular gesture. It was as if my head was a camera?as if I had

already done the portrait. The great thing about living here is that

if you don't know someone, you know someone who does. It

turned out that Davie Hammond knew him, got him to the bar

after the show, and so he sat for me. Although the image in my

head was so strong, I've never felt that I could do a portrait with

out the sitter being there. He came here, the college being closed

on a Sunday. It was like having a private audience with Oscar

Wilde. He was made up, with the silk stockings, slippers, the

rings. He knew I wanted Oscar so he got into the persona and

spoke to me as if he were Oscar. And it worked!

BMcA: You talk about 'chance'. Do you mean, as with Jim

Manley and his use of wax resist paper, that there is a chess

game between you and the paint in terms of control?

7 8 I

IRISH ARTS REVIEW AU T U M N 2002



INTERVIEW

It was only later on when I observed children drawing people that I was amazed to see that some of them started at the feet and worked

up, like drawing a tree. I was fascinated

by that method. I loved their line drawings and how they would

put paint on.

NS: I use so much turps you couldn't control how much one area

bleeds into another. If you approach with absolute confidence the

paint senses this and does what it's bloody well told. If you're not

working on all your cylinders, it won't work for you. I painted

Jamshid [Mirfendersky] recently. I'd tried two or three times.

This time I wanted the hat, the beard, the glasses, and the

big black scarf. I felt it would be easy yet it didn't work at all ...

me predicting too much what it would be like.

I always start with a blank canvas?no backgrounds. Pure

theatre! They are isolated as on a stage. I start by doing the bones of a

drawing, then feel my way into it Those lines, and the activity of draw

ing, give me the confidence to be very much at ease, and excited about

getting paint on. I've got the skeleton and can build up the paint I love

the activity of marks on blank white prepared canvas?a range of marks

through to line, to quite heavy impasto in places where form is

described...then there comes a point when the canvas is placed on the

flat and I have a series of loose washes. I throw quite a lot of turps. I

used to paint flat There's a series of photos of me doing the Francis

Stuart portrait that way. My canvases have got bigger. Now I'm doing

life-size -

the Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley portraits are of stand

ing figures (Fig 3 and 2). It's fairly obvious why there is only one

session?it depends on my mood. There's a lovely tension between me

and the sitter that wouldn't be there at other times. I like to accept that

tension, that mood.

I read John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. He's in a bar

talking to a total stranger and the only thing they have in com

mon is that they have both visited Prague. But the guy didn't

recognise Steinbeck's Prague and vice versa. Then he thought:

I visited in the morning, but if I visited in the afternoon it would

be a different place. This made it clear in my mind?in a second

session I'd be painting a different person.

BMcA: You started teaching full-time at the Belfast art college

just before The Troubles started, and you've carefully avoided

any reference to same for the past thirty odd years. Why?

NS: I haven't carefully avoided anything. It's not a conscious thing

at all. My work isn't about a place, a time. It's all that I've known

or been involved in, it's the placing of marks on canvas and paper.

If there was an image that I could have translated in those terms,

I wouldn't even have had to think about it. It didn't happen. We've

all been touched by The Troubles. Our department was destroyed

by a bomb in 1972. We were lucky to get out. My car was beside

the bomb?but it's a car?so what? We've all shared the agonies.

You're so physically sickened by it all?but my work isn't about that.

I think I wouldn't be true to my particular art if I forced myself to

engage in it. The same is true of world problems.

I think I've been able to tap into the rich vein, the creative

energy here. It's been good for me. So the place has affected me,

in its art. There have been three bombs here, near the studio.

Windows put out, the roof even moved?you can see the cracks.

This place isn't that far away from hot spots but when I'm here

I never even give it a thought. I keep myself quite well informed,

reading, listening, watching. I have my own thoughts about

politics and religion but they are private and personal. Not part of

my life here. I don't know whether it's a cop-out: if I could have

responded I would have, but it just didn't happen.H

Brian McAvera is a playwright, art critic and curator.

11 Neil Shawcross:

Still Life 2002.

Oil on canvas.

36 X 36 cm

Photo:

Ed Smyth


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