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Painting Space – Interview with Danny Rolph
繪畫的天地 – 專訪藝術家丹尼·羅爾夫

ART.ZIP: How long do you spend at the studio? Do you come everyday?

ART.ZIP: 每週有多少時間是在工作室中度過的呢?您每天都會來工作嗎?

DR: About five days a week, because having a family there is a lot of sport chauffering to attend to! I have also always given up a day in the week when my three boys were younger to spend time with them.I research a lot, for example, last week I was in Milan looking at the Rondinone Pieta, the week before I was in Madrid looking at Goya’s Black Paintings. The eye is a muscle that needs to be trained. Books are great, they are far better than computers but there is nothing that actually replaces being in front of something and drawing from it, for me anyway.

What is a studio, is it a place for social interaction or is a place for private investigation? It’s interesting, isn’t it? I know lots of my friends who work in new media only need a laptop and yet they still have a space to separate themselves from the rest of the world. I often think, why don’t we swap! The work can be defined by the nature of the space, it’s made in. For example, I can get an eight-foot painting out through my door, that’s eight foot on one side and you must subconsciously relate to that. These paintings are the biggest I have done for quite a while, the single panels are seven foot by six and they can get out — but I have done twenty foot long paintings before and they are made as triptychs — so you do subconsciously react and build the work in a relationship to the studio size.

DR: 我每週在工作室工作五天左右,要知道,家庭生活也需要大量的精力和時間!在我的三個兒子还小的時候,我需要保證每週最起碼抽一天時間陪伴他們。我經常需要外出考察:舉例來說,上个星期我在米蘭考察米開朗基羅(Michelangelo)的《隆達尼尼聖殤(Rondinone Pieta)》,再之前我在馬德里考察歌雅(Francisco Goya)的黑畫系列(Black Paintings)。眼睛是一塊需要鍛鍊的肌肉。閱讀書籍很棒,比電腦要好很多,但是,對我來說,沒有任何東西能夠代替藝術品實物給予人的體驗。

工作室是甚麼,是一個社交場所還是一個私人研究室?這很值得討論。很多進行新媒體藝術創作的朋友在電腦上就能完成他們的工作,然而他們仍然需要一個空間與周遭世界相隔絕。我經常會想,我們換換該多好吧!作品也是由工作環境所決定的。舉例來說,我工作室的門可以通過一幅最高八英尺的畫,自然地,在創作的時候你會考慮到這個因素。工作室現有的這些畫作的尺寸是好一段時間內我創作過最大的作品,單幅尺寸為七乘六英尺。我也曾創作過二十英尺長的三連張畫作。所以,作品大小確實在某程度上來說與工作室大小有關。

ART.ZIP: Do you think it is a good idea to live in the same building as your studio space?

ART.ZIP: 你覺得就在同一個空間裡工作和生活是一個好主意嗎?

DR: No. Not for me. Some people do. For me it is really important the idea of going to work and to separate all that I am as a father and as a member of society. Cycling here is also a way to free up all my concerns. The twenty-minute cycle here frees everything, all the emotional clutter that builds up, all the noise. Thirty years ago I started painting, I was fifteen and I am forty-six now, every day still feels so fresh –- I’m always starting with a completely clean slate. For me, it is so important that there is that gap but I know lots of people who prefer it the other way around. It’s just working out what suits you.

DR: 不,對我來說這不是一個好主意。有人喜歡這樣做。但對我來說,工作時需要脫離我作為一個父親的身份,脫離我作為一個社會公民的身份。

騎車來到工作室是一个放鬆的過程。從家出發,我需要騎二十分鐘自行車來到工作室,而這二十分鐘的路程為我卸下所有瑣事、所有紛雜的情緒、所有的噪音。三十年前我開始繪畫,那時我十五歲,而如今的我已經四十六歲了,但每一天仍然是這麼的新鮮,我總嘗試從零開始創作。對我來說,生活與工作的分離很重要,然而我知道有人會喜歡另一種生活工作方式。只要自己樂意就行。

ART.ZIP: How long do you spend in the studio each day?

ART.ZIP: 每天會在這工作多長時間?

DR: Well I come in about 7.30am. I really do like the morning, so it is not a chore for me – I’m so lucky – this is what I love to do and so at 6 or 6.30pm I feel like I have only been here ten minutes! And then it’s time to go home. On other days, I may be teaching post graduates at the Royal Academy Schools or undergraduates at U.C.A, Saint Martins or Bucks New University. I do about forty days teaching which is a nice balance otherwise I think there’s a tendency to become too self referential in your practice.

While passing on your experience to the students, they are also passing it back, like what is interesting to them and reflecting on how society is changing and it’s relationship to ideas and social concerns. You can’t get a better place for that than an art college. An art college is always going to be where these things spark, but only if it’s a good art college!

For someone like me, who is termed a mid career artist, twenty years after graduating from the Royal College of Art, for example, what interests me, is primarily solo shows. The experiences I have gained over the years in different countries creating these exhibitions is interesting to me – and not for vanity reasons or ego, it’s just trying to find out more about yourself. The opportunity of having exhibitions helps enable artists to find subtexts in their work. I mean, most of the time I am doing. I paint instinctively – there is no plan and I am learning as I go along – embedded in the activity. So once the opportunity of that solo show comes along you can start to reveal yourself back to yourself.

DR: 我每天早上七點三十分左右來到這裡,開始工作。我非常喜歡早晨,所以這對我來說一點也不讓人頭疼。相反地,我感到非常幸運,我在做我熱愛的工作,所以到了傍晚六點或六點三十分時,我感覺我只在這待了十分鐘而已!然而那時我就要結束一天的工作回家了。有的時候,我會在皇家美術學院(Royal Academy Schools)為碩士生們授課,或是在創意產業學院(UCA),中央聖馬丁(CSM)或新白金漢郡大學(Bucks New University)為本科生們授課。我每年進行四十天左右的教學,而這是一個很好的平衡,要不然我有可能會閉門造車。

在對學生們傳授經驗的時候,我也從學生們身上學到很多,我了解到他們覺得有趣的事情,他們眼中社會的改變,以及這改變與其他事物的聯繫等等。想要了解這些事情的話,沒有比藝術學院更好的地方了。只要這是一個不錯的藝術學院,其中就一定充滿了靈感的火花。

對於我這樣的在二十年前畢業於皇家藝術學院(RCA)的中年藝術家來說,真正讓我感興趣的是個人展覽。這麼多年來,在世界各地進行展覽的經驗是非常有意思的,這麼說不是因為自負或自我滿足,因為這樣的經驗幫助我了解自己。展覽能夠幫助藝術家挖掘他作品中的潛在意義。大部分時間我都在創作。我出於本能地繪畫,我沒有計劃,而是在創作中學習,而計劃就在這創作之中。所以,每个展覽都讓我得以更多地揭示和了解自己。

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