Long Range Studio Visit

Noah Pryke and Jack Shearing

This conversation brings together two painters, Noah Pryke and Jack Shearing.
They discuss honesty in painting and how memory is a fallible but vital tool in both of their practices.

Noah Pryke Shall we start with a little bit about PADA - how was your experience being there and what have you been up to since?

Jack Shearing PADA was a great experience for me. I've just recently graduated from my BA so it was great to make work in a new context and to meet lots of artists from different backgrounds. It also allowed for a sense of freedom that you don't always have in my regular studio practice. How was it for you ?

NP It was a really positive experience for me too. I felt like it was a very productive environment, and I met some really great people there. Also being in such a different place to what I'm used to I think was really engaging. I've been looking at photos of your work, I’m really interested in what you do. What kind of materials do you use?

JS Thank you, I think it is always good to step out of our comfort zones/perceived limits when it comes to making work. I use oil paint and lots of turpentine/thinner, which allows the paint to be loose and transparent. What materials are you using in your work?

NP Definitely. I use mostly oils and have recently been adding acrylic or synthetic tempera. I’m also interested in transparency, using lots of layers to try and achieve some sort of luminosity - or trying to bring light in through layers. I experiment with a lot of different solvents and mediums, I’m also trying to find non-toxic solutions as I am a bit concerned about my health and using so much turps!

JS Yeah that was what attracted me to using the paint in a thin way, but yes you're right about the health concerns.

NP It also seems like there’s a kind of white wash on the surface of some of your work, is this an intentional effect?

JS I often will erase what I've been working on with a thin layer of white, which once removed creates a sense of layered depth to the space.

NP I think that’s another great thing about layers, it gives the work some history and all of that is there when you decide to leave it.

JS Definitely, it’s always hard to know when is the right point to leave something. On the topic, how long do you spend on a given painting? They have a sense of immediacy and energy which I’m really drawn to. 

NP It really varies, I tend to paint very quickly - however I can still sit with things for a long time, so it might take me a month to complete a painting, but I might actually only be painting on it for a number of hours. That said, I have gotten quicker recently, I think partly out of necessity of just needing work to be finished, so I spend less time looking and thinking than I have in the past. How about you? 

 JS It's very similar for me. A large painting will often need to sit around for about a month before it reaches a sense of resolve. I've recently been trying to overwork them less, I find it helps to have lots of paintings on the go at once.

NP I also find that if I leave things for too long, I lose the will with it and it ends up really just becoming a new painting when I go back, so I try to reach a point I can accept before moving on.

JS How do you come up with the subject matter of your work? They feel like they have  personal connections to you.

 NP This is the most difficult thing for me. I remember watching an interview once with Barnett Newman, and he said something like ‘the fundamental problem of painting is what to paint?’ And it’s so true. I used to use a lot of source materials such as photographs, movie stills, magazine cut outs, old paintings, etc. as a kind of starting point for my work, often just literally as a first point of reference which I would quickly deviate from. But now I am using a lot more of my imagination for the sort of structure of the image, and I only use source material for the figure, which I find impossible to paint from imagination. I think soon I am going to try and find models to use so I can paint the figure from life, but construct the rest of the image in my imagination, or from memory. What about you?

JS I totally agree about the problem of subject matter. I ask as there's a sense of mystery in your paintings, as though something is concealed from the viewer - an enigma - which engages the viewer in the painting. They definitely have a dreamlike quality, and the motif of the bed returns.

NP I try not to think too much about why I paint something. I think honesty is essential in making work, and thought is riddled with opportunities for dishonesty, so I try to follow my feelings, my instinct, which I suppose manifests itself through preference. For example I may be attracted to a certain photograph, or colour, or shape, I can't necessarily tell you why, but I think the fact that I feel it must be something honest. It's kind of like the way you feel when you are in a room or a space, this is an honest thing, it comes from your entire life. 

Ok that’s interesting. So once you decide to use an image for your painting, would you then paint from the photograph, or do you use it as a means to trigger your memory?

JS I agree, it comes from a more subjective view than an objective one. It’s interesting what you say about honesty, I'm always trying to rationalise why I'm drawn to a certain thing. I think this comes from being in art school for the past 3 years and needing to be able to explain and justify what you’re doing. But so much of the time it is the work that is honest that has any resonance at all.

I often use the image at the start of the painting, but at a certain point I forget about the image and just focus on the painting. So considerations of colour and texture are often found through the process of painting rather than from the source image.

NP I definitely think trying to write down or communicate what you're doing is really helpful, during the process of making work you still make lots of decisions and you cannot help but think as you go, and sometimes the thoughts you have in response to what you do can be really interesting and perhaps even informative. But I agree, I am always trying to kind of de-intellectualize my approach.

Do you see those considerations as something connected to your memory of the place, or more rooted in your feeling at the present time of making the work?

 JS I totally agree. I feel like making art cannot really be taught, you need to find your own way and approach to it. This sense of feeling through the process and not working in a calculated way is how I try to make work.

I feel that it is a mix of the two. I like Freud's theory of the ‘screen memory’ in relation to this. The idea that a specific memory is the last time you remembered that original memory. So the original memory is constantly fallible and unstable in a sense. When you paint from memory it will ultimately be different from your original idea or memory. 

NP I really like that. I have it with my family, there are some things we each remember completely differently, it’s amazing. Definitely.

 Let’s talk about windows. I noticed you've hung some work with two canvases close together in a corner, is this to kind of emphasise the space created in the paintings? I think it’s a great idea!

JS Thank you ! I think the idea of the window or the frame is referential to the idea of the painting being similar to a window. In a recent body of work I made paintings about this specific building that I was using as a studio at the time which was soon to be redeveloped. Shortly before this I decided to show the works in that same space, creating a dialogue between the pictorial space in the paintings and the space they were shown in. From doing this it really made me think about the context of the work, and how work relates to its surroundings, and can go beyond the restrictions of the frame. 

 What does the window mean for you? I like how you play with the sense of inside and outside.

 NP Yeh! As soon as I read that my mind was immediately off thinking about how I can use it!

 Windows creeped into my work quite early on and they have just stuck. But like you say there’s definitely something in being able to play with the contrast of the inside and the outside, it’s almost instinctive to find a metaphor there for inside and outside ourselves. I am also very interested in light, and I think windows are a great tool for playing with light.

JS Yes windows are great for exploring light, thinking of Vermeer and dutch painting. I'm also interested with how you use perspective. The viewer hovers above the scene in a way. The metaphor of inside and outside is also interesting, both in referring to the relationship of the artist to the subject in the work but also how the painting becomes a quasi-subject to the viewer. I was thinking the windows in your paintings seem to act like thresholds or ways into your other paintings, it creates a filmic sense of sequence between them.

NP Yes definitely, also Hammershoi and late Hopper, 'Sun In An Empty Room' is brilliant. There’s a painting by Rembrandt in the National Gallery just of the light from the window on a wall - it’s spectacular. I think perspective is something so personal, it’s so emotive, just as much as colour. I found an interesting book about warped perspective when I was at PADA, investigating how it related to an artist’s psychology. I've never heard that before, some food for thought!

What have you got coming up in the next year, any exciting projects?

JS Yeah that Hopper painting is great. Showing light as the subject, and the presence / absence of that painting is captivating. That book sounds very interesting, would be great to know what it's called if you can remember.

Nothing in the pipelines currently, I've recently moved into a new studio so just getting back into painting after the residency. Have you got any interesting things on the horizon ?

NP I'm currently working towards a group show in Denmark next summer and a duo show in London in March with Joe O'Rourke, who I met at PADA. I'm also in talks about another project in the US that I'm very excited about.

It’s been really interesting chatting with you Jack, would be great to come and visit your studio some time!

JS That sounds great ! I look forward to seeing the new work. Likewise, it's been great chatting, hopefully do some studio visits soon !

Thank you to Noah Pryke and Jack Shearing for discussing about their experience at PADA.

Noah was a PADA Resident in July and Jack in October 2021.