Andrew Churchill

 Leading us on an exploration of the night, Andrew Churchill presents a series of paintings capturing intimate views from West Sussex to the broad vistas of the Northern Irish coast.

A range of emotions are captured in these changing sky scenes, from evening to dusk and night, showing the complex relationship and characters of the sun and moon. Rendered in an intricate palette, we are invited to see the night, dark and full of colour. We caught up with Andrew Churchill in the lead up to his exhibition with us.

You began the series of paintings that feature in your exhibition Dark Is The Night in Yapton, was it always your intention to document the skies through this transition from living in West Sussex to living in Northern Ireland?

No, it wasn’t a plan at all. I was visiting Northern Ireland regularly and making drawings of the village we were staying in. The weather was glorious so the skies were bright and blue. Gradually these paintings started to take on a feeling of dusk. Simultaneously I was seeing the development of houses encroach on the skyline around where I lived in Yapton. It was very depressing, but as I walked to and from the studio at night I enjoyed seeing the houses lit by moonlight. I decided it was an opportunity. An artist who lives in the same village said something like “you’ve made something positive out of all the house-building” which I suppose is true. When we moved to Northern Ireland in July this year, our house is on the side of a hill, looking across a huge expanse of sea horizon. There is so much uninterrupted sky! This was the prompt to make new paintings of the open sky. Whilst the subject is important, of far greater importance is the making of a successful painting. The ‘limited’ subject matter of skies, is a good structure to explore painting with.

What is your studio space like in Ballywalter and how do you see your practice and relationship with the local art scene evolving?

It’s very early days for me in Ballywalter but the artists I have met so far have been incredibly welcoming. I have a painting in a group show in Belfast at the moment. It’s a really strong show and I am very proud to be part of it. There is a very little by way of a commercial gallery scene in Northern Ireland. This means artists are doing it for themselves in studio gallery spaces, or showing in Dublin or London. I have a little plan to try and address that, with a gallery space where I live in Ballywalter.

My studio is in the machine-end of an old milking parlour. It’s a lovely space though I am doing battle with starlings and pigeons who keep shitting on my paintings! My current work is fairly small so the space works well. I have plans to have a larger studio in the milking parlour, but that will have to wait until the Spring next year.
 
What has been your best discovery so far?

I just saw a great show at Ards Art Centre by Daniel Coleman. Very spare and beautiful hang. Wonderful paintings, mostly blues. And a painting in the group show I am in at Arcade Studios by Hannah Clegg is just knockout. It’s called ‘Is My Ear Deep or Deeper’ and I’d buy it if I had the money. 
 
It is interesting that as an artist your work allows you to travel, not necessarily literally, but people keep in touch with you through the work, and so the work travels, the images travel, and therefore you’re not static either.

There is an old adage that all still-life paintings are actually self portraits. I absolutely believe this to be true and feel it extends to all ‘good’ painting. I suppose, having relocated, but connected as we are through the limitations of social media, it would be true to say that people can connect with where I am, what I am doing and to a degree how I’m feeling, through the work. During a Covid lockdown I was conversing with an artist, via Instagram, who is in Brooklyn, New York. He didn’t realise I was based in England. He said what a shame it was that I couldn’t come and visit him in the studio because of Covid. I replied that the biggest barrier was the Atlantic Ocean! But it occurred to me that his NY studio was as cut off from me, at that time, as my friend Piers Ottey’s studio which was 5 minutes up the road. 

I am amused that having relocated to Northern Ireland I am now having an exhibition with you at Weald, just minutes from where I used to live! But more than that, it is a great opportunity to tie the two worlds together for a few weeks of exhibition. Every artist will tell you that it is a lonely profession. It’s impossible not to feel isolated in your studio. Moments of connection with other artists, or their work, are of the utmost importance.

Paths To The Sea

I like to think that your painting rewards a careful viewer, can you speak to the recurring themes and motifs that appear in your work?

The repetition of motifs and themes in my work is largely born from the realisation that there are an infinite number of ways to tackle the same subject. I’m not interested in painting ‘a view’, I’m interested in making a good painting. Painting is such a ridiculous and often infuriating activity, there is always something more to do with it, something to find out. I hope that, collectively, across a group of works on the same idea, a sense of what I am trying to achieve comes across, and that individually, a painting can stand for its intentions. 

I have been incredibly fortunate in the last two years to have been a studio assistant to the painter Michael Simpson. He was one of my painting tutors at Bath in the late 90s. His work and his attitude toward work have been a huge influence. The sheer rigour in which he approaches his painting is phenomenal. Whilst working with him on an exhibition of his drawings, of which there were more than 100, the phrase ‘variety in repetition’ kept coming to mind. Although ostensibly the subject matter was limited to just 4 or 5 subjects (squints, benches etc..) the sheer variety and difference was extraordinary, even between two drawings that on initial viewing were almost identical. 
 
What are you reading at the moment?

I’m reading Eduardo Paolozzi’s Writings and Interviews. I’m fascinated by his Automobile Heads and Standing Figures so I’m scouring the book for references to them whilst enjoying the wider writing on his work. He did what I would do with a time machine, he visited Alberto Giacometti in his Paris studio. He writes “…he was obsessed about his ideas and worked all night, and everything else in life for him was just a grey shadow.”. I’m waiting for my copy of Jon Fosse's A Shining to arrive. He was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Every artist should read his Septology.

The title of your exhibition Dark Was The Night is taken from the Blind Willie Johnson track “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” which is a song with a powerful vocal and no lyrics. How did this come to be the title of your exhibition?

It was a phrase I kept saying to myself in the studio as I worked. There is a brilliant compilation album of the same name, mostly American musicians, recorded as an Aids and HIV awareness fundraiser. The original Blind Willie Johnson track is extraordinary. To have such a lyrical title but its words are never actually sung in the song is quite brilliant. As is often the way with Blues music, other artists have woven the refrain into their lyrics. I like the finality of the words, the absoluteness of the statement. The lack of mystery implied in the words suited my paintings.

Does music play a big part in influencing your work generally?

It certainly influences the titles I give my work. Often a song lyric will spring out whilst I am working which fits the painting exactly. I use music to influence my making of the work more than anything. If it’s getting too cosy and I need to disrupt the painting, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew or Slint’s Tweez will be put on the stereo. Its both an atmospheric influence and a reminder not to be safe, to push the limits.
 
Please can you give us a 5-10 track studio playlist?

Oh, this is really hard! 10 tracks! 10 albums would be easier. I spend long hours in the studio so I generally listen to albums all the way through, often all the albums I have by one artist in a day. I recently spent a joyful day with Nirvana! But if I’m pushed, here are the 10 tracks and the albums they come from:

Dark Was The Night - Blind Willie Johnson

Derek & The Dominos - Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (from Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs)

Slint - Carol (from Tweez) 

Miles Davis - Pharoah’s Dance (from Bitches Brew)

Bob Dylan - Blind Willie McTell (from The Bootleg Series 1-3 Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991)

Floating Points, Pharaoh Sanders and London Symphony Orchestra - Promises (has to be the whole album)

Cat Power - American Flag (from Moon Pix)

Daniel Blumberg - Madder (from Minus)

Baby Dee - When You Found Me (from Not Alone - Médecins sans frontières compilation)

(Swapped for ‘Small Song’ on playlist due to availability)

Vic Chesnutt - We Hovered With Short Wings (from At The Cut)

Dirty Three - Doris (from Cinder)

Heather Summers - Story of an Artist (from Covers from a Cabin)

(Swapped for the original Daniel Johnston on playlist due to availability)

Binker & Moses - Because Because (from Feeding The Machine)

Yes, I know there are 13 here!

Thanks Andrew!