Dancing bear
Elephant without tusk
The book's text opened with three quotes by Rodin, Derrida and John Berger, all of which are thoughtful reflections on the relationship between touch and sight.
What is this drawing? Not once in describing the shape of that mass did I shift my eyes from the model. Why? Because I wanted to be sure that nothing evaded my grasp of it … my objective is to test to what extent my hands already feel what my eyes see.
AUGUSTE RODIN
A draftsman cannot but be attentive to the finger and the eye, especially to anything that touches upon the eye, to anything that lays a finger on it in order to let it finally see or let it be seen [donner à voir].
JACQUES DERRIDA
Her fingers touching the paper with a stick of charcoal or graphite pencil or rubber. Yet is that all they are doing? Are they not touching the face too, the face, the nose, the hair, the eyes – so that they shut a little, the corners of the mouth? What is the relation between tracing and stroking, between an erasure and a caress?
JOHN BERGER
Maggi Hambling was quoted as having this to say about drawing; ‘Drawing is an artist’s most direct and intimate response to the world. The touch of charcoal, graphite or ink on paper is full of endless possibilities. I try to distil the essence of a subject and capture the life-force of a moment.'
I first became interested in Maggi Hambling when she came to public notice because of her portraits of Max Wall. She was interviewed several times on TV and I thought she was an artist well worth following, as she seemed to take seriously the business of finding mass in space. She was searching for something and in asking Max Wall to be a subject I could see her looking for the drama of a life. Wall was both a comedian and a dramatic actor, especially when taking on Samuel Beckett. I had seen Wall's TV version of 'Waiting for Godot' and he used an awareness of his own physicality, to give the role a tragicomic depth. I presumed this was what Hambling had seen in him, a face and a body that were very physical, that had spent a lifetime on stage and that projected a unique theatrical presence. I felt that Hambling was presenting to us the theatre of the body, even if the only member of the audience was her own cat, Onde.
Max with Onde: 1981
She is particularly good when faced with mortality. Her drawings of her father below, reveal a delicate search for that life spark that we all have, even when it is dimmed with age.
Father
Hambling's drawing of her mother when dead, is another attempt to find what lies beneath the surface of appearance. As Hambling herself put it, "The challenge is to touch the subject with all the desire of a lover" 2016.
My mother dead: 1988
Hambling has a rather theatrical personality, or at least it appears that way from the various interviews I have seen with her. Her cigarette often being used like a marl stick, a support that operates as a conversational prop. I read this as a type of nervousness, being very aware of my own anxiety as soon as anyone asks me to talk about my work. Most artists are visual thinkers which is why they stumble when it comes to translating what they do into words. (Except for David Hockney, who is always beautifully articulate.)
She also looks a lot at the sea; she lives close to the coast and often draws and paints waves and spray and the hard to see shifts in form and energy that constantly come into and out of vision, as that huge body of water does the things it does.
Hambling says this:
‘Most people know the life and death feeling when they look at the sea, it is so huge. Water is a metaphor for life. A wave approaches, then becomes solid before it dissolves, that’s pretty sexy. Someone once asked me why I keep painting waves and I replied I go on painting them because they are orgasms!'.
She recognises that we are all energy, that is all there is. The traces of charcoal or paint seismically record the energy of looking, as well as the energy of making and the energy of being. Perhaps because she is a popular artist, she is sometimes underrated, but I hold a special place for her in my heart and love her unremitting confrontation with that élan vital which she finds both in people and in the sea's waves. She has made a body of work that has communicated to me at least, her great joy in visualising life's experience and you cant ask much more of an artist.
See also:
No comments:
Post a Comment