2.2.14
Interview: David Sweet
by Zara Worth
Artist and writer David Sweet curated the current Gallery North exhibition 'COLOUR/Boundary',
Zara Worth Colour has obviously been a continuously key concern within your work from 'day one', however, is there any particular and possibly more specific motivation or interest which has instigated 'Colour/Boundary'?
David Sweet As a feature of my work, colour comes and goes, though I have emphasized it in the paintings in this show. I wrote an essay a couple of years back called ‘Colour and Colourlessness’ and the idea for this exhibition comes indirectly from that. It was about the uneasy relationship between colour and pictorial space after Impressionism. What I ended up thinking was that colour is something you look ‘at’ not ‘through’. The problem is that painting is something you want to look ‘into’, so an inevitable tension arises.
ZW When first initiating this exhibition, how did you go about selecting other artists to accompany your own work for a show with such particular concerns?
DS They were people I knew and whose work seemed to stress chromatic activity, use colour solidly and be abstract, or non-naturalistic is perhaps a better word. I thought my own work fitted the same description. But I was aware that they were a stylistically diverse enough group to disrupt any obvious curatorial theme so writing the catalogue essay, which became an important part of the project for me, would be an interesting challenge.
ZW The exhibition blurb suggests that colour is taken less seriously by today's critics, do you think perhaps that colour has fallen out of fashion as a concern for contemporary art?
DS I think it’s hard to write about colour, and especially painted colour, in the language of contemporary criticism. There’s not a lot to say about it. Also people turn to critics for what art means, implying something is hidden or invisible that the critic knows about and the audience doesn’t. Colour is perhaps too visible.
ZW What draws you to colour as an artist, and within your own practice, could you tell us about your process and aims when making a painting?
DS My work belongs to a tradition of abstract painting that employs planes as a staple pictorial device. Planes have boundaries and surfaces and can join up with other planes to create a structure that fills the rectangle. But it’s a painting and not a flag, so the planes have to operate or interact in ways that remind you of painting of the past. One way to do this is to fill the planes with coloured pigment. Then something tangible can appear that you can work with. Colour adds a dimension, not the third dimension, just another dimension.
The aim is always to make a painting that you think is OK by your own standards. You have to have high standards, judging your own efforts against the achievements of the pictorial canon.
To find out more about David Sweet's work and the ideas behind the exhibition, please come along to the talk at Gallery North, see further information below:
David Sweet As a feature of my work, colour comes and goes, though I have emphasized it in the paintings in this show. I wrote an essay a couple of years back called ‘Colour and Colourlessness’ and the idea for this exhibition comes indirectly from that. It was about the uneasy relationship between colour and pictorial space after Impressionism. What I ended up thinking was that colour is something you look ‘at’ not ‘through’. The problem is that painting is something you want to look ‘into’, so an inevitable tension arises.
ZW When first initiating this exhibition, how did you go about selecting other artists to accompany your own work for a show with such particular concerns?
DS They were people I knew and whose work seemed to stress chromatic activity, use colour solidly and be abstract, or non-naturalistic is perhaps a better word. I thought my own work fitted the same description. But I was aware that they were a stylistically diverse enough group to disrupt any obvious curatorial theme so writing the catalogue essay, which became an important part of the project for me, would be an interesting challenge.
ZW The exhibition blurb suggests that colour is taken less seriously by today's critics, do you think perhaps that colour has fallen out of fashion as a concern for contemporary art?
DS I think it’s hard to write about colour, and especially painted colour, in the language of contemporary criticism. There’s not a lot to say about it. Also people turn to critics for what art means, implying something is hidden or invisible that the critic knows about and the audience doesn’t. Colour is perhaps too visible.
ZW What draws you to colour as an artist, and within your own practice, could you tell us about your process and aims when making a painting?
DS My work belongs to a tradition of abstract painting that employs planes as a staple pictorial device. Planes have boundaries and surfaces and can join up with other planes to create a structure that fills the rectangle. But it’s a painting and not a flag, so the planes have to operate or interact in ways that remind you of painting of the past. One way to do this is to fill the planes with coloured pigment. Then something tangible can appear that you can work with. Colour adds a dimension, not the third dimension, just another dimension.
The aim is always to make a painting that you think is OK by your own standards. You have to have high standards, judging your own efforts against the achievements of the pictorial canon.
To find out more about David Sweet's work and the ideas behind the exhibition, please come along to the talk at Gallery North, see further information below: