The Exploration of Suffering and the Celebration of Beauty: An Interview with Robert Priseman

LC: When did you decide to become an artist? 

RP: Initially I never thought I’d be good enough to be an artist, so figured I’d try something practical. After university I worked as a book designer for Longman, which is where I met my wife. Then, when I was about 26, she encouraged me to take up painting full-time. 

LC: What is the biggest mistake you have made within your career up to now? 

RP: I think in leaving it a little late to take up painting seriously, but I know others think it is in not establishing a commercial market for my work. I’m okay with that though, as many of my favourite painters, artists like Blake, Cézanne, Constable, van Gogh and Vermeer never made any money from their art. And I think in part this is because true creativity seems to lie beyond any financial consideration.

LC: Have there been times when studio life has been difficult for you?

RP: Yes, often. It is usually to do with my own scepticism in my ability to paint or in uncertainties over the relevance of the subject, and I find I tend to oscillate between a strong self-belief and a crushing self-doubt.

LC: Who are your ‘go-to’ painters during times of doubt? 

RP: Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, John Constable, Caspar David Friedrich, Pisanello; in fact many of the dead northern European artists. I am also drawn to the work of James Turrell and Dan Flavin whose use of light appeals to me in a similar way to how Joseph Wright exploited it in paint. I think it has a spiritual quality.

LC: What are the essential ingredients of ‘good’ painting?

RP: When you look at art you realise that whenever people push whatever is at the core of what they’re doing to an extreme, then it becomes more interesting––both for the artist and the viewer.

LC: What do you find attractive or compelling about working with paint as opposed to other mediums? 

RP: The thing with paint is, it’s not intellectual. Painting requires an emotive approach that you rationalise afterwards. So, I’m interested in the idea that paint is a metaphor, which seeks to visualise an unseen world of sensitivities we hold inside ourselves. I think about paint being a kind of emotional gel that is locked in place by the structure and limits of the canvas. 

LC: What are your thoughts on beauty in relationship to contemporary art?

RP: I think beauty is really interesting now and feel it’s use in art has gained the potential to become a tool for political discourse. Beauty has become marginalised in the art world over the course of the past 20–30 years. To my mind beauty is fundamentally important as it forms a central component of the human experience. For example, if we gaze at the Milky Way during a clear night sky, or contemplate a sunset on a beach in Bali, most of us will instinctively sense some kind of wonder, and this sense of wonder is where I feel beauty is located. I get a similar sensation when I look at a work of art by Leonardo, Vermeer or Rothko, because I believe their paintings occupy a territory akin to this. Their work is somehow just beyond us, somehow magical and, for me at least, that inspires a sense of being small in the universe, which puts any problems or worries I might have into some sort of context. It also does something else; it creates a desire within me to attempt to touch the periphery of that world by creating paintings, which are close to it. It creates hope.

LC: How can painting remain relevant in this new decade? 

RP: Painting seems to find new ways to be relevant in every era it finds itself in and it usually does so in opposition to the dominant establishment. In the first two decades of the 21^st century we find ourselves living in a society dominated by the celebration of celebrity and the cult of the self. Recently I became fascinated by anonymity. Over the past couple of years my wife and I have been visiting ‘The Last Judgement’ painting by Hans Memling in Gdańsk [Poland]––it is widely considered one of the world’s great masterpieces, yet is now believed to be by Rogier van der Weyden. This is a view I hold myself, yet feel it neither lessens nor enhances the painting. The same was true of ‘The Polish Rider’ in the Frick Collection which remained disputed for a number of years and ‘The Wilton Diptych’ at the National Gallery in London, which is also unattributed while being one of their great treasures. So, in essence, I really like the idea of art moving away from the cult of personality and towards allowing a purer engagement with painting itself. And I think this is because western society currently places the centre of focus on the individual, which in turn seems to stimulate a promotion of narcissism. In doing this we appear to be encouraging an idea that our personal issues are central to all life. However, an encounter with beauty in a broader sense seems to do the opposite, it humbles us and minimises our problems into a reassuring universal context. 

LC: Have you encountered problems with the art world? 

RP: I would say yes, as I don’t think the art world is a place for artists any longer. I think that the traditional role of the curator was to act as a bridge between the artist and the public, helping to interpret and present the conversations artists are having amongst themselves at any given time. Since the 1980s this has morphed into many curators advancing largely both their own and government agendas through the choices of art they display. This has led to many artists subjugating their creative output in order to follow the curatorial lead so they may gain a platform. I feel this has undermined a significant cohort of artists and think it is time for creatives to regain confidence in the integrity of their own ideas regardless of any ideologies cultural leaders may or may not wish to promote. In doing this I believe we can help evolve a new relationship with curators, which is based on mutual respect, built on an understanding and interpretation of the conversations artists themselves are having. 

LC: What are the major challenges for artists today? 

RP: In the past few decades I believe we have witnessed a significant rise in intersectional politics and the dominance of identity hierarchies within the cultural arena. This belief system sees artists having to identify themselves as a member of a discriminated group first and speaking to that (and only that) second if they wish to see their work programmed. This is located in liberalism, which is formed on the identification of the suffering of the individual at the hands of the state. In art we see this expressed in historical works such as ‘The Execution of Emperor Maximilian’ by Édouard Manet, ‘The Third of May 1808’ by Francisco Goya and ‘The Terror of War’ by Nick Ut. In their suffering, the subjects gain a voice of moral authority, which echoes through the rest of society. I believe that in advancing ideas around the suffering of individuals (which has strangely been promoted by the establishment) we have had to pay a social price, and that price is the removal of hope and wonder. I think there is a place for both the exploration of suffering and the celebration of beauty. 

LC: What is the worst mistake you can make as an artist? 

RP: Thinking that you can make a “mistake”. One of the great advantages of being an artist is there really are no rules other than those we place upon ourselves; this leaves you free to experiment and explore.

LC: Should art galleries be ‘safe spaces’?

RP: Art is like play. It’s like a game that simulates the real world, yet as the artist you are the master of it and you can contain and control it. So in that sense I believe all art offers a “safe space” where we can explore complex and difficult emotions at a distance. Indeed, I would argue that some of the most interesting art locates it’s focus on the boundaries of what is taboo and in doing so helps us define and secure the limits of what is socially acceptable. 

LC: Is the censorship of art ever justified? 

RP: All I know is that I want to paint without any restriction. I don’t want to impose a rule or order on myself other than if I feel very strongly about something then I want to find a way to explore it. 

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Interview by Lucy Cox. You can follow her on Twitter @23Carousels.