Langdon Olgar

HollabackLDN is a website set up to raise awareness and combat street harassment in London.  It’s main driving force is my good friend, work buddy and all round inspiring person Julia.  They have just published their first zine ‘Langdon Olgar’.  Beautifully designed & printed, it contains art and writing exploring various themes around street harassment.  It’s an open-minded, intelligent, upsetting, powerful read that sees street harassment as a social issue important to us all and feminism as a really positive force, inclusive of men.  You can, and should,  buy it here or here.

Go Team!

Here’s a couple of things I’ve done recently for friends publications……

‘K8ALKRMP’, Acrylic on Paper, (About A4-ish)

This is a collaboration between myself and my buddy Andreas for Rosie & Phil’s TEAM.

And this some work for Jen’s Verfreundungseffekt Magazine….

Verfremdungseffekt in Abstract Painting.

Playwright Bertolt Brecht devised his theory of Verfremdungseffekt as a way of challenging the audiences to his plays.  He wanted to move away from theatre as a passive escapism and instead, through his plays, comment on political and social realities in such a way that audiences would be forced to question the situations presented to them and through this be aroused to action.  He wanted them to face the world and then try to change it.  This idea, and this belief in the power of art, has recently had a significant effect on my own practice as an abstract painter.

Verfremdungseffekt is essentially a ‘making strange’, a deliberate act of alienation, detaching the audience from the action happening in front of them and disallowing an involving emotional experience that wears down their capacity for action.  Through the painted mark, describing line, gesture and space, I have begun to attempt something similar; making paintings that confront the viewer with a disruption to their visual pleasure, alternately pushing away and drawing in their gaze, resulting in a disjointed self-awareness.  The not unwelcome limitations of abstract painting mean that, unlike the plays of Brecht, there is no obvious narrative with which to describe political, social or historical events.  So, instead of specifics my subject is a combination of the universal and the individual.

Where Brecht wanted Verfremdungseffekt to lead “the audience to be a consciously critical observer” of the characters and action in his plays, my hope is that, through a reconfiguration of this theatrical device, my paintings and the awareness they create will encourage reflection and critical judgement on the inner and outer worlds of the viewer, disrupting apathy and empowering action.  Through a quiet disturbance of the comfortable consumption of imagery and sensation Verfremdungseffekt represents, through Art, both responsibility and possibility.  The responsibility we have to act and the possibility that these actions can indeed change the world.

R. M. Phoenix, October 2010

two boys, no toys

Last month my friend Will & I recorded a conversation that has now been published in a new free magazine.

(Edit: I’ve realised that when I started this blog a couple years ago it was because I had no idea what was actually involved in being an artist beyond feeling a need to create, and I figured this outlet may serve to open up the process if I did ever find myself part of that process, beyond the space I painted in in the corner of my bedroom.  And so I feel just posting this with no info as to how it came about is not in that spirit.  This article came about because I work in a gallery with the Arts Editor of the magazine and she was in a bind and asked if I’d fancy talking to a friend that was an artist for the new free magazine she was working on in her spare time and I said sure, I usually do and then think about if I do want to do what I’ve been asked to do or not, it’s like a nervous tic.  I was meeting up with Will to have tea and chat anyway a couple days later and Will very kindly let me bring my dictaphone.  I then sat up really late typing and editing, which takes longer than you ever expect and is horrible because you have to listen to your voice over and over, because I was going down to Brighton the next day to get drunk and rock out for my brother’s birthday.  See, this happened through luck and being open to that luck, not necessarily because I’m good or interesting.)

Illustrator, Will Exley, and Artist, Rob Phoenix, first met through mutual friends while living in Brighton.  They recently got together for tea and a chat, as the sun shone on, near their studios in London.

Rob We have very different studio spaces, what do you do in your studio?

Will I spend a lot of time sending emails!  My work is Illustration more than Art; I find I work a lot better with something to do, I’m not so good with coming up with endeavours I issue myself, and so I have to spend a lot of time actually getting work.  I prefer to have something to grasp, whether it be a record sleeve or a t-shirt or something else.  I like having that starting point; it gives it a certain sense of what it could be to be a successful image at the end.

Rob Is that to do with security?  I think one of the difficult things I find in painting is not having an inclination of an end point.  There’s always that question; ‘Is it finished?’  I’ll think it’s finished and then realise that it’s not finished.  Also, having recently gone through a period of change in my work, my perception of what’s a finished painting has changed massively.  What were finished paintings are now just bad paintings.

Will That’s a pretty nebulous thing to try to grapple with.

Rob That can become part of the work, making paintings about making a painting.

Will For me, it’s definitely to do with security.  I often feel when looking at other people’s work that I’m obviously looking at finished work only because it’s someone else’s

Rob Because someone else has said it’s finished.  My own work never looks like a finished painting, not in the same way that other peoples work can look like a finished painting.

Will There must be times when you know it’s done.

Rob Yeah, it does happen, I have finished paintings!  That’s exciting when you look at a painting in a different way or you change something in the work that causes you to see it in a whole new way.  That’s a really exciting moment, things come in to alignment.  It makes sense.

Will You can wonder too much about when things will come in to alignment.  I always think exasperation’s quite a good finisher.  When you’ve got a deadline, there’s a point where you think; ‘There’s no more I can do on this’, and you let go a lot more easily.

Rob Do you have to let go of work you’re not completely happy with?

Will Not often.  Sometimes a week later I’ll realise that was totally the wrong way to do it.  I’m working on ideas and concepts to start with which then get approved and I then have to work on the final image.  Each of these sections has its weigh points; it does feel like the longer I do it the better I get at recognising those weigh points.  In front of the computer I can get quite specific, I’ve drawn this section; now’s the time to put in the black blotchy bits, now’s the time to put in the little dashes, now’s the time to put in the weird photocopy effect.

Rob Haha!  Yeah, I sometimes have the same thing while painting; now it’s time for the flat colour, now for the slightly messy, slightly hard-edged lines, now for the gestural painterly marks.

Will How you guide your way through, it’s like a second language.

Rob You have quite a particular style to your work.

Will Style’s a tricky one.  Up until recently I would have said I didn’t have a style.  But I’m also aware that that’s perhaps down to being the person making it, it can be hard to see.  It’s only recently I now try and have a sense of consistency.  Comics are my main source of inspiration and in my head I’m happy if I’ve managed to combine something  cartoon-like with something with a realistic bent to it, that’s what I’m going for in my head.

Rob Sure, I find as well that my work can often be trying to bring together different, sometimes opposing, visual ideas.

Will Yes, definitely.

Rob I guess we both have to acknowledge and deal with a massive visual history that precedes what we’re doing.  That’s something we have to work alongside or maybe fight against, whilst also not treading on other artists toes.

Will Of course, so much has gone before and it’s important to take what that inspires and treat that with as much care as you would anything else.  Those influences are as important as whatever impulse we have that would make us create something that is not inspired by our influences.

070310

My water, my

guard, my talisman.

As the fires in the pits

of hell rage,

rage all around.

My water, my

temper.

Backing my attempts,

encouraging my hopes.

These fires shall not rage

always.

Shall be but embers

soon enough.

the turning tables

My friend Lindsay interviewed me recently for a professional practice thing on his university course, even though I’m not a professional. It was fun, I got a bit drunk towards the end but it’s interesting to vocalize stuff and to get the distance and perspective on your self that something like this can provide.  Thankyou to Lindsay for typing his fingers to the bone.  Sometimes I’m quiet, sometimes I talk a lot.

Owen Richards & Lindsay Corstorphine post pub/interview.

When did you first become aware of art and the desire to become an artist?

I think I fell into it. I wasn’t a child that drew a lot. I always wanted to be a TV cameraman when I was younger. I have vivid memories of drawing – a drawing of a boat when I was 10 or 11, and then nothing much else, just choosing art at A-Level, because that was the only thing I was doing well at. It was only when I started doing really well at my art a-level that I decided to put more passion into it, rather than it being an original passion in the first place. So it just stemmed from school.

So did you then go to art college?

Yeah. I did 3 a-levels at school – art, maths and physics. I got kicked off my physics course. I just stopped going, my dad got called into the school and they said I would have to pay for my a-level exam, but by this time I had got on to the foundation at Chelsea. It was there at Chelsea that I really grew an awareness of art and what I was possibly getting involved in. I’ve always been a very visual person, from a young age. I tried to understand things around me in a visual way. So there was that difference between having a pencil and paper and drawing and then going to art college and realising there’s this whole world of painting and history there. And then from there, going to my degree and having 3 years of wondering how on earth to make an impression, to make a stand in amongst this ‘new world.’

Your brother paints as well. Do you feel a sense of competition with him?

No, well, kind of, Rich, my brother, and I have spoken about this quite a bit. It stops me from getting lazy. Being so close to someone with the passion and skill for painting my brother has is great, it keeps me wanting to get better, I guess that’s a sense of competition. But we paint differently, and have a different focus to each other, although it’s been very much a co-operative learning process, we really feed off each other’s work. Music has been a big part of mine and my brother’s lives, but he was always naturally much more adept at music than me. Music never caught me in the same way that it caught him. Whereas I think Art, and painting, caught me in a different way. We’ve both been through periods where we’ve been known as the other person’s brother, been in their shadow a bit, but as annoying as that can get it never ever comes down to being bitter about the other person’s ability or success. He’s probably my biggest inspiration.

Have you ever been disillusioned by art?

Constantly! Well, not constantly. It’s maybe the reason it’s taken me so long to make this commitment. I turned 30, moved to London and made this full commitment to painting. I’ve tried different careers before, just because its taken a massive amount of personal faith in myself and in my ability, to really embrace it because there are so many people out there doing the same thing, doing it a lot better than I am and its taken me a while to really understand whether what I’m doing is any good and also that fear of ‘can I risk committing to this’ because it could take years and years. There are massive peaks and massive troughs. There are days where I think, “what am I doing, I’ve made a massive mistake here, I should’ve done a maths degree instead” and then there’s days where I can’t imagine doing anything else. But yeah, there’s still disillusionment and insecurity about it.

Do you make a living from art and is money important to you?

Money is important yeah. It’s got nothing to do with being commercial, it’s got do with the one thing I want to do is make art and unfortunately I need money to be able to do that. Especially because I’ve chosen painting, I have to buy paints, canvas, stretchers and paintbrushes and pay for a studio and that’s expensive. I need to get myself in a position where I can keep doing what I want to do. No, I don’t make a living off my art. I’ve always had to have a part-time job to pay for a studio and pay for the materials to do it. That’s kind of tied in with the disillusionment because I’ve gone through periods of giving up just because of the financial burden of struggling away at something that could be a ridiculous enterprise. It can get on top of you. At the moment I’ve been very lucky that I don’t have to pay rent, because I’m a live-in carer, I’ve been getting jobseekers allowance that pays for my studio and I start a new job next week, which will then pay for my studio and materials. I’ve been very lucky- my friends have given me canvas and paints – so the ideal is to start making money. I’ve got friends who are deemed ‘successful’ but have part-time jobs and really have to tighten the purse strings to make anything of it.

How would you define your style of painting, who’s inspiring you currently?

A very simple list would be – Julie Mehretu, Cy Twombly, Amy Sillman, Bridget Riley, Cecily Brown, Sean Scully, Katy Moran, Adrian Ghenie, I really could go on and on. There are different parts of different artists that I admire. Agnes Martin’s writings and thoughts on arts relationship to people, and Sean Scullys as well, is really inspiring. With regards to my own work, I’m still trying to work out what I’m doing. It’s interesting having concentrated studio practice for the last 6 months, looking at the first and last paintings I’ve made and realising there’s a huge growth process. To use a music analogy; its like I’m still in band practice in my parents garage and still discovering new bands: I think I know what I’m playing and then one day discovering Minor Threat (hugely influential American Hardcore Punk band) and going ‘Oh my God, this changes everything!”

It’s like you’ve then got a framework to hang everything on?

Yeah. Well, I know massively what I don’t want to be doing. Abstract painting is what I want to do. I’m very interested in war and violence and our personal responsibility and I feel very conscious that I don’t want to just make pretty pictures. I believe in beauty but there has to be a human connection to it. So it’s tying in the conceptual ideas along with actually how it looks. It’s also this big process of learning how to use my instrument; learning how oil paint works. So trying to bring all these different things together in a ‘cohesive strain.’

So, talking about cohesiveness, when you start a new painting are you thinking about the last few you’ve done before or are you starting afresh?

I can start off thinking about the previous painting either because it’s worked really well and I want to do it again but do it slightly better, or because its opened up alternative ideas so I want to try this different thing that it’s suggested. But, at the moment each painting ends up going down a completely different route, because I don’t have a fully developed style and because there’s no end product in mind. I’ll do a painting and be really pleased with it, and start another one thinking about how that one worked and what didn’t, and I just find that through the actions one makes, unless you do a straight copy, it takes on a life of its own which then throws up more new ideas. I think maybe the more paintings I do, the narrower in scope they’ll become, not in a bad way, but more in that I’ll have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t. They’re all definitely interconnected, but very separate. I think. (laughs)

Have you ever exhibited?

Yeah. I’ve exhibited in Brighton and London and exhibited some photography in Australia when I was out there. I was part of a street art collective for a while in Brighton and we did some exhibitions – in London and in Amsterdam.

What was the name of the collective?

Grafik Warfare.

Yeah! Nice.

It was really funny because we’d go out in the evenings, hitting up walls or whatever, I don’t know. They’d have their spraycans and stencils and I’d be there with a bag of acrylic paints. I’d try to paint gestural abstraction on the walls whilst they were spraypainting stencils. It really didn’t work at all; it was a dreadful mess. (laughs). I hung out with them all once in London and I was totally non-plussed with the whole graffiti thing, this guy came up to me and said ‘are you a writer’ – as in a graffiti writer, I didn’t know what he was talking about and I said ‘Kind of yeah… I’ve done some poetry and a couple of short stories but nothing much’ and he looked at me like ‘what the fuck are you talking about?’

So do you think if you hadn’t gone to art school you’d still be painting?

Yeah. I did my art foundation after my a-levels, which was because I had no clear idea what I wanted to do. It was a really difficult year. I just wanted to be a student, I wasn’t that interested in being an artist – on my degree I basically spent 3 years getting pissed (laughs). It’s weird; I’ve spent a long time trying not to be an artist, trying not to paint.

Kind of denying it almost?

Yeah. Really kind of going ‘God, no I can’t do this, it’s too hard’. I was just wimping out basically, being a bit of a pussy. It was recently when I started a career as a social worker, that I realised very quickly I didn’t want to be a social worker and what I actually wanted to do was paint, or be involved in art somehow. I think I would’ve got to this point even if I hadn’t gone to art college. So I don’t know if art college played a big part in me being an artist, I’ve learnt more off my own back since leaving my degree. I think it perhaps did fan that early spark though, made me aware of the wider world of Art, and that maybe it was just the wrong time in my life. I wasn’t very good to be honest, and I didn’t really understand why or what I was painting. There has to be a reason, a passion, I think in some ways I needed to exhaust all other possibilities and all other possible avenues before I decided well..

Like self-realisation almost?

You get to a point where you can’t deny it any longer. I could’ve probably made a career elsewhere. It’s funny, I remember one of the times I gave up art, my idea was to start a career in youth work or social work and I actually had a ten-year plan. My thinking was that I’d do that, reach 40 or 50, retire and be able to afford a shed in my back garden to paint in. But, I figured ‘why wait until I’m 40 or 50?’ I recently read something that said life’s really tough whatever you do so you might as well follow your heart and do what’s right. I’m still not sure if I’m any good or not, I still could be one of those people you see on x-factor going ‘I should be here Simon Cowell, I’m a great singer, you don’t know what you’re talking about!’ but they’re really shit and everyone knows it except them. I could be one of those people but I don’t know what else to do to be honest (laughs) it feels right. I have enough self-belief and arrogance right now, that it’s what I want to do. And I love it, I love being in the studio, I’m happier now than anytime I’ve ever done anything else.

Do you have total confidence in your ability? Does it ever waiver?

Yeah. I do think I’m a good artist. I don’t think I’m shit. I think I’m a good painter. I think I’ve got something. If I truly believed that I wasn’t any good, if I truly believed that I couldn’t see myself, not necessarily making it as an artist, but making it something that was worthwhile in my life, then I wouldn’t continue to do it. Whether I will become an internationally renowned, recognised artist, whether I will make a living out of it, I don’t know. In my life, the best way that I have of creating something meaningful is through painting. I believe that, and so that’s why I continue to do it.

How do you define success? Is it the fact you’re able to continue painting?

In some ways, yeah, I’m successful right now. I speak to some people who are impressed that I’m able to do what I’m doing and some people think it’s a bit odd to be 30 and have a shitty part time job. They don’t understand that I’m not exhibiting not because I’m shit, but because I’m just not exhibiting. Success is totally relative. People can have this idea that once you reach a certain stage, once you start a career, once you fall in love, once you get married, once you have children, that everything’s going to be fine and life’s going to be great. It doesn’t work like that. I may get represented by a gallery and have a solo show, sell all my work but I don’t see that will suddenly make life okay. I like my life at the moment, I’m really happy, things are working out – so I’m successful. If I die tomorrow, I’ve had a certain amount of success. Not everyone knows who I am, but then look at Damien Hirst. He’s probably the most ‘successful’ and well known artist in the history of British art but his talent is constantly questioned. His recent attempt to actually be the artist he really wants to be has been absolutely panned by every single critic. He can’t feel that great about himself. How would he quantify success right now? His latest show isn’t critically successful but it still sold out and he’s massively successful financially.

Do you want to talk about Failedrockstar?

The name initially came from when I was a drunken idiot at university. A friend of mine said I acted like a rockstar but I wasn’t one, and called me a failed rock star and that stuck in my head. A year after university, I went to Australia in a bid to find myself and came back and realised that nothing had changed. I’d had a fun time but was still unsure of what I was doing. I got a job near my parents’ in a photolab/copyshop so I had access to a photocopier and was able to print my own photos. It was one of many shit jobs, countless shit jobs. It was through my brother’s involvement in punk rock that I was really aware of zines. So I took a load of my photos from my recent trip to Australia and made some copies of this zine of all these photos, just for my friends who I’d met whilst travelling. Just photocopied and stapled together because I had access to the equipment to make a proper booklet.

Did you pay for it?

(Proudly) No! Failedrockstar has only survived on me not paying for things.
I think it was just through pure boredom, just the feeling that I had to do something. I wasn’t able to paint at the time, so I made this zine of all this work I had – paintings, drawings and photos. I’ve always been really interested in books, so wanted to make this nice package. I made the first one, made 100 copies, spray painted a manilla envelope for the cover, made some badges and some stickers. My brother sold it on tour. I got quite a positive response. From various places I knew a few creative people so thought, ‘It seems a shame that we’re all friends but not doing anything together.’ That became the second issue where I got everyone to do some work and put it into a zine again. Again, my brother sold it on tour around the UK on the merchandise stand. I think that was almost equivalent to what you can do with the internet now– I mean, it existed then but it wasn’t what it is today. There wasn’t blogs, and I didn’t know how to make a website. It was just free distribution basically, I didn’t make any money from it but it got the zine out to corners of the UK that otherwise I would have no access to. It culminated in the fourth issue, which happened in Brighton in 2005. By this time, issue 4 had grown, it sold out twice in Tate Modern. I’d got about 40 artists and writers involved. I’d met loads of new artists in Brighton and started having the balls to email people I didn’t know. I was working at a copy shop and there was one evening where I had to work late night and secretly ran through 1000 colour copies on heavy stock paper. Unfortunately the copy shop found out but eventually I ended up paying a fraction of what the printing was worth. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Then, I started organising issue 5 but it all just became about being an admin guy, it became about editing a magazine, dealing with artists – which can be a nightmare. It was no longer fun so I kind of put it to one side. At the time of the fourth issue, I started interviewing some of the artists, for the same reason as this interview. I was becoming more interested in being an artist myself but was clueless as to how to go about it. So it was this idea to build up this written enquiry into what makes people pursue this creative ideal, the belief in their creativity. So now the name, Failedrockstar, represents the idea that it’s better to try and fail than to never try at all. It’s about not not doing something because you’re too scared that you might fail. It’s a bit slap-dash – I don’t want it to be a regularly updated magazine. It’s an online archive of interviews with people that are committing their lives to their creativity in spite of the possibility of failure. My hope is that through the interviews other people will get some sort of inspiration, some sort of knowledge, some sort of awareness of what it is they’re getting involved in. Also, artists fascinate me. I love reading artist and writer’s biographies. The toll it takes on life. I get so scared/bored of the idea that you go to school, you get your degree, you get your career, you get your wife, you get your kids and then you die. The idea of people trying achieve something bigger, something more profound and meaningful. I’m intrigued as to how that fits in with everyday life.

The idea of being an artist and being creative encompasses everything in your life, and everything you believe in – it IS your life?

It’s also confronting that; it can be sometimes quite a romantic view. You read about writers like Richard Yates and Patricia Highsmith – they chose their writing over having an easy life. I’ve interviewed artists, creative people, and while it is their life, it doesn’t stop them from having a happy normal life – like a businessman does, you know? It’s very easy to get caught up in the myth of the starving artist in the garret that has to drink to get by and finds it very difficult to interact with people. Which as a stereotype does exist for a reason, but it isn’t necessarily a reality for everyone. It’s also this idea that Art is a magic thing where you don’t want to look behind the veil. Yes, there are geniuses, Francis Bacon, Picasso, but there’s also those people who get up every day, put in the hard work and make it happen. You don’t need to be a genius to do it.

Would you say you make art to deal with life?

Yeah, in a way. I also make it in the hope that it will affect others dealing with life.

Would you want Failedrockstar to become a bigger concern?

I don’t think so, no. I want to be a painter, that’s where my heart lies. I’m not interested in being a publisher or an editor or a journalist. I’m merely a painter that’s interested in other things. When these things become a bit too big, they lose the initial appeal that they had. I’m interested in what artists have to say in the content, but not so interested in how to get that content. I’m more interested in reading the interview, than all the arrangement and aftermath of the interview. It’s opened up opportunities and avenues that wouldn’t have existed otherwise, but then I think that’s as much to do with making something happen. Even if it doesn’t become something like Fecal Face, or Arkitip, or whatever, that wasn’t my initial intention. It was borne out of curiosity. Its not so much that I want to make a magazine or art website, I just had questions and this sense of restlessness. One of the things that my painting is about is ‘How do you physically create your existence?’ Validating your existence. You try and find any way possible to make existence make sense. Being in love can be a fantastic thing, and then you read about atrocities in Rwanda or what’s going on in Afghanistan and you think ‘How can this exist and what’s my relationship to it?’ When you’re young everyone tells you what to do, or you leave university and think ‘What the fuck do I do now’, how do you then make existence make sense? Not in a higher, religious way, but purely in a day-to-day reason for getting out of bed – this is why I’m breathing, this is why my genes are propagating. So, you make friends, paint a painting, start a band, help others, do maths or whatever.

Do you work in other mediums, other than painting?

Yes. I take a lot photographs. I also draw – but my drawing is completely unrelated to my painting. I work with charcoal, pencil, pen and ink. I’ve also done collage, a bit of sculpture, I like the idea of making films and I’m interested in bookbinding and making stuff out of paper as well. I think half of it is the natural creative urge that everyone has.

Why painting?

I don’t know. It’s not a choice. I didn’t sit down and decide ‘…painting, sculpture…hmm?’ It’s what feels right. I like other art forms and, you know, I draw and play the guitar a bit but painting, that’s when I’m good.

Strictly no posers.  This was Lindsay’s idea, not mine.