Figuring it out

Being a figurative painter today is probably no more challenging or rewarding than it has ever been. When immersed in the business of putting paint on a surface you are faced with the same problems: colour scheme, composition, gesture and the task of communicating the idea. Although it can help in finding the right audience for my work, I am slightly uncomfortable with being typecast as a figurative painter — i.e., someone who makes paintings with obvious references to the real world — principally because of the connotations: the idea that figuration means accurate photographic representation. I don’t hold with that reverence for accuracy; there has to be room for the artist’s interpretation.

The question of figurative painting’s relevance is pressing in the current art climate where video, performance and photography are so fashionable. We are more readily stimulated and seduced by figurative painting: it is more accessible and can make a direct comment about its subject. No dossier or instruction manual is required. Yet it seems to be confined to the peripheries of the art world. It’s rare — almost unheard of — to see a figurative artist qualify for the stands at the biennales or to be thought sufficiently ‘cutting-edge’ to adorn the walls of contemporary art fairs or to win the major art prizes. But since when has good art had anything to do with fashion?

There is no doubt that being a figurative painter means carrying baggage. I feel as though everything I paint is part of a dialogue about the evolution of painting. To acknowledge past artists with a visual reference is to tread a tightrope: pastiche is always one stray brushstroke away. Because of the lineage of painting and its rich history the pressure is always on to say something different and not simply to add to the vast accumulation of commonplace pictures.