{"id":60,"date":"2022-02-15T15:12:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T15:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/?page_id=60"},"modified":"2022-03-19T15:11:36","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T15:11:36","slug":"conversation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/?page_id=60","title":{"rendered":"IN CONVERSATION 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Heather Libson In conversation about her work with fellow artist, Claire Beynon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HL<\/strong>        So we agree that small is monumental\u2026

CB<\/strong>        Small can be monumental, yes. Small can open up a much larger space and then invites you to travel differently through the image.

HL<\/strong>        I really agree with that. When I think of those really tiny little Paul Klee drawings that are monumental and there\u2019s a really beautiful Samuel Palmer at the Tate Gallery that I always go back to\u2026 These are very small pictures that draw you in.

CB<\/strong>        Well, actually, if you think of William Turner\u2019s watercolours, they\u2019re all tiny postcard-sized; some of them are smaller – some of them are a little bit bigger. When I was in Venice, we were looking at a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition of his little drawings and some of them, were 2 inches across by 3 inches deep and they were exquisite. A tiny horse or hands but you knew how big a hand is. We know how big our hand is\u2026We know how big a forest is. We know how big a bridge is, or a lake of water. We know that.

HL<\/strong>        Absolutely, and so when I\u2019ve been making these works, I\u2019ve spent time on them. I mean, we often talk about mark-making and walking away and less is more but they\u2019ve still taken a huge amount of time \u2013 these small, small paintings. Because that dance has been quite a long one sometimes. Sometimes it hasn\u2019t been\u2026 You know how sometimes it goes slow, slow, slow and then there\u2019s a moment where the payback is the one quick piece of work?

And I have found it also completely and utterly fascinating, to then have the challenge of these tiny little postcard-sized panels. It was a daunting prospect, because, I was in this space, it was all I could do in my old little studio in the house at the beginning of lockdown. And in fact, I find it infinitely fascinating working on that scale and it would be so easy on a small scale to put too much into it. The challenge is not necessarily doing less, it\u2019s keeping those marks from being too descriptive, too illustrative.

CB<\/strong>        Yes, absolutely. And I also find, what\u2019s fascinating about working on something tiny is it\u2019s a very intimate engagement. And it\u2019s quite meditative; you know – you\u2019re right up, close and personal and so our engagement with a small piece of work is quite different and often more intense because you\u2019re zooming in, so that you can zoom out. That intimacy is just different on a small scale\u2026

HL<\/strong>        Yes, it is different. But I wanted to paint more physically which meant two things – making some larger scale work because I really wanted that movement that you get when you\u2019re working large and also, I realised what I had been missing when working on the smaller paintings, was the fluidity of arm movement.  And the moment I started putting these little paintings on the floor to work, so I was standing above them and they were on the floor, I got that distance and flow, that you just can\u2019t get when you\u2019re working on a tabletop\u2026it changed the mark-making.

So, there\u2019s an awareness. I\u2019ve been very aware of how I\u2019m making marks. And then, the apple tree shadows\u2026 In my \u2018Meditation\u2019 on my little apple tree outside my studio, I\u2019ve really been thinking about what a brush does! How you use a stroke from thin to thick\u2026 the pressure you need to apply.

CB<\/strong>        The physicality. You know, it\u2019s visceral and the body is so involved. The smaller works, somehow, it\u2019s more the hand than the whole body; the hand and the eyes. Again, it\u2019s the intimacy we talked about. Having an aerial view makes a difference, because then the body does become involved.

HL<\/strong>        It does, and painting a shadow, you know, you\u2019re chasing something.

CB<\/strong>        It\u2019s ephemeral.

HL<\/strong>        You have no control because it can disappear at any moment. It\u2019s so transient. It\u2019s so beautiful. And you have to take a deep breath\u2026it\u2019s like a kind of meditation. You have to breathe when you\u2019re making those kinds of marks. You have to think about it, you know? Before you put that brush on the paper. It\u2019s such a commitment. There\u2019s nowhere to go if you\u2026 But I\u2019ve found that, a very, very beautiful way to start the day.

It\u2019s very centring\u2026 and the light is changing, the leaves are shimmering. Holding onto something that\u2019s so fleeting just for a moment, observing it, then letting it go because the shadow has disappeared, has been enlightening and meaningful, actually. I\u2019ve really enjoyed that.

I\u2019ve been looking at my old, large paintings too and although they\u2019re very abstract, I know I spent absolutely hours on them with the tiniest, fine brush, so that as well as working from the distance, when you got up-close, they looked immaculate. Possibly it\u2019s to do with age; but nowadays, my focus is different, I don\u2019t feel the need to be quite so precious about things. I\u2019m trying to capture a feeling, a memory, a colour, that\u2019s there, then it\u2019s gone\u2026

CB<\/strong>        It\u2019s so ephemeral. Yes. And actually, I always think there\u2019s something about a painting\u2026 you feel like you\u2019re capturing a moment and if you turn away and look back, it\u2019s a different moment. And so, it\u2019s fleeting.

I want people to be able to see the aliveness of the process and the mark-making that\u2019s so exploratory and we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to land on the page and so we make decisions and then we go back and we make another decision and we re-work areas and there\u2019s all that backwards and forwards. And there\u2019s a part of me now, that wants to stop before I think it\u2019s done. Leave the unworked parts and leave the slightly unfinished bits.

HL<\/strong>        Well, I think, you have to walk away when you get those bells ringing and you\u2019re thinking \u201cI think that might work \u2013 ooh, I\u2019m not sure.\u201d It would be so easy then, to make another mark and it is such a dance! I\u2019m literally, you know, physically going backwards and forwards, pacing about, then sitting down and squinting at something and thinking \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to go away (and make myself a cup of tea) and then I\u2019m going to come back and surprise myself and look at it again with fresh eyes.\u201d And then you think \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to be brave. It\u2019s done.\u201d It\u2019s being brave to leave it.

I just want to express myself as succinctly as possible. It\u2019s a difficult thing, a tempting thing, especially when you have some technical ability, to make the marks, to be seduced and overstate something.

CB<\/strong>        But in a way, it\u2019s us asserting ourselves over the image and in the end the image needs to assert itself over us. And it\u2019s collaborative. You\u2019re working with the medium and you\u2019re working with the ground and in the end, the medium and the ground have the last say! They tell us when they\u2019re done.

HL<\/strong>        (Laughs) I think they do.

CB<\/strong>        Often, we regret it if we don\u2019t listen to that and we push\u2026and then it\u2019s \u201cAh, I\u2019ve buggered it up. I\u2019ve ruined it\u201d.

HL & CB<\/strong>  (Laugh)

HL<\/strong>        We do! And you remember it, don\u2019t you? It\u2019s like a lost love. You know that it was really good some time before and you can\u2019t get it back to where it was. It\u2019s regretful, hugely regretful. You think back to it longingly but it\u2019s gone!

CB<\/strong>        Too late!

HL<\/strong>        You\u2019re at a different phase in your relationship\u2026 and that\u2019s it\u2026

CB<\/strong>        The magic\u2019s gone out of it\u2026

HL & CB<\/strong>  (Laugh)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Heather Libson (UK) and Claire Beynon (NZ) met in 1983 while they were students on the MA Fine Art course at Chelsea School of Art, London, and have been friends ever since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heather Libson In conversation about her work with fellow artist, Claire Beynon HL        So we agree that small is monumental\u2026 CB        Small can be monumental, yes. Small can open up a much larger space and then invites you to travel differently through the image. HL        I really agree with that. When I think of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-60","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherlibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}