Interview with Gordon Dalton by Danny Rolph April 2011
Danny Rolph: The melancholic humour that permeated your sculptural work surfaces again in the new paintings, how conscious of this are you?
Gordon Dalton: Well, I don't set out with a preconceived idea of that's what it will look like, but I use it as something to draw you in. I'm not moping around the studio listening to Leonard Cohen or trying to make you laugh, but the dour humour gives an entrance to the work, lets you in somehow, before messing with you. Sometimes it's just the tone of the colour, or an almost slapdash approach, which can be equally off putting.
It's a way of making you question their intentions, or their seriousness. I mean, they are serious, but I am aware they can be quite ridiculous. How far you push that, or reveal it somehow, is another thing to juggle when making the work.
DR: I remember the artist Peter Halley explaining how he wanted to explore hilarity in his work stating: 'if I'm particularly pleased I'll say "isn't that hilarious". As a fellow painter I know I have thoughts along these lines sometimes, do you?
Of course, you'd have to be pretty miserable not laugh out loud when you've just painted a Whoopee Cushion, a wonky looking Trojan Horse or Lionel Ritchie with his cock out. Sometimes it's a laugh of relief at your good luck, or on those rare good days, overwhelming joy. Going into the studio and seeing your work afresh in a show is such a double edge sword. 'Did I do that?' can be equally positive or negative. There's a quote about Richard Prince's work I think, 'Art is the joke's joke, it's what all the other jokes are laughing at'.
DR: Your recent paintings remind me of misplaced Alan Bennett quotes? Seeing a group together in your studio, they convey to me a "wardrobe" of memories and observations, am I barking up the wrong tree??
GD: No, I like that. I've found myself describing them as punch lines looking for a joke, or like a misheard lyric from a song. The titles often refer to that, lyrics, snippets of overheard conversation, misinterpretation, etc. There's an awkward grammar to the paintings, which i hope comes across. The wardrobe reference is spot on. I'd always wanted one of those almost cartoon, teenager's wardrobes where everything is spilling out, rubber chickens, footballs, cricket bats. I guess the work is like that, with lots of seemingly random images, references, just stuff. I spend my time trying to cram it all in and then opening that wardrobe door.
I've always liked the idea of Dr Frankenstein, sticking on bits and bobs, odds and ends to make a 'monster', with the baying mob outside with pitchforks and flaming torches. I feel like I have a full wardrobe of bits and bobs, memories, observations, objects that I'm sticking on, chopping off, seeing if it works. Then again, most of the time I feel like the baying mob
DR: The painter Helmet Federle said that "Form serves as a vehicle for an immaterial quality
which cannot be recognized as such or as a motif. It defines itself in the non-interpretable,
neutral manifestation man conjures up in his vulnerability and anticipation of death." Do
you think a viewer may perceive a similar type of vulnerability in your new paintings?
GD: That's a pretty big question! I think they do look rather vulnerable, ready to collapse,
almost as if they have given up trying so I see what you're getting at. But I hope they have
this little spark, one last gasp left. For me, form and content are the opposite of ends of a
horseshoe, and I try and play in the middle. There is lots of stuff in there, junk, objects,
floods, avalanches, celebrations, even death, all offset with that dour humour. I just
concentrate on trying to pick out the best way of painting this stuff I've gathered.
Sometimes they reach out to the viewer, sometimes they suck you in.
DR: Are the objects you choose to work with owned by you, how do you choose them?
Is there anything you wouldn't choose to paint?
Mostly mine I think, although I've borrowed, stolen, inherited a lot from friends. There's
quite a few that were used in the sculptures. There are a lot of found objects but increasingly
little things I've made myself, silly little assemblages. I'm looking for something that has a
certain 'thatness' or something that has some kind of association with other things. Then
again I like the challenge of trying random objects, which also happened in the sculpture, so
I've been openly asking for donations.
I'm not sure there is anything I wouldn't attempt painting. You can't be too moral when you
are working. Whether I'd let anyone see it is a different matter.
DR: There's a lovely rough, scrubby, somewhat polluted quality to the paint and brushwork in these modest sized paintings akin to artists such as De Keyser, Tuymans and Merlin James, all of whom seem to deny superficial finesse? Does this necessarily lead to a "deeper" journey?
GD: It's that wardrobe door again, tidying up, making a mess. I'm not doing it to show all the workings of how it got that way, saying oh this one was hard work, that's too self conscious, but I don't go out of my way to tidy them up. I guess it's another device to make you look harder, or longer. I'm not sure if that makes them 'deeper', I just want you to look and question what you're looking at. Sometimes there are quite quick decisions to be made, sometimes longer, days, weeks.
I like all those small battles that go on, it's you versus the painting. Painting always wins, but ultimately you're always judge, jury and executioner. You're always looking for that certain it was meant to look this way, like it couldn't look any other way, almost as if the painting itself was a found object. I'm also interested in something that looks a little awkward or embarrassed, almost as if it's unsure of itself, or even wrong. They are quite adolescent in their scruffiness and surliness, and that can be both attractive and repellent, almost a barrier or an obstruction to peep round. I like that push/pull aspect of the paintings. Polluted is a great way of describing them, all that filth, all that mess. I don't want to make ugly or destructive paintings, but they're certainly not pretty. Pretty ugly, perhaps?
Danny Rolph is an internationally renowned artist living in London. His work is in major collections such as Tate Gallery and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He is represented by Poppy Sebire, London; Barbara Davis, Houston and Roberto Annicchiarico AR / Contemporary Ar, Milan
www.dannyrolph.com