Classes

For the past year I have been teaching classes for York Adult Education and Howsham Mill. I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching them too. I have been slaving away in the studio painting for various galleries and shows. I love to get totally immersed in creating a piece. However, there comes a time when you need…

Got my website up and running!!

Finaly got my Website up and running were the occasional punta may peruse my work. Was easier then I thought that it was going to be, the only thing that took the time was the uploading of photos. I’m quite proud of it. Never done anything like that before. I also have started a Twitter…

Statement. Bridget Askew

Statement.

Bridget Askew

I am an artist living and working in rural Ryedale. Although I am primarily a painter (generally working in oils and acrylics) I also use photography and film, utilising varying approaches to inform my painting practice and keep the work vital. For the past four years I have been exploring the notion of rurality, from the view point of community and the farming sector. The family farm, were I worked for above a decade, is the catalyst and point of entry for my enquiries. Whilst working as a farmer, I came to understand and appreciate the unique perspective on life that exists in rural society. The wider populace would find rural perspectives and attitudes sometimes idiosyncratic and at other times devotionally fervent. Part of my work is an assimilation of these religious passions and an explication of their sensibilities. In so doing I hope to perhaps challenge preconceptions of rural life

I use photography and film to respond to and discover themes of rurality and many are autobiographical. These narratives evoke memories, on one level they are acts of nostalgia and on  the other a melancholy meditation on the passing of time. Time has always been a great source of influence upon artists. It is the constant that we are all faced with, defined by and subject to. The only way we can time travel is through the subjectivity of memory. So time based themes such as slow time and memory  are also essential to the work. I am not interested in documentation, but in the poetic evocation of this small rural area in which I grew up. I seek to be an observer of atmosphere and am interested in filmic notions like that of Roland Barthes punctum and also Eadweard  Muybridge’s optical unconscious. In this sense I see film and painting as linked.

Film and photography are important in my work but painting is paramount and generally the final outcome. Painter Eric Fischl describes painting as alchemy. I also believe in paint as having almost magical qualities in the hands of an artist. That paint can be transformed to have illusionary qualities.

‘I think painting is an alchemy, taking this greasy, colourful material and putting it on a flat surface and having it create an illusion that is believable, a sensation that is palpable and investing it with conscious that travels across time. How much more magical can things be? With a painting you have a frozen moment that is an instantaneous recognition of significance, so it’s revelatory. But it’s also handmade, built brushstroke on brushstroke, paint on paint. Its shaped and all the decision making is there.’  (‘Eric Fischl 1970-2007’ p.336).

In this quote Fischl talks about how special painting is, explaining it has significance and revelatory qualities.  I believe that  painting has the ability to convey far more than simply the layers of paint on the canvas or representational values. It is the artists construct that embodies time, ideas and expression.  This is the reason I choose painting as a method for my enquires. I want the subject matter of my work to be viewed as significant and painting facilitates this.

My main influences come from American realists Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth and also the film producer Gideon Koppel. All create a sense of identity that is synonymous with the area they  represent in their work. For Hopper this is urban and rural America. For Wyeth it was the land and people around him both in his home town of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and at his summer home in Cushing Maine. For Koppel it is the place where he grew up, a small farming community called Trefeuig in Wales. Like them I seek out an identity: this for me is a rural England that evokes my concepts of Ryedale. The identity plays on the idiosyncratic atypical notions of rurality that seem peculiar yet familiar to me. Certain ideas and conventions that have been inherited for perhaps generations, are followed in a sacrosanct and revered way. For instance, the icons and effigies of livestock breeds are revered at local shows, markets, farms and butchers. Messianic Huntsmen in ecclesiastical red jackets lead their devoted hounds in an almost shamanistic enthralment to purge the fields of demonic foxes. This is where life and death conspicuously dwell, so perhaps it is understandable for rural life to reflect faith and ritual.

 My work also technically appropriates classical religious painting as a means to draw attention to these themes. I have adopted a variety of techniques. One such technique that was widely used by the old masters is underpainting. This is a preliminary process that renders the outline, defines the composition, and sets the tonal atmosphere of the painting. Underpainting creates a neutrally coloured version of the final painting. Glazing allowed the Old Masters to build on the limited paint colours that were at their disposal and replicate the complicated, deeply nuanced hues found in real life, this is an important technical devise that allows me to replicate solid form in subtle planes. I limit my palate, regularly only using four colours plus a black and a white, glazing is used to add depth. Another technique I employ is scumbling. This is used for smooth transitions from dark to light also allowing the original colour to be modified without completely concealing it. It results in a hazy opalescent effect. I also carefully appropriate the use of Leonardo da Vincis sfumato, blurring outlines allowing one form to merge with another. Predominantly however I have referenced the work of painter Caravaggio. His work has been intrinsically important to the overall presentation of this collection of work. I have used stylistic elements of darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a shaft of light (chiaroscuro). This adds to the illusion of 3 dimensions on a 2 dimensional plane. Religious painters frequently used this to emphasise the importance and holiness of the main figures by standing them in a shaft of light, or even the main figure emitting a kind of holy light. These devices coupled with the use of a dark background help to emphasise drama and radiance. This use of chiaroscuro is also seen in film, (particularly that of film noir), its application for reasons similar to that used in painting, i.e.to heighten drama and add a psychological tension. Caravaggio’s other compositional devices, such as foreshortening, perspective and the use of a central main figure are also used. All these elements reminiscent of classical religious painting draw attention to a way of life that seeks to maintain its own sacred rituals and reveres its own holy cows.