COL IN FRASER

IN PURSU IT OF THE SUBL IME

IN PURSU IT OF THE SUBL IME

19th March - 9th AprilOpen 9.30am - 5.00pm

Works may be purchased on receipt of the catalogue

THE JOHN DAVIES GALLERYThe Old Dairy Plant · Fosseway Business ParkStratford Road · Moreton-in-Marsh · Gloucestershire · GL56 9NQ01608 652255e: info@johndaviesgallery.com w: www.johndaviesgallery.com

Front Cover: Huguenot ChairEgg Tempera, 27½ x 22¾ ins

AzureEgg Tempera, 38½ x 31½ ins

JD: Colin, you use egg-tempera for all of your paintings, anunusual medium; when in your career did you make this choiceand why?

CF: I painted my first egg-tempera in 1982/3 having workedprimarily in oils prior to this. I moved to Sweden in 1981 butmy living conditions, and a lack of studio space, meant that Ineeded to turn my attention to other less messy mediums suchas watercolour and gouache.

In 1983 I was fortunate enough to have a large watercolourhung in the RA summer show. I had experimented with bodycolour or gouache for this piece so tempera seemed like thenext natural step to take. Pure watercolour technique feltlimited to me. I wanted more detail, depth and substance inthe work.

Working with egg-tempera from scratch was a hugechallenge. With very little reference material available it was aquestion of learning by doing. It took me 10 years to learn thebasics. With tempera there are no short cuts and you musthave clarity in what you want to achieve, as well as surenessin your draughtsmanship. There is a wildness about egg-tempera which I like. Constantly adjusting or fixing ‘mistakes’is not an option, so for me this boiled down to two mainalternatives in how I would approach the work; to either gofor total control or, simply put, accept what you do and havefaith in where the painting is going to go.

It’s a medium fraught with technical difficulties, but therein liesits charm. Brushstrokes dry instantly and are never really fullyopaque, so just about every mark the painter makes shows.You can’t force your will on it, it forces you to accept the marksyou make and live in the ‘moment’, with each brushstroke thatis applied to the panel. After all these years this has given me

a freedom in the technique, and a harmony in my workingprocess.

JD: This is enthralling. I have always prized work in tempera. As adealer starting out in the 1970's I remember being veryengaged by the work of Maxwell Armfield (1881-1972). Hestudied in Birmingham and Paris and then travelled in Italylooking at early Italian frescoes. He wrote a Manual onTempera Painting in 1930. I wonder if you ever encountered acopy?

Just to be clear about the components of the medium,tempera is a medium of natural pigments mixed with a bindingmedium of egg-yolk which is in turn soluble in water. It is alsoa very ancient medium, as well as very enduring. I understandthat there are paintings in tempera some 2,000 years old thatstill exist. One of the earliest better known artists using themedium was Duccio, whose Madonna and Child, tempera andgold on wood, in Siena, dates from 1284.

So, are the pigments you use exclusively used for tempera orare they the same as those that can be mixed with acrylic?Also, do you keep your own chickens?

CF: I haven’t come across Armfield’s work, but have referred manytimes to Thompson’s “The Practice of Tempera Painting” whichis more or less a translation of Cennini’s journals from theRenaissance when tempera was commonly used in painting.

Tempera actually means ‘binder’, so the pigments themselvescan be mixed with other binders such as Linseed oil, as usedin oil painting, gum Arabic as in water colour painting and soon. The ‘binder’ is the glue which enables the paint to adhereto the painting surface. Pigment becomes paint with theaddition of the binder which imbues the paint with its

A conversation between Colin Fraser and John Davies - March 2016

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Silver LeafEgg Tempura, 17½ x 15¾ ins

characteristics. In the case of egg-tempera these unique qualitiesare the seductive matt quality of the smooth painting surfaceand luminosity unmatched by other mediums. Tempera is bestsuited to working on panel treated with gesso, which in turn isa mixture of size and whiting.

All the basic work of making panels, which aren´t readilyavailable in shops selling artist materials, has to be carried outby hand. All paints are also mixed by the artist in the process ofmaking the work. There is a fair bit of craftsmanship involved,but to me this is the means to an end. My primary interest ispainting and the mood or soul of each work leaving the easel.

JD: I do indeed have a special affection for work in tempera. I toorecognize that it does indeed have a unique quality in terms ofluminance and surface texture. Now that I am contemplating theexamples of your work that I have in front of me, you seem tomanage to get the best from the medium, which is no surpriseconsidering the length of your career using it. The delicacy andfidelity of the colour within your compositions is positivelyarresting, but I also see that this medium brings other qualitiesthat permeate your compositions.

One of these qualities is the sense of muse that many of yourpaintings exude; your compositions are very transporting, veryinviting to inhabit. It seems to me that one of the beauties oflooking at a painting in tempera is that there is nothing thatinterrupts the experience of eye connecting directly with thepaint. They have an incomparable clarity, unfettered by glass inthe case of a watercolour, or varnish in the case of an oilpainting. It seems to me that this clarity is an integral part of yourexpression - each example being an invitation to tarry a while,slow down and reflect.

I understand you live in a very peaceful location, although Ibelieve your studio is not where you live. Can you tell ussomething about your surroundings, and your move to Sweden?

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CF: I moved to Sweden in 1981 and apart from a two year stint inthe early eighties I have lived here ever since. My wife Eva andI met in 1980. She and the country of her birth have been anintegral part of my development as a painter.

The long winters encourage long working hours, and Swedishlight is very special, even in winter. Shadows cast by sunlightare long and varied in colour. The subtle strength of the lightallows for many observable light effects, with reflectedsecondary light sources. My studio is situated in Lund inSweden’s most southerly tip, and with its large six foot highwindows, faces south. The studio itself is a large convertedapartment on the top floor of an eight storey building. I alsohave a large 25 square metre, glazed balcony cumconservatory where my lemon and olive trees grow as if theylived in the Mediterranean!

Eva has featured in much of my work down the years as bothmodel and someone who has influenced the way that I viewthe world.

There is a simplicity and uncluttered aesthetic here which haschanged my perception of the world around me. The focus onthis perception has evolved over the years.

When making a painting these days it is a bit like stepping intoan open space and spending time there. The objectsthemselves become part of an interaction of space, time,mood, air and light. These intangible parts of a motif are notpalpable in a physical sense but nonetheless they are there tobe felt and portrayed.

I like to think that when a painting really works it invites theviewer to enter into the space and perhaps present somethingfamiliar in a new light, within a vital and ongoing world. Anevanescent world that remains caught in the picture frame anddocuments the duration of weeks or months that it has takenin its completion.

JD: Indeed. In many ways your paintings can be described ascapsules of arrested time. The viewer can take the opportunityof moving into an almost magnetic field in front of yourcompositions, meditating on the juxtaposition of the objectsdepicted, examining the texture of the surfaces featured,enjoying the gentle but rich colour of flowers, or the cooler,closer tones of glass vases, ceramic jugs or a slightly movingcurtain. Yet really the very essence of what these compositionsare about is not visible, it is in the abstract. It is the abidinglycontemplative atmosphere that they convey. I imagine that thepassing of time has not been a consideration in the creationof these paintings, and consequently a suspension of time iswhat they create in the viewer; time in which the viewer canbe transported to another very peaceful place.

Between us we chose the title for this exhibition that mostclosely summed up your raison d'etre and thinking further Irealize that In Pursuit of the Sublime must be a combined stateof belief as well as inspiration and discipline. The lines that youwrote about Eva as "both model and someone who hasinfluenced the way that I view the world. There is a simplicityand uncluttered aesthetic here which changed my view of theworld around me" strike me as pertinent, distilled andprofound.

CF: My driving force is the pursuit of a mood or feelingexperienced in response to the material world transformed bysunlight - making familiar objects and places extraordinary -approaching the sublime.

© John Davies and Colin Fraser

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Huguenot ChairEgg Tempera, 27½ x 22¾ins

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Still WaterEgg Tempera, 21¼ x 32 ins

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Viridian GlazeEgg Tempera, 21¾ x 27½ ins

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Looking EastEgg Tempera, 15½ x 27¼ ins

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White GlazeEgg Tempera, 48 x 37 ins

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Silent DawnEgg Tempera, 48 x 39½ ins

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DanishEgg Tempera, 32¾ x 41¼ ins

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Scarlet SpaceEgg Tempera, 32¾ x 48 ins

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Blue ValleyEgg Tempera, 64½ x 44 ins

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Star RiseEgg Tempera, 31½ x 40½ ins

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South FacingEgg Tempera, 22 x 44½ ins

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Dream AgainEgg Tempera, 24¾ x 47¼ ins

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Ochre GlazeEgg Tempera, 21½ x 18¼ ins

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SpringEgg Tempera, 25¼ x 36½ ins

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CrownEgg Tempera, 15¾ x 22 ins

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LightscapeEgg Tempera, 31½ x 44 ins

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Duet IIEgg Tempera, 23½ x 18½ ins

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PointsEgg Tempera, 31½ x 48 ins

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Duet IEgg Tempera, 15¾ x 23½ ins

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Twenty-OneEgg Tempera, 55½ x 43¾ ins

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Born 1956 Glasgow

1974 - 78 Brighton School of Art

1982 Started to work in Egg Tempera

1985 Moved to Sweden

1985 - 1993 Taught at the Lund School of Art

1993 Became a full-time artist

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1979 Gallery 20, Brighton

1991/93 Gallerie Odelhorn, Lund, Sweden

1992 Lilla Galleriet, Eslöv, Sweden

1992 Gallery Fredlun, Arild, Sweden

1993 Gallery Lundgren, Gothenburg, Sweden

1994/95/96/97/99 Catto Gallery, London

1996/98/00 Gatehouse Gallery, Glasgow

1999 Molesworth Gallery, Dublin

2000 'Art London', Flying Colours Gallery

2001 Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford

2001/03/09/12/15 Catto Gallery, London

2003/06/08/10/12/14 Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2004/09 Gatehouse Gallery, Glasgow

2005/07/10/11 Petley Fine Art, London

2011 Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2011/13 Gallerie Gamla Stan, Landskrona, Sweden

2013 Artcatto, Loules, Portugal

2013 Orange Box Gallery, Glasgow

2014 Gallerie Lieve Hemel (Pan Amsterdam), Holland

2015 Principle Gallery, Alexandria, USA

2016 John Davies Gallery, Moreton-in-Marsh

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1983 - 93 RA Summer Exhibition

1983/84/85 RWS Bankside Gallery

1996 - 2008 Glasgow Art Fair

2000/01 Art London

2002 Certain Realities' Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2000/05 Art Ireland, Dublin

2002/15 Art Toronto

2012 Self-Portrait Show, Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2013/14/15 Fine Art Fair, Boston, USA

2014 Pan Amsterdam (Galerie Lieve Hemel), Holland

2014 Still-life Invitational, Principle Gallery, Alexandria, USA

2014 Artist & Model, Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2015 Art Breda, Holland

PUBLICATIONS

‘Inner Light’ Published by Fine Art Collective

COLIN FRASER

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Back Cover: DoubleEgg Tempera 15 x 18¾ ins

The Old Dairy Plant · Fosseway Business ParkStratford Road · Moreton-in-Marsh · Gloucestershire · GL56 9NQ

01608 652255e: info@johndaviesgallery.com w: www.johndaviesgallery.com