Interview Transcription

In conjunction with The Scottish Gallery

June 2024

Edinburgh | Past and Present

TSG: What do You feel about your paintings from 2002, 2007?

Also, you talk about the architectural and geographical structures which help to set out the composition – can you explain this? 

GU: In 2002 the subject itself, the city of Edinburgh, dominated me. Understandably. It was the great capital city and I was not long out of art school. I think perhaps I felt a certain sense of duty to paint Edinburgh with some degree of geographical truth and integrity. At the time, I had less actual painting experience than I have now and so it was helpful for me to use those re-assuring structural features to support the compositions of my paintings. Using that method was advantageous at the time.  

Topography and architecture gave me the confidence to access the subject and initiate a journey of exploration. I could freely test out ways of describing what I was looking at, knowing that I had laid down a strong compositional bedrock to begin with and that the overall image would maintain a satisfying unity. It was a determined process of discovering and tying down and I do see that there was serious intention there.

In 2007 I’d spent several years living in Italy and my interests and experience had expanded exponentially.

I was painting the ancient city of Rome and the surrounding countryside and it was full of ruins. Ruins everywhere. Ruined cities and towns and villages. Ruins of ancient monuments, amphitheatres, architecture, artefacts and sculpture…Even a super-civilisation like the Roman Empire had fallen to ruins. And so, with exposure to this, what I had perceived in the city early on, an invincible heroism, steadily lost its authority over my drawing and composition. A lot of time was spent painting things that were broken. Fragmented. Come apart. It had a profound effect on my approach to painting the subject of the cityscape. A more personal response toward my subject entered into the work from this point. A city became a hook on which to hang the light of a time of day, or a memory or mood.

The methods I employ now are more in line with this.

I do not place a grid. There is no under-pinning framework. Not allowing any mark or image to be pinned down is my aim…I want marks to appear to be in suspension, opening or circulating. My painting ability as it is now, after over thirty years of practise, allows me to work without such structures. I’m taking away things that feel solid or fixed…I’m letting go of hard edges. I omit restrictive architectonic drawing and instead loosen every part of the painting. Topography, even gravity, is not a concern. If painting a place, I aim to channel into each piece all the depth of personal understanding I have of that place, both from the experience and the memory of it, as well as what my eye observes in the moment. All the lines in my paintings curve…there are few straight lines. Physically my paintings are heavy with materials, so I like the image within them to appear weightless in opposition of that.  My current paintings of Edinburgh focus more on a viewpoint of the city as a person…a character, or a feeling. I’m searching for a sound or a song…a voice. I aim to draw out emotive colour and mark from what I sense in the cityscape and I try to allow that vernacular to freely surrender itself onto the picture plane.

I see the body of the city as delicate. To the east you see Arthurs Seat and the Salisbury Crags – brooding occupants. Black. Impenetrable. By comparison the city is the opposite. On the ground level and as you move through it, it feels strong and resistant, but when observing it afar from an elevated position, the image of it flutters and renews every moment. It’s full of space and glass and reflection.

An essential component of the city is the people that inhabit it. The living, breathing creatures within it and the fluctuating light and air that move and animate the space between the stones. I think about those great civilisations of the world that have risen and fallen and changed…nothing is permanent. A city is changing and adjusting continuously, and I feel this renders it parts to be fragile. This is why I chose to paint Edinburgh with liquid fluidity and with a sense of sway in the marks. This can be seen in both the older and newer works, but it is the viscosity of the paint that has changed. Recent consistency is less dense and flows more gracefully.

When I look at certain older paintings of mine, they seem to me to be like rocks you might stumble across when out hillwalking – brawny and weathered and full of age-old grit with the traces of a geological record patterned across them. And the colours are sturdy and sincere, like those seen in the local sandstone or dolerite. On the contrary, the drawing in a new painting is open, dissolved…with space and light surfacing from behind and between the marks. The palette is ethereal by comparison evoking moods of transcendence and contemplation. When considering painting the city of Edinburgh now, I’m interested in eternal notions of its existence - the poetry of the subject – but not how many chimney pots I must be sure to include in the rendering of a certain roof.  

TSG: How does the particular palette come about?

GU: Thinking about palette, I believe that colours and their frequencies connect with subconscious emotion; they have a physiological and emotional impact on your feelings and behaviour. Each painting I make discloses details about the relationship between the colour in my subject and my own sentiments of feeling.

TSG: What progression in your practice do you see?

GU: Things just change, that’s all. Progression suggests that something is getting better from worse, more from less; that it’s advancing. But a painting to me, whether it’s an earlier one or one that was made more recently, is uniquely of its own moment. In older Edinburgh paintings, the colours are sombre and there’s less buoyancy in the marks because of the clotted viscosity of the paint. They’re different from any subsequent paintings made of Edinburgh, because they are of their time, and I was a different person then. They’re especially meaningful because of those qualities. I couldn’t recreate them. (The company who manufactured the paint I used at that time no longer even exists.)

By studying Edinburgh’s natural topography as it is today, geologists have some understanding of the dynamic movements of magma and the flow of glaciers that formed it. The landscape was, far back in its prehistory past, in a state of flux. There was lava intrusion deep underground which rose up and spread out horizontally, finding its way between existing rock. The igneous rocks of the city and the surrounding area crystallised from liquid magma into solid after being pushed and pulled by various pressures and forces, the arrangements and shapes of which were then left to cool and set solid. I think of the development of my paintings as going through a similar journey. The curious merging of medium, illusion and emotion that come as a result of the interplay between me and my subject is captured in the flow of the liquid paint. It’s pushed and pulled by the force and pressure of my energy and my brush and at some chosen point, left to harden in the air. Emotion and meaning can be deciphered by reading the pace and patterns of the heaped-up dry paint.

As time passes certain abilities will be taken away from you, but it also brings an increase in other areas. You might lose physical strength but on the other hand you gain valuable experience. As a painter it’s important for me to retain and protect a sense of innocence throughout and believe that the most meaningful painting I’ll make will be tomorrow. There’s an inevitability of failure and eventual demise, but I’ll try to keep re-discovering myself, even if it’s in a small way. I think about honesty in painting rather than progression. Really great painting, for me, doesn’t have to be about ‘artfulness’. It’s about allowing whatever is at the core of you to come out honestly in your work - with childlike openness and without vanity. Van Gogh wasn’t the most gifted painter technically, but when you look at his work you know it was by his very own hand and possessed trueness and passion that was distinctly his own. He painted with integrity and humility. I connect with that. I embrace the incorruptible authenticity of the artists own hand as well as the physical object itself - the painting - and all the meaning that’s treasured up in it. I value paintings that move me emotionally and are full of the enigmatic power to suspend my disbelief.

We live in a world which encourages a focus on second-hand knowledge and information. This sort, much of it misleading and even divisive, is quickly passed around from person to person, especially through technology. We feed on it habitually even though it’s information that cannot be directly known or subjectively experienced. It’s manufactured, styled and often deceptive. Shrewd discernment is required to filter it. Nature, on the other hand, is an abundant primary resource that cannot be permanently altered by the corrupt hand of man. The seed is already in the ground and will renew itself. Most of the painters I look up to are long dead, but they understood the great value of connectedness to the wild, natural world. The unadulterated vitality they drew out of it shows in their work. I need that in my own work.

TSG: Can you explain how you got access to the Nelson Monument and how long were you in residency on each occasion?

GU: I simply asked if I could paint there.

Fortunately, the council weren’t using the tower for anything at the time and the rooms inside were empty. It was an opportunity that came out of good timing. Calton Hill has always been the most informative vantage point from which to view the city. It presents extensive views by which its history can be appreciated. I spent six months in the tower and often slept there, painting the city at night. The period spent in Nelsons Tower in 2007 was the lengthiest and most intensive I’ve spent so far. Otherwise I’ve studied or painted in sessions of few days or weeks.

TSG: Why did you want to come back to revisit your Edinburgh subject?

And what has changed? What language has returned to you?

GU: It’s quite simple – Edinburgh is one of Northern Europe’s finest cities, for so many reasons. I also have family in Edinburgh and therefore am faithfully committed to returning for that reason. I come back each year and will continue to do so as long as I’m able. For me painting a subject never ends – it’s ongoing. It is a relationship. My paintings offer a glimpse of a shared dialogue between my practice and my feelings about the city as time goes on, and I age as a man. I’m never finished with a subject no matter what it is. I cannot begin any interaction without the accompaniment of steadfast devotion. I could never end my relationship with Edinburgh or Scotland or any of my subjects. I’ll continue to paint them and nurture the relationships until I’m no longer living. The more you work with a landscape, the more you see and the more you learn, and understand. My personal behaviour is to seek to develop depth in relationships; and to maintain them. Looking at Edinburgh is like being with a person. By painting it you have a conversation with it. Over time your relationship changes and develops. The city changes and your feelings for the city change. You bring your thoughts to the conversation and it speaks back to you. There is an interchange, and this is all captured in the painting. At some point, the conversation becomes exhausted, so you stop and maybe go back to it another time.

If you do this over the course of many years you accumulate knowledge of that subject. Whenever you do return to it, all the visual and emotional details from previous years of interaction return. At this point I’m usually able to hold all the information of a subject in my eye and can turn away from it to paint it. I’ll emphasise specific things that happen to interest me in that moment. When so attuned and practised like this I’m be able to handle the paint with a more dextrous pace and freshness. Making the painting is more like writing a note. Just a few lines of communication are all that’s needed to convey the message…the newer paintings are definitely like that. They’re like love letters I think…because there’s intimacy and devotion.

TSG: Where did you paint from (as Nelson’s Tower is currently closed to the public)?

GU: I painted from Observatory House, which is a magnificent 18th century building on top of Calton Hill. It was designed and once inhabited by the New Town architect James Craig and is one of the best surviving examples of Craig’s architecture. Although it was originally built as a family house, the building was at one point used by astronomers for a short period of time until the famous William Playfair built the City Observatory building nearby in 1818. I also painted from a large rock in front of Nelsons Monument.

TSG: Can you discuss the naming of the works and how you see these as portraits of the people that make the place…?

GU: I took a walk through the Old Calton Burial Ground one day and found all those names waiting for me.

By definition, a city is an area of land where a large number of people live near to one another. Everything else grows from this. The people who have lived in a place are what define it. They are the beating heart of it; as long as the people are there the city is alive. I become quite conscious of my own mortality when I look at a city. When pondering an epitaph of someone who has passed, I imagine the life of that person. Their character, their endeavours, their story. Using the names of past residents is an acknowledgement of those things – a payment of homage – because every human life is precious, no matter our failings. Also, the sounds of the names themselves are beautiful and thought-provoking. Like the first line of a novel or poem, they stir up feelings and impressions. So many of the names I came across exude an expression of Romanticism. That was the dominating artistic movement at the time when the cemetery was opened in 1718. This really appealed to me. Most of the people laid to rest there passed during the Romantic period. It was when JMW Turner was working. The legacy he left helped to lead other painters on to impressionism. Impressionism led to expressionism. These are three movements of painting that have had a profound effect on my development as a painter. Turner, Bonnard, Monet…Van Gogh – I’ve spent a lot of time studying artists like these and continue to learn from them now. Samuel Peploe and Joan Eardley in terms of Scottish painting. The French painters of that period influenced Peploe, and Eardley takes painting back to something much more earthy and grounded and unmistakably Scottish. I align myself with these movements and these painters because that is the type of painter I am. I relate to them. I feel more connected to them than any contemporary artist because I’m interested in timelessness. I don’t much care if something was made yesterday or a thousand years ago. I’m only interested in whether or not it moves me. Does it touch my human soul?

It’s hard for young painters today because there’s an expectation to achieve without having much chance to experience living or to spend enough time practicing painting. Really meaningful painting comes as a result of life experience and some prolonged, thoughtful reflection. It’s a slow, contemplative occupation. It’s hard for an artist not to be self-conscious, that’s why I’ve always lived and worked remotely in rural surroundings. It’s helpful sometimes, to be surrounded by the influences of unrestrained nature. Nature is not controllable. The experiences it throws at you are not predictable. There’s no one-upmanship with nature; it humbles you. I am a man, alive, in search of ways by which to express the experiences of a life lived, and the aspirations of my human spirit. I am not striving to become a ‘professional artist’. Painting is a very simple act which connects us right back to the very beginnings of human civilisation. It’s instinctive. I could never believe that a day will come when people will weep in front of a painting that a machine had made…but as human, to perceive another person’s heart imbued into the fabric of a painting - their vision of life, joys, sorrows...their beliefs - is very moving. I think about these things when looking through the names of the inhabitants of Edinburgh. It’s all very much about the people. Human life is to be cherished. I returned to using the names again with my most recent paintings of the city. They add a whole other dimension of meaning and I like that they are an aide-memoire to the fragility and unpredictability of a life. I’ll continue to name yet more in this way in the future…it just works, and there are so many names. A lot of roses have been named after people too, in a similar way.

The Rose Garden

 TSG: What has changed since your exhibition The Rose Garden in 2017?

How has your garden developed both horticulturally and spiritually, also artistically?

GU: Everything has matured.

I continue to tend to the garden, and it continues to grow. I’ve also introduced more of my own roses. The cycle goes on but every year different things are happening - one variety will dominate while another dies back. It’s about renewal. I re-iterate what I’ve suggested in the past, which is that making paintings is very like cultivating a garden. A garden is never ‘finished’. You accept it for what it is at every stage of its development. You work and toil, then rest and contemplate, then get up and begin again. Over and over and over; it’s the same cultivating my studio practice and my painting oeuvre.

The spirit of the garden changes from moment to moment depending on the light and season. There is a clear parallel here: changing light, atmosphere and season affect the spirit of a garden landscape in the same way it might affect a person’s inward, emotional landscape. Rising and falling mood are perceptible and palpable in both. From the time a seed germinates it goes through a great number of physiological processes. When a garden is dormant during winter rest, everything is quiet, and the roses are stripped like old bones. They conserve their energy until suddenly in the spring, movement is hyperactive again and the garden is temporarily full of new growth and colour. You want to pause the activity because it changes so quickly, but you can’t. You become very aware of the effects of time and the impermanence of everything. I live in a quiet corner of the world where there are few modern distractions. The domineering character of nature and time are therefore all the more noticeable. You have to gain mastery over them, or they’ll enslave you.

Artistically, my garden is to me, what Monet’s waterlily pond was to him – I think that’s fair to say.

My garden is a painter’s garden. When I’m organising it, I’m setting it up for how I might paint things. I have arranged it in terms of palette. There are so many more paintings to paint: atmospheres I haven’t yet attempted to render and different scales of size, and volumes of sound and colour. It’s helpful to prepare harmonies and tensions in the garden in order to facilitate that. There are roses present in the garden from May until the first frost, usually around Christmas. They sing with boastful confidence in the summer and diminish to quivering whispers when winter descends. Every part of it is rich material artistically.

It’s important to note that you can have an overall artistic concept of how you want a garden to be, but actually, until you’ve learned something of the nature and habit of each plant, that concept isn’t likely to come to full fruition. You have to learn some things. There’s quite a lot of trial and error. With the garden, like in painting, what worked for me in the past doesn’t necessarily work for me in the new present. My gardening is about arranging and controlling the nature of the physical landscape. My painting is about arranging and controlling an emotional nature within. Both require at the very least, a lifetime of practice and the application of knowledge. But I don’t want knowledge to dominate expression of feeling. Like composing a cityscape, knowledge can be the unseen structure beneath, but a human being’s fervency, their complex emotions, the wonders of awareness and sensation, these are the principle subjects for me - the things that drive me.

In terms of horticultural development, it’s still a very young garden - only fifteen years old. I’ve been painting a lot longer than I’ve been gardening, so I feel like I’m only just beginning. I plan to move all the plants and beds around over the next year. I’m more equipped to re-arrange the garden now, because I’ve spent the last years learning more about patterns of plant growth and the different conditions make them happy. I’ve been learning from my mistakes. Sometimes a painting needs to be scraped off and restarted. If I alter the arrangement of the garden, it’ll bring a whole new set of pictorial possibilities for my painting. A new series. The older rose paintings will become all the more special because the garden from which they were inspired won’t exist anymore. Just as Giorgio Morandi rearranged his collection of vases and bottles, I’ll rearrange my plants.

TSG: You showed me several books from your library including Virginia Woolf’s garden and The Man Who Painted Roses: The Story of Pierre-Joseph Redoute by Antonia Ridge. Can you describe who you are when you are in this mode and how you connect with past and present artists (writers, artists, poets etc) who use roses as their subject or as part of their subject?

GU: Like Virginia Woolf, I’m interested in the rose garden as a creative space. I relate to the lives and practices of artists like Monet, Bonnard, Renoir and the ancient Romans. I’m interested in artists of the past who have used gardens or flowers artistically and as a means of expression. I read about these artists and study their paintings because I feel we share similar passions and ways of life. I connect with them. Me in this metamodern age with them in theirs, ancient or romantic or whatever. As a painter I feel I share more in common with their values and orientation, than those of any contemporary artist.

I think about the ancient gardens of Rome or Pompeii a great deal. They did their growing in a hortus (a garden, an enclosure) or a peristylium (an open courtyard within the house) and painted murals on the walls of their homes. They created a haven of home life and flowers and art. It was the same at Monet’s residence, and it’s like that at my own studio too. It’s an enclosed paradise full of paintings and plants which put worldly strife and drudgery in its place. This sort of environment focuses the attention on matters conducive to creativity. Living and working within a garden setting, one can assimilate notions of temporal and eternal beauty, as well as the peace and respite experienced through simple contemplation of the universe and its eternal truths.

In summer the house is surrounded by a great duvet of roses, right up to the windows, with layers and levels of texture and colour. Even a modest garden displays the profound, circular course of nature which is life, death and renewal. I immerse myself. What is revealed in the life of a rose is similarly evident in the life of mankind. We nourish ourselves physically as well as emotionally and spiritually. We grow. Periodically we are pruned and coppiced by life, which will either end us or stimulate new growth. And we perish. But in most cases not without leaving behind the fruit of the seed, which is the next generation, that will carry on the cycle.

TSG: Can you explain how growing roses from seed and the connection to the soil connects you to the land and as an artist.

GU: Growing up the way I did, outdoors, in the soil, ploughing the land, tending stock and absorbing the rhythms of nature, has made me who I am. I could fall asleep in a field or a forest for the night and feel completely at home.

No matter what I’m doing, my nature is to become wholly involved in it. I can’t help but carry out rigorous searches into my subjects. A rose is not just a rose. Every rose has an origin, a history, a breeder and a habit in its process of maturation.  Some have bewildering blooms but weak growth; others are remarkably vigorous but lack scent. When breeding roses, I know the majority won’t be spectacular, but there is nevertheless a small possibility of creating an exceptional beauty one day. So, you have to be involved…devoted. Once again, painting is no different. You have to work at the relationship to yield a good harvest. It’s far more enriching to breed a rose from seed than to buy one off the shelf that’s already established. It’s good to be the gardener. It’s good to taste the soil and feel it in your hands. It’ll tell you whether it’s rich and happy, or not, and when the soil is managed well, then usually the growth, which becomes the colour, takes care of itself. If you go to the pains of extracting pigment from the ground, and crush it to a powder and mix it with oil in order to paint with it, you will have a much deeper and more authentic connection with the process and with your painting than if you didn’t. That’s how I like to do things; thoroughly and with genuine regard. Painting, gardening - it’s all the same thing. It’s about taking the time to care. Nourishing the potential.

June 2024