Creative process - Niall Campbell
He started with a blank page. Something needed to be put on the page, and that in turn led to the next mark etc added in response to the previous ones.
Niall was aware that the imagery he created was a result of his own state of mind and the titles revealed themselves as the paintings developed more and reminded him of things e.g. the colour palette of a holiday. He has described these paintings as a self portrait and as such the canvases were about his size.
For him in this exercise the colour, shape and pattern had to be intuitive and a strategy he used was to leave the studio and on return do the first thing that occurs to him.
In an article he wrote for Paintingtheinnate in 2016 entitled – Journey into…discovery and decision making. Response, memory, reflection and colour, he talked about the inevitability of process led work. He said it throws up surprises as one thing leads to another. He describes it as a learning curve, as much about himself as it is about handling the material.
I interviewed Niall about his Flux exhibition. I had visited the exhibition once it was on and had been curious how he had made the marks and come up with the colours and shapes.
He said the idea for Flux was more a continuation of a process that had been ongoing for a while. He had arrived at a crossroads in his practice in 2012 where he questioned what he was doing, why and how. He had found he was producing what people wanted him to produce which was ultimately safer – figurative, traditional and leaning towards abstraction. He then applied to Creative Scotland for funding for “Painting the Innate” which has allowed him to be liberated in his art – he was discovering things and getting excited again.
Flux followed on from this and his aim was to explore how random is random. One of the principle rules he set himself was that he had to respond to his canvas innately. He would open his door into his studio and the first thing that came to his mind he did. His next mark would be a response or conversation with the previous ones
Niall does admire certain artists and as such is influenced by them to an extent. The commonality between these diverse artists such as Rothko and Gwen John was that Niall feels they were trying to make the material they were using evoke a deeper human response. Paintings such as theirs can be revisited and new things discovered each time. For them and Niall, it is not just about painting a picture, it is about feeling and expressing a picture.
As he was trying to be random he recognised he did have some intuitive responses e.g. if he put orange up his response might be blue (as a result of his experience with colour theory). To try to conquer that he would try and make something else random about it e.g. the selection of a brush. If he found himself tinkering too much he would do a deliberate act of sabotage.
As to knowing when to stop Niall says his painting tells him to stop as the paintings are conversations with himself and when the conversation has stopped the painting is finished or at least it can be rolled up and put away for a period of time. It may be the conversation restarts when it is unrolled.
Niall says that there can be common themes within these paintings and cites the example of thinking a painting reminds him of the Mediterranean with its colours and warmth. The name of the painting is not decided at the beginning as that would not make the painting random. There might also be more muted paintings or paintings where the paint was more frantically applied.
Niall used a variety of painting mediums – pigment, water, medium, household emulsion, acrylic, gloss, satin, pastel, acrylic felt pens. He painted what he knew which was himself.
The marks on the grey are made by rubbing graphite over the canvas which was lying on the studio floor.
He might start with tearing the canvas down, letting it fall on the floor, picking up a pot of paint, making a mark, then responding to what he had done. Niall’s mark making was varied – silk screen print, bubble wrap, he got texture from the studio floor, he would scrape the top paint off to reveal the paint underneath, he would pour household paint, he would use masking tape, he would let the paint drip, he would turn the canvas around and paint it any way up, he made tyre marks, he would pull and lift the canvas with paint rolling about in it, he would remove paint with a scrunched up cloth and so on. TS Elliot’s quote “we will not cease from exploration..” resonates with Niall.
The squares are made by marking out with masking tape.
Regarding colours Niall would actively try to avoid traditional colour relationships and would try and push some boundaries. His use of contrast, balance and space impacted his randomness.
Drips and the canvas then put sideways
As to whether the experiment was a success, Niall feels it was in the way it has moved his practise on. He feels he isn’t compromising his practice and is true to himself. This way feels right for him and while it may not be a commercial approach, that is not the prime motivator for Niall at this time.
Niall’s creative process is very different from Morag’s in the way in which he didn’t try to visualise the stages of what he was doing in advance of doing it. However there are significant similarities. He had made rules or principles in advance – about his mark making being innate, and the project was very personal to him – they were self portraits after all. He constantly evaluated and questioned himself all the way through – am I being random, have I thought of this in advance. He used random materials and mark making tools, and Morag used what fabrics she could find and made use of things that people might think no longer of worth. Niall was also clear when he would stop, he said the conversation would stop.
I also like incorporating the personal and my principles to my work, and I get excited by a mixed media and multi mark making approach. Niall was trying to push boundaries in things like his colour combinations and I like to think that with each project I am trying to push my own personal boundaries for if I didn’t I would be staying still.
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