Art of Remembrance - an interview with Lorna Bates
This year, IAWN is working with Helfa Gelf to cover their YMYL-2-EDGE programme that involves nine selected artists innovating their creative practice by fusing art and tech in exciting new ways. We are pleased to present the second in a series of interviews with the participants.
Here artist Lorna Bates talks with Remy Dean, the Edge2 Curator.
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| Lorna Bates is fascinated by patterns and memories (image courtesy of the artist) |
What themes and concepts would you say are most prominent in your current work?
“At times of change in our lives many of us take great comfort in handling precious souvenirs, keepsakes, photographs and objects of significance that link us back to a previous time. These very personal collections fulfil many roles. They can act as trophies of achievement or merely aides’ memoires and are treasured by being out on display to sit proud and be commented on, or hidden away in boxes to keep them private or even tucked away in a drawer for ‘best’.
“These things provide comfort and a connection between their owners and an intangible absence, which acts a shield to the pain of loss or separation.
“I am interested in what happens to these objects when they become the property of someone else. What do you do when you inherit a relative’s collection of acquisitions? Not many of us have a house big enough room to store them and don’t have the heart to just discard it all.
“My work is an exploration of that conundrum and of the thinking that lies behind it. I use domestic objects as the common denominator in a multidisciplinary practice. Examining them is a way of questioning the attitudes, fears and unwritten rules which have formed conventions and our behaviours at these difficult junctures in our lives.
“I want to celebrate the human, the marks people make on the world, however small scale, eccentric or ordinary they may be. Respect what people have built for themselves and find the beauty in the battered old tins, well-thumbed books and faded old furniture while it still exists."
How do you transcribe those ideas and responses into your art?
“My art practice is an ongoing, ever-developing process of working through ideas, through materials. I tend to start in one medium and work through similar themes changing and layering the media as I go. For example I might start with a drawing, then scan it into my laptop and work on it in Photoshop, then print onto watercolour paper and then paint on top whilst taking a print off the painted surface. The possibilities for mark making and image making are endless when you start to play, experiment and get into the ‘Zone’.”
When did you ‘wake-up’ to being an ‘artist’?
“I have been an artist for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of drawing was of how I could get attention and friendly admiration from my early primary school mates by standing in the playground and drawing.
“At art school it was very exciting as I was one of the first cohort to go through the new Fine Art Photography Department developed by the wonderful Thomas Joshua Cooper. He was very different to what I was used to, both inspiring and terrifying, a bold and expressive American, he believed in us and gave us the confidence to try new things. He and his team opened my eyes to lens and time based media, artists books and, via a visiting lecturing scheme, introduced many brilliant artists including: Helen Chadwick, Pradip Malde, Martin Parr, Paul Hill, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hamish Fulton and Donald Judd amongst others.
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| The graduating class of 1987 on the steps of the Mackintosh building. Lorna tella us, "I am 4th from right with the bad perm!" (image courtesy of the artist) |
"What is it they say about, 'youth is wasted on the young'? Hindsight is a great thing. I wish I had realised at the time what a wonderful experience of education I was getting at the time.
"It was so sad when the Mackintosh building went on fire the first time in 1994, but the second time was heart-breaking. I had just visited a few months before the second fire and spoke to the staff there who were really pleased with the progress of repairs. They were excited that it was due to re-open the following spring.
I believe you have recently been painting the GSA building between the fires?
"I was fascinated by all the scaffold and boards hiding the once beautiful building but looking up you could see the mackintosh weather vane sticking out the top, peeking up proudly above all the chaos below. It was like a symbol of hope."
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| Recent painting by Lorna Bates: Glasgow School of Art Under Scaffolding (all images courtesy of the artist) |
"So, back to your question, 'When did I wake-up to being an artist?'
"...I had early success as an artist, showing at Stills Gallery and the Graeme Murray Gallery in Edinburgh, MOMA Oxford, Watershed Media Centre in Bristol and was selected by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery for their international touring exhibition New Scottish Photography. All despite my crippling lack of self-confidence and shyness. I took a lengthy career break, working firstly as a marketing and administrative assistant, a clerical assistant in the council, a carer and most importantly a full time mum to two wonderful children.
"All the way through I still dabbled in crafts and creative projects but it was at the point where I realised that the children were at an age when they no longer needed me quite as much that I realised that I wanted to get back to being me again and that included being an artist.
"I am glad I have spent that time with my children as they grew up and they have made me a better person in many ways.
Who have been your favourite creatives and what have you learned from them?
"I was impressed by a talk I attended as part of Creative Futures week at Glyndwr University last year given by the artist Shani Rhys James. She unashamedly put her children first and that inspired me.
"I am also inspired by the work of Douglas Gordon, a Scottish conceptual artist with a really ‘human’ approach, the painter Alison Watt for her sheer skill in painting and her subject matter of fabric, paper and objects, Lisa Milroy and Sophie Calle who makes wonderful book-works of image and text."
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| Painting by Lorna Bates (image courtesy of the artist) |
"Helfa Gelf has been instrumental in helping me re-immerse myself in creative practice and provided me with many opportunities to put my toes in the water again and build my confidence, providing not only information and training but encouragement and comradeship through the varied workshops and events they organise.
"EDGE2 came at a good time for me. The start of the project coincided with a stage in my development where I was learning how to paint with tuition from my amazingly talented husband the painter John McClenaghen. Having received Helfa Gelf funded training in the use of several machines in the fabLAB at Pontio Innovation in Bangor, I naturally gravitated towards the laser cutter to make stencils.
"There has been several challenges including the use of vectors in software and overcoming a fear of unfamiliar machinery. As a girl growing up in Scotland in the 70’s I wasn’t allowed to do technical drawing or woodwork etc and there was no such thing as CAD so EDGE2 was my chance to catch up."
Has there been a time when something new ‘clicked’ with an aspect of how you ‘usually’ approach your ‘art’?
"Serendipity has played a large part in the development of the work. I like to work in a structured way with a framework of process but let chance and happy accidents happen. This is as true of a photography session as in the making of a painting. It is these little opportunities which most often provide an exciting way forward.
"It wasn’t until this project that I started working with stencils in the studio...
"The first time I printed-painted with one of the self-made laser cut stencils I was pleasantly surprised by the multitude of varying possibilities for mark making beyond the obvious stencilled shapes. Using tough 3500 Mylar, a type of plastic, I could be quite fluid and instinctual when working with them. They are hard wearing and can be reused as often as needed. They can be used with paint, printing ink, they can be used for relief printing, stencilling and even photographed through. They allow me to build up layers of paint freely knowing that at any point I can re-establish the lines I stencilled in at an earlier stage. They become part of the layering process, part of the push pull activity of making a painting.
"Being able to design and cut my own tailored stencils has been liberating within the studio. For example I enjoy using stencils when painting because of the imperfections that occur when handling the paint. I am fascinated with the way the image morphs from the original image simplification of an object to an arrangement of marks on the page."
Can you tell us a little bit about the sort of work you are you developing, working toward the final EDGE2 exhibition?
"The work I will make for the EDGE2 exhibition will involve the laser cutter in that I will utilise made stencils in the mark making process so although it might not be immediately obvious to the exhibition visitor how the technology of fabLAB has been used to make the show. On closer observation and understanding, the value of included technology will become clear."
How did you address or respond to the EDGE2 theme, "to address questions about the modern world and our human experience within it"?
"Throughout the history of painting and indeed most visual art, artists have used innovative methods to improve and expand their hand skills, express their human existence and communicate their interpretation of the world around them to their audience. The camera obscura (an early form of lens based projection) was used much earlier than was originally thought to depict perspective. Degas and many of the impressionists who are famed for working directly from nature in fact relied on photographs for some of their compositions and unusual picture structures.
"I am using stencils which previously would have been practically impossible for me to produce without the modern technology of the laser-cutter. However I aim to work in an organic, fluid way with them in my mark making. Unlike the machine I relish the trace of human intervention through serendipity.
"Taking part with EDGE2 has been an eye opener. It has been a steep learning curve but an enjoyable and invaluable one for many of the reasons I have explained... Thank you for selecting me to take part!"
Thank you, Lorna Bates!
find more examples of work by Lorna Bates
on her Helfa Gelf profile page HERE
you can find updates and more art by Lorna Bates online here:
on her Helfa Gelf profile page HERE
you can find updates and more art by Lorna Bates online here:
An exhibition of selected work produced during Helfa Gelf's YMYL-2-EDGE programme will be showing, Saturday 19 January – Sunday 10 February 2019, in the Bocs Gwyn / White Box Innovation Space, Bangor.
More about Bangor University's Arloesi Pontio Innovation - fabLAB - HERE
You can read the YMYL-2-EDGE call-out and brief HERE
Helfa Gelf is now an annual event - an Arts Trail through North Wales during September that involves hundreds of artists, crafters - creatives of all kinds - in an exciting and varied festival of events. Many creatives open the doors of their studios to the public, presenting an opportunity to interact and share their creative practices. The open studios season is during September and is also preceded - and then followed by - a programme of exhibitions, workshops and courses for creative professionals, interested novices, and all those between. Helfa Gelf presents a unique opportunity to meet and chat with artists, makers and doers in their creative spaces, see them at work, perhaps have a go yourself, and see their finished work - which is often available to purchase at special 'trade prices' - ideal if you want to get some unique Yuletide shopping sorted ahead of the rush...
Find out more HERE
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