Portrait of the Artist by the Subject, Part Deux

So here I am sipping tea, halfway through my vacation, eating Peek Frean cookies at my artiste du monde friend James Huctwith's studio. We're enjoying dull gossippe, listening to Carole Pope wailing away on ye olde CD player, (James is a Luddite, lending to the antiquarian bohemia that is his studio proper) while he is hard at work on his newest epic, a triptych painting called, (at this point anyway) THE LIVING. To describe it is nearly impossible, save that it is massive in its dimension and scope. It is by far the most ambitious piece he's ever attempted, with each panel measuring five by four feet, (and there are three of them don't forget, hence the term triptych) with about thirty people in it. Needless to say, it is big.

James says it's a springboard for even bigger future paintings, one ostensibly called THE MONUMENT, which will measure about twenty by forty feet, with something like seventy people in it. God knows HOW he'll fit it in here. He says the photo shoot will be one BIG party. Stay tuned for further developments.

However, I love the title, THE MONUMENT. It's epic. I like epic. No, I love epic. Which is probably why I love James' works. Like Tony Kushner's plays, they aren't safe and all nicey-nice, in a way that won't shock the suburban bourgeoisie set. Rather, they leap outward without looking and have the lovely effect of shocking the hell out of you while they do it. But they're not ostentatiously shocking in an adolescent "let's piss off the old folks" kind of way. There is a definitive psychological structure at work in these paintings, with specific historical references, both artistically and thematically. Still, they can pack a transgressive shock for the uninitiated. Or perhaps that's the illusion. The truth is, like any great work of art, they are seemingly effortless, but very subtly built upon a solid bedrock of structure (James just volunteered that he isn't wearing underwear - how RUDE! Told you he was epic.) both technically and thematically that quite easily holds up the emotional chaos the canvas manifests. In short, he knows his stuff.

Oddly enough, James says he finds the thematically darker canvasses, with their maelstroms of chaos, easier to paint than the lighter themes he's done in recent years. I, not being a painter, cannot understand exactly what he means, but perhaps on a broader, more intuitive level I get it. The starker, deeper colours of life are oftimes much easier to see clearly, perhaps because their emotional spectrum is more vivid. The more light, fantastical and witty paintings are more gossamer-like, harder to catch perhaps in their tone, because of their fancifulness.

I'd love to see how he'd paint A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for example. I imagine it would be more difficult than say, MACBETH. The emotional colours are much more varied and perhaps not as vividly stark, but more spread out in their spectrum. The darker canvasses have a more definite, honest emotional quality to them, he says. It's the darker notes he likes to play in, the same qualities people like his hero, Caravaggio, liked to explore. Let us not forget that he was the Renaissance world's bad-boy painter too in his day, forever and always in trouble with the Church because he liked hauling in his newest boytoy or street hustler to play an archangel or young apostle. So it's safe to say that James comes by this altar tweaking naturally. He says he can't count the number of times people have admired his work and technique and then said in the same breath, "Why can't you paint something NICE?"

They forget that the great works of art, like Caravaggio's INCREDULITY OF ST.THOMAS for example, is not, strictly speaking, a NICE painting. In fact, James would argue that it is an incredibly perverse picture, but it is nonetheless a masterpiece. As James says of that painting, "the last time I put my fingers in a man's side to see if he was alive, was in a leather dungeon!"

The fact is, in any work of art, the themes that do not challenge and perhaps offend us, do not have achance of making us think, and therefore help propel us forward as a society. Safety is on the side of the mediocre and inevitably the established, and while it may be comfortable, and look great over the couch, it's doubtful that it will make you think.

As James says, he thinks that his paintings, viewed through a pre-twentieth century lens, would be viewed as quasi-religious works. He says he's bemused that people always seem to view his paintings as being about sex, when he sees them as primarily psychological in tone. But given that sexuality rules most of our viewpoints in the twentieth century, it's not altogether surprising. This latest painting, the triptych I spoke of earlier, isn't about sex, even though there are a lot of half naked men grappling and struggling with unknown battles within it. It has an almost exhausted sensuality to it, but that isn't sexual, strictly speaking. It isn't a carnal painting at all. I suspect early 18th century critics would not be shocked by these paintings, but would however see immediate echoes back to ancient Greece and the heroic sensuality of their art. Don't forget "gay" sexuality as defined by today's standards, is a twentieth century invention. Such a definition didn't exist then, which is why so many of James' paintings defy a strictly "gay" category. The psychological vantage point from which he conceives them predates the critical point of view by which most observers regard these paintings. To wit; they're missing the point, but then again, this is logical, as the point predates them. It's this sleight of hand which makes these paintings so endlessly fascinating. Among other things, they challenge the viewer to rethink how he views art and sensuality, as well as sexuality in the context of time. And what's wrong with challenging the old bean every now and again?

Ah, don't take my word for it darlings, marvel at the masterpieces with a cuppa tea and some cookies. You won't need anything stronger, take my word for it.