In discussion

A conversation between artists Emma Cameron and Jane Frederick, October 2006

Emma Cameron is an artist who works in an unusual way: she begins a painting with no plan at all, starting with random, abstract marks and colours 'as if it's the first time I've ever painted - at least, that's how it feels!'. Gradually something will begin to take shape on the canvas, and eventually - often after countless false starts - a painting of figures will emerge, 'bubbling up from somewhere deep in me'. Fellow painter Jane Frederick went to her studio to find out more.

JF When you start a painting, blocking in the fields of colour on the canvas, are you waiting for the marks and the process itself to suggest form, or do you have a plan in your head?

EC I never have a plan, no. I start with a sense of completely not knowing, which feels quite scary, I really don't know what colours I'm going to use, what images will form. I start in a very abstract way, randomly putting the colours on, and then something will begin to suggest itself. These paintings are never done from models, or from source material such as drawings or photos. I prepare to be amazed at something that I find on the canvas and then I work round that… and then it becomes a question of what to knock out and what to add. The process comes out of the Surrealist tradition of ' L’écriture automatique' . Max Ernst and Victor Hugo used it a lot, and the French Automatiste movement, and of course there was Leonardo da Vinci's advice to his students to look carefully at an old wall until shapes and forms appear in its cracks and stains, and to work from that. I recreate the wall on the canvas, if you like, and see what I can find there to work on.

JF Do you wipe quite a lot away as well?

EC Yes I do, it's sometimes so frustrating, if I've done a really good figure, and it just doesn't seem to belong in a painting, off it goes. I also like to play with texture a lot… Sometimes multiple layers of paint, sometimes it's very thin. In 'White Flower', I've used a lot of white paint, and smeared paint, and I've decided I'm going to leave it like that.

JF It's actually quite raw in parts, barely two layers of paint. It resonates, doesn't it, and that in itself gives it weight, you don't actually draw the outline of the body form at all, the substance of the paint makes it…Parts of this painting almost feel to me like a breath, you know when you go out on a cold morning, open your mouth and see the condensation. I feel that about the paint here, it's a wisp then it's gone. In fact it's really great to see the actual painting, because you can't see some of this at all in the reproduction.

EC I like to use the paint textures as well as colours to play around with the picture planes. At one point the figures might appear to be set back, behind the patch of paint that's next to them, at other points they will pull out in front. Shifting layers…

JF Sometimes the thicker paint creeps over a figure, it's as if it's pulling him or her back in to the painting. It adds to that ambiguity of space, doesn't it. They're a bit like windows really, into another world. The characters are placed in there, and sometimes you feel they could just get out and join us in our world, but the paint drags them back in again.
The figures you paint have weight, they are believably solid, and some of them have a very muscular quality to them as well, they are quite classical in that way, and yet they seem to float freely around. For me they do feel like flesh and blood.

EC I want there to be an intensely solid and direct quality in my work, a firmness, paired with an emotional, perhaps spiritual sense, that's much harder to pin down. So, yes, there's lots of swirling paint, but there's something very charged in there.

And another thing that I suppose I can get because I don't paint from life, is movement, like in 'Runner', she's running along, a model couldn't pose like that. I find I can't work from photos either, because I lose the intensity that needs to develop between the paint on the canvas and myself. I like to feel that I can get a sense of vigorous energy, and for me it's very important that it's not mediated by photos, models or anything else.

JF Sometimes in a painting there's the point where the brush marks begin to suggest a leg, for example, and then as your eye follows the leg up it then diffuses into brush mark again. The paint doesn't hide what it is, it is paint, but you've fooled us for a moment into believing it's a leg.

EC I also like there to be space for the viewer to complete the picture themselves. Only one part of the figure might actually be painted, the rest you have to guess. I sometimes find I work into a painting too long, it becomes too explicit, and I realise there needs to be more room left for the viewer to complete it… I have to scrap the painting.

JF There must be a very interesting phase in a painting where you have to decide this is the end, it's finished.

EC I often get to that point and later come back to the picture and realise it's not finished at all…Sometimes I have to put a canvas aside for a very long time to allow me to forget how much work has gone into it, how much time and effort I've invested in it… Then I can go back and work into it, often making very radical changes, which sometimes will work and sometimes won't.

JF We tend to put a value on something we've done because of the effort, the wrestling match we've had with it, and we have to lay that aside and value it according to what's actually on the canvas.

JF Can you tell me more about the colours you use?

EC The colours in a painting are created and chosen in response to what's already on the canvas. It's very intuitive. I have books on colour theory but they seem to have no relevance when I'm working. All the theory goes out the window! I seem to have a need to rely totally on what's inside, my intuition, an inner sense of what's needed. Which certainly makes mistakes sometimes - it's quite a wasteful way of working, in a way. So often I have to undo what I've done.

JF You've got some interesting pairings of colour; colours that will compete with each other and resonate quite a lot. Some of them are really intense… that orange in 'Dancer with Cow' is iridescent, almost.

EC I'm fascinated by what colours will do to one another, how they will be changed by what's around them and what's under them. The paintings are as much about paint and colour as they are about anything else. Different layering, different marks…

JF You can see the enjoyment as you look at the paintings. I find the colours you use incredibly seductive, for example in 'Message'. You've got an extraordinarily strong luminosity; we're almost blinded by the light behind the figure. It has a very ethereal feel about it. And then you have the courage to throw in an incredibly strong raw saturated colour, which almost destroys that sense of space, yet somehow it works really nicely, like that pink on the goat's face, it pulls it right out of the picture plane. The very limited colour too, is very appealing. I find it interesting as well that you seem rarely to locate space for us, there's occasionally a hint of a building or maybe a tree, but they're often in voids that could be up in the ether, we barely know where the characters are positioned.

EC And also I don't want to pin them down. Quite often in a landscape I actually don't want it very clearly defined. And sometimes there's not even a hint of landscape.

EC I sometimes think about putting more in there; but every time I try I get quite caught because with the figures I like there to be an element of extreme precision in parts of them, very precise, but also a lot of vagueness I suppose, swirling paint… I can't seem to paint an object with that intensity… I could do a still life and try to incorporate it into the picture but it would look wrong, I can't get the right feel… I could do a cartoony version, an approximation, but that wouldn't be right either because I want the precision… somehow it just doesn't work for me.

JF What are the relationships between the creatures and the human beings?

EC I often ponder that one. Sometimes they are as a cuddly toy can be for a child, a cross between a companion and a protector, a talisman, and sometimes they are not that - sometimes the animals are there to provoke, or to symbolise something.

JF I'm reminded of the Phillip Pullman novels, the daemons. Almost a guardian relationship.

EC Yes, I had been doing this for a long time before I read his work, and I got quite excited when I read 'Northern Lights'.

JF Looking at this painting, 'Tamer', the figure in the centre appears controlling, very solid.

EC She's managing to get the tiger and the cow not to kill each other!

JF Yet in some of the paintings, the animals seem almost dominant over the people, like in 'Woman and Stork', that bird is very imposing and quite solid, the scale is enormous.

EC Yes, yet there's something very playful about the woman, her look, and also perhaps quite provocative.

JF Do you ever see any sinister connection between the creatures and the people?

EC I think there might be sometimes… I quite like it when there's that ambiguity, like 'Among Birds' where they are quite scary, and yet the person is looking quite contented riding on the back of one of the birds.

JF She is, isn't she; she's clinging on, trusting them.

EC Like a baby on its mother's back, clinging on, looking out trustingly; yet here it might actually be unwise to be so trusting with these big birds around!

JF In 'White Flower' the girl has such a tender face…

EC Yes, I like that face very much and I also like the way that she's - you can't quite be sure - is she looking very intently at the flower or is she gazing past it into space?

JF It's quite reflective. Sometimes I feel that when you look at the faces they seem quite ageless; also they could be male, could be female, child or adult, we're not quite sure. The human beings in your paintings, are they based on anybody in particular?

EC No, they just seem to emerge. I often seem to need that agelessness and genderlessness in the characters.

JF Is there any element of alter ego?

EC Oh yes, there must be!

JF What about the connection between the viewer and the different characters, is that something that you work hard on or does that emerge through the process?

EC It seems to emerge. Quite often the characters are looking straight at the viewer (though not always), trying to draw the viewer in somehow, perhaps asking questions.

JF Yes. Looking at "Voyager" there's this character, almost childlike, holding a cat, and there's definitely an invitation there to join them in their world.

EC Yes, that's quite a mysterious picture. It's not clear whether the pink cat is a real live cat or a toy, a bit like when you're a child you know that your toys are not alive but you kind of feel that they are as well….
And the person is strangely dressed. I quite often do that, paint people who aren't dressed well enough to be out there in the world, yet there they are… there's a vulnerability. They are having to find other resources to protect them.

JF A lot of your characters look as if they've been to a masquerade ball or something: they aren't usually in contemporary dress. And there's some unusual headgear, which heightens this sense of mischief. It's like a reference to the jester.

EC Christopher Le Brun was asked why he painted a plume on a helmet, and he said he wanted to show 'an extravagance of spirit, a necessary flourish'. And similarly, I often feel instinctively when something like that is needed. Plus, hair can say too much, it can really date a character,; and if you want a sense of timelessness you're much better off with a bizarre hat, which could be from any time or none, rather than a hairstyle which make them appear perhaps too much of this world. I usually try to make any garments quite timeless.

JF When you're painting, do you have a relationship with that other, painted world, do you feel you are connecting with it?

EC Yes, I guess I must be living in that world while I work. That's probably why I can't work with the radio on. Playing certain CDs helps me feel in the right mental space.

Humans are all a mixture of so many feelings, qualities and actions… My paintings explore this, the way we can be sweet, but also have elements of mischief, or anxiety, or something else.

JF Your next exhibition is titled 'Mischief and Grace'.

EC Yes, 'Mischief' because I think a sense of mischief is quite fundamental to a lot of the work, some of these characters are very mischievous, or would like to be! And 'Grace' because my work is a lot to do with beauty and grace, there is certainly a concern with that; and also a concern with a spiritual sort of grace, and perhaps a calmness and a gentleness in some of the paintings.

JF They can be quite meditative as well; you can feel yourself drifting into the space…

EC I sometimes think my work is actually about struggling to find a sense of safety… Underpinning it all is this sense that death may be just around the corner… so I'm doing what I can to cope with that knowledge and to feel safe. That's partly what a lot of these pictures are about. They're about lots of other things too, there are lots of levels that they can be understood on, but fundamentally there is this struggle.

I am interested in the way we make our way through life… the whole rite of passage thing is interesting, I've got a painting called 'A Delicate Age' showing a young woman, quite vulnerable. She's looking like she might be about to step in the wrong place, it's quite a dangerous world she's in, and there's a somebody behind who's trying to come and help but really she needs to do it herself… She's almost going to pick some poisoned apple or something…

JF Or fall over something.

EC Yes, and she's really quite frail, she's not built very solidly at all, and the woman behind is quite strong, she's even strong enough to ride a tiger… I like the contrast between the vulnerability and the powerful strength. The young girl is almost being pulled inexorably into something… you don't know if that area of white paint is going to protect her or be a threat.

JF It's a bit like an inner glow coming out of her body, and there are these suggestive paintmarks around her, we're not quite sure what it is: it could be rocks or greenery or coral or fire, there's something organic around her...

JF This painting, 'Compulsion' reminds me of Goya.

EC It's very intense, and there's something quite terrifying there. This little figure is being grasped by this enormous muscular one, who doesn't look like he's really got his mind on the job… You don't know what his mind's on. He's almost looking through the little figure.

JF It is really terrifying. One has a lot of sympathy for the little guy!

EC It speaks to me of a very primitive, early fear, perhaps the fear a tiny baby might have. And also of a global fear. I don't address politics in my work directly, but I think this could be seen as a very political painting, looking at wars and economics and power between countries.

JF How much are you influenced by myth and stories?

EC I do know lots of artists who will start off with a theme, perhaps taken from a story, but I can't… I have tried doing that, but it kind of gets stilted for me, things don't flow on the canvas as I like them to. So I never begin from that standpoint, but sometimes I find that influences will have crept in from somewhere… From things I'm reading or have read, or films, or exhibitions… It's very enriching, isn't it, to immerse yourself in different influences and let them sort of seep through into your consciousness, and into your work, at their own pace.

Sometimes it helps other people to have a handle on the work, if they can say "oh yes, Europa, I've heard that story"… but of course we don't all know the same stories these days, not like at some times in the past when the biblical or ancient Greek stories might have been known by everybody in a community. I'm sometimes asked, Is it okay to invent our own story round the picture - of course it is!

JF Do you see them as being a continuation of the same story or does each one have its own autonomy?

EC Each stands on its own, I think. But there's something quite consistent in the feel of them all. It's about dichotomies.. splits in the self.

JF Is it important for you that the audience can communicate with your work?

EC Yes, it is, really. And I know that there will always be plenty of folk who just can't feel a connection with it. But there seem to be a lot of people who feel quite a strong bond with my paintings, who feel drawn to a piece though they can't necessarily say why. It matters to me: it's a way of me being in the world relating to other people, as well as to parts of myself.

JF I like the way your paintings leave so much to our imagination, it's like opening a book and reading the first chapter and the rest of it you have to invent for yourself, so we can then bring on to the paintings our own experience of childhood, or stories that we've read or places we've visited. Looking through the paintings now, I keep seeing new things. Memories and associations get triggered by those faces, or the colours, the shapes…

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