in this first issue of painters TUBES magazine the focus is pointed to the North of England.
It’s the ground that I know best and intrinsically. It will come as no surprise, to those who have known me as an artist over these last 30 years, that my decision to seek out editorial and interesting art stories have been sourced and found in that part of England.

Artists Oil Paint and Watercolours by Schmincke

Cheshire Art Gallery opened its doors recently,with readers and he tells how the Education the editor took a trip down to Bramhall Village in Cheshire. A feature from the last issue gave him the idea to ask how they started contact a few old school chums who are the Gallery, what problems they had experienced mounting a painting show next year. And what the future holds for Art, as they see it.

4Editors pages My thanks go to the subscribers and the 1500 on line readers who have sent complementary messages to me personally and their good wishes to painters Tubes magazine on the release of our first issue, Jan-Feb 2017. Issue #2 remains mainly focused on the North West of England, but we shall widen our parameters as the year unfolds. A very special article on Salford Art Gallery & Museum is a preview look at an exhibition and installation celebrating the life of Tony Warren the writer of what’s probably the most loved and is the longest running TV soap in the UK. ‘Coronation Street’, The supplement contains exclusive photographs kindly provided by ITV Television. Dave Coulter (the renown painter of street scenes) is to provide his unique paintings of Salford to support the show scheduled for later this year. Also Included are interviews with two other excellent painters. In this issue there are two “in the studio with...” features, John Smout and Chris Cyprus, with an extra article I call “in the company of Dave Coulter. John Smout is a painter I discovered by chance. I first came across his work when scouring the web for paintings that stood out from the contemporary northern art scene. My search began in Scotland and ended in North Wales. John’s work is exploratory art, if I was pushed to place it in a category. He is artist that has been somewhat hidden from view for many years. Although his work has been exhibited publicly in many local venues they have tended to be the sort of venues affected by a lack of marketing money. Thus his audience has been quite small. Consequently John’s paintings are relatively unknown outside of Wales. It will be interesting to hear if our readers, especially the private galleries, will agree with me, that his work deserves a serious second look, with a view to bringing his above: Denis Taylor. Artist. Editor of Painters Tubes. Photograph :Marianne Arnberg ©2016

5paintings into the greater spotlight of the busy public above : examples of paintings from thehigh streets of a major City in England. Saddlesworth Museum Exhibition to beChris Cyprus, on the other hand, has a growing mounted next year. Examples of work,reputation in the North West and a long list of keen painted by: Phil Hughes, Steve Capper,collectors. His chosen individualistic stylised painting Harry Robertson and Dave Ralston.of his surroundings, betrays a very serious andgifted fine artist. Artists in the group include a number of known Northern based painters including: Phil Hughes,I’m also pleased to introduce our readers to a relative Steve Capper, John McCombs, Reg Calvert, Neilnew comer on the high street, Cheshire Art Gallery, Cochrane, Dave Ralston, Ron McSweeney, Tedbased in Bramhall Cheshire. I visited their gallery and Bates and Harry Robertson.discussed with them how they came into being. What I hope you enjoy this issue of painters Tubes,difficulties they uncountered setting up and how they and as always, we welcome future contact fromsee the future of their own and painters development, artists and art galleries alike for submissions ofespecially as a sort of ‘new kid on the block’ having articles and suggestions of painters that arenow joined the already fiercely competing private creating new and exciting work for us to featureGalleries in the North of England. in the magazine.Our on-going series Art & Education is currently Denis Taylortaking consultations from professionals and Editor.academics from around the UK, as we go to press,this does mean the next article of “what about thekids” will not be published until the May-June issue.However, that first article, one that discussedArt & Education, did stimulate me to arrangea meeting between myself and a group of Artists whoattended the Manchester High School of Art.(my old School) All of this group [painters] wereenrolled at that School in 1976.They rekindled their class mate friendship afteran anniversary reunion a number of years ago.Phil Hughes was my main contact and is foundermember of ‘Saddleworth painters’ (http://www.saddleworthartists.co.uk).Their reunion resulted in the painters organisingthemselves with regular meetings to makepreparations for an exhibition in the SaddleworthArt Gallery & Museum this coming January (2018).Painters Tubes Magazine shall cover the progress oftheir show and report on how they manage with thecuration of it in forthcoming issues.

6 “in the studio with... ...John Smout” 8th February 2016 - North Wales. “ I arrived at the small Welsh village railway station after hours of a two part rail journey from Manchester. As I alighted the train only one person was at the end of the platform”...

7I walked towards the figure with my hand extended as a greeting. We shook hands and within minutesI walked through the door to John’s home and studio. His wife (Pauline) had already preparedrefreshments of tea and cake. The feeling from both of them, was warm and calm and we chatted abouthow they found themselves living on the borderlands between Wales and England. Pauline was a deputy head-teacher in Borneo, the largest island in Asia, together with John. He was offered a teaching job in Denbighshire and they moved to Wales many years ago. It was a move that proved to have personal historical connections, even though they only discovered their Welsh family connections after they had moved to Wales. John & Pauline both had many a long lost family connection in Wales. I told them of my own Welsh family background, one which was not so distant as their own. My grandmother and grandfather (on my mothers side) were born and raised in Wales, before they moved to Manchester and my Uncle still lives on the North West Welsh coast. The first impression of John Smout is one of a cultured and serious Artist. His background supports this as he was educated at Stourbridge and Liverpool colleges of Art and holds a BA (Hons). He is a Royal Cambrian Academician and taught and lectured on art and the history of art in various art establishments for many years. left: “Ruined Monument- morning & evening’

8 The detailed CV information was new Several were placed around the room which to me. My only reason for wanting to see were positioned to show how he developed his paintings [in the ‘flesh’] was driven by his work organically. He told me how other the examples of paintings I discovered people asked him: “why he kept changing his whilst searching the world wide web for style? “ - a question that always irritated him. paintings that showed both originality, talent, authenticity and quality. We talked about how the development of painters is often mistaken for change of style Our ‘chats’ over tea and cake didn’t last very by non-painters [and some galleries]. long before John invited me to see his work. As perhaps it is more common for Artists He has a number of rooms dedicated for today to stick to a style then repeat it. creating art. Upstairs was his main studio, Which is fine, if you need to keep selling your which Pauline had whispered to me that he Art ‘to pay the rent’ - John has never had had spent a lot of time ‘tidying-up’ before I’d the need nor the desire to live off his Art, but arrived - On the racks there was work that rather he lives for it. either John considered he hadn’t finished with n fact, he rarely tells people very much about or they hadn’t ‘shown themselves’ to him that his art all, which made my visit all the more of they were finished. a privelege.

9“Rolling Hills” Triptych (1800mm x 420mm) Oil on canvasHe also never really wishes to explain his modern abstract/figurative work, hiswork to anyone, not only because it’s difficult ‘developed paintings of later life surely standfor him to talk about himself or his art, but head and shoulders above the paintings hehe firmly believes in that well known phrase, exhibited back in the day.“that Art should speak for itself.” He has also diligently kept ‘date markedThat saying is difficult [especially for a fellow books’ which have small copies of his workartist] to argue against. However, I also agree from 1969. Flipping through them waswith Mark Rothko, when he said that after a fascinating insight into the artists historya work is finished it should be sent ‘out in the and his consistent and steady developmentworld’ to fend for itself. And John’s work has of his painting, one that he stands behind.not really seen the outside of Wales in thelast few decades or so. Time was clocking on fast, as he shown me these books, and he kept a close eye on theHe did have some of his work exhibited in the clock as he knew I could only spend five orManchester Royal Exchange, but that was so hours with him before I had to catch myway back in 1986 - And whereas John has train back to Manchester.always produced quality and interestingly

10 Before we left the room he pulled out a full size copy of an ink drawing he had made. “I really like using pen and ink, it concentrates the mind and one can produce more detailed images.” He said and smiled. “You can have this one if you like.” I did like and accepted gracefully. He encouraged me to leave the main studio and follow him downstairs, through the kitchen, where Pauline was preparing a little lunch for us. We then went out into the garden, which was quite beautiful with a view over the hills, and into another room. This is where, John had ‘stored’ in perfect order, most of his completed work. It was carefully covered in bubble wrap and placed neatly floor to ceiling, over two main walls, with the third wall as a sort of hanging space and small desk, where he, no doubt, painted in the summertime.“I still enjoy making watercolour paintings.” John’s fondness for structure also cameHe said, which was evident from the excellent through in an architectural way. He haswatercolour samples he had shown me in his painted a number of, what he described asmain studio. He began pulling a few larger ‘monuments’ - which was a celebration ofpaintings out from the racks to show them the monumental structures of times gone by.to me. I asked him how many he had stored This monumental architectural interest hadthere. “I don’t know for sure, maybe ninety or also stimulated him to paint ‘old-churchs’ inmore,” he said as I looked at these wonderful Wales “before they are all demolished.”creations. He had already explained how in He said. Not I believe for any religioussome of his ‘series’ of work he took nature as reasoning, but purely because he loved howthe base, but he wanted to get underneath they had been made of the stone and slatethe earth of the landscape - to expose that is indicative of the building materialsanother dimension with a created structure used throughout Wales.that could only exist in the minds eye of thecreator of it.

11He explained that the copy of the drawing “small disturbed landsacpe”he had given me, was a ‘homage’ to the 460mm x 360mm- Oil on canvasworkers of the ‘slate quarry’ who had giventheir lives in the course of their employmentas quarriers.John’s fascination with history and art wasanother reason for a number of works thathe calls ‘his girls.’ These are portraits ofyoung women (head and shoulders) whichhave been painted in such a way that onemay think that they were ‘lifted’ directly froma wall in Pompeii or Rome.I think, they are as amazing as John’s‘structured or exposed landscapes’ as hecalls them. His ‘girls’ are beautifully painted,not so such much original in subject matter,but contemporary in the very currentfiguration trend in painting. You can feelthat they are special to him, and that feelingtransmits through to the viewer of them.“ my work does not standstill, and is always evolving,sometimes responding tocurrent events and moods,but I hope will always remainrelevant to the present time.”“transformed landscape” (version #2) “transformed landscape” (version #3)1000mm x 1000mm. Oil on canvas 1000mm x 1000mm. Oil on canvas

12 John has said before he believes that his work His work has been extensively exhibited, mostly “radiates a spirit of optimism.” And he also has in Wales as I have said. said that. “...occasionally they are tinged with He has participated in solo, two man and the darker side of humanity.” group shows for some time now. His latest I disagree, that which he may well see as the exhibition was with the Oriel Theatr Clywd - an ‘darker side,’ is for me at least, better described organisation that like so many of its kind, has as ‘empathy’ and like so many painters before a very well appointed Gallery, but lacks the him, empathic work can be sometimes taken for financial muscle to market it’s exhibitions to a depressed or darker view of life. But John is a wider audience. It is a problem that is the sort of human who wants the society to be widespread within provincial galleries. fair for less fortunate human beings. And it’s John’s exhibition at the Oriel Theatr Clywd was a desire that, I believe most of society want not attended as well as it such have been, given and indeed are beginning to demand of our the quality of the work shown. As he said himsel Governments. to me “there is always plenty of encouragement for my Art, but nothing else really..”

13 “more ancient faces” (#2) 90mm x 900mm. Oil on canvasUnfortunateley the lack of exposure he has “...you should come back, oneexperienced is not an uncommon story, day,” he said with a sincere smile.especially for artists who choose to live and “Don’t you worry about that John,work far out from the major conubations of the indeed I shall, and not alone.”UK. The consequence of his isolation is that I said as I hopped onto the trainJohns work remains sort of hidden from the rest heading back to Manchester.”of the UK. It will be interesting if, like me, theestablished private Galleries on the high street Denis Taylor...will agree that it is high time his work was shown “in the Studio with John Smout”to the larger viewing public in one of the bigCities in England. 8th February 2017John took me back to the small village railwaystation, with 3 minutes to spare (the train waslate) We shook hands and as he walked away hethen turned back towards me and said to me....

14 the life and the story of Tony Warren creator of Coronation Street. An exhibition that will feature the work of David Coulter (painter) who has been commissioned to create paintings that captures the mood and the atmosphere of Salford from the 1950’s early painting by Dave Coulter of a typical ‘Cornation Street ‘ opening scene from 1960.

15 image # 1. an important exhibition at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery (dates to be announced). “ the Man behind behind the most famous Street in Britain.”The owners for a new TV station, Sidney and Cecil Bernstein wanted to create purpose-built studios for theoriginal production of new and different TV programmes.They succeeded in this ambition by acquiring an abandoned bomb-site close to the River Irwell (now QuayStreet) which formed the boundary between Manchester and Salford. The modern purpose designed buildingwas duly constructed. The owners were driven by three main reasons for wanting to become televisionbroadcasters in the North West of England.1) The chance to establish a strong regional identity, away from the influence of London.2) Their profitable cinema chain which was southern-based, would mean that they would not be incompetition with themselves.3) The North’s heavier rainfall record would mean that more of their potential viewers would stay indoorsand watch their programmes rather than venture outside.

16 ohotograph by ©Nick Harrison1960 was the year that was the beginning of a decade When he was given the chance to present ideas for awhich witnessed a new and exciting time for art & new TV series by Harry Elton, the head of drama, heculture. It was a time when a young JFK was elected grabbed the chance with both hands and re-wrote thepresident of the USA and it was also the decade entire script with his newly found confidence aswhere things would change dramatically in music, a professional script writer for a North West televisionfashion, film and television. Pop Music and Pop Art audience. The broadcasting of Tony’s idea for a TVwere given birth by a new generation that wanted to programme was far from certain however, as thecreate their own identity - A new and fresh era, free owners were unconvinced it would be right for theirfrom the physical and psychological restrictions that new TV station. Harry Elton pulled an ace card outthe lingering economic depression of World War 2 of the air by showing a pilot episode to the staffhad left behind it. It was in 1960 that the 23 year of Granada TV, many of whom were local people,old scriptwriter Tony Warren persuaded the head of ones that could be seen as representing the widerDrama of Granada TV -   itself only formed four years population of the North West. Their strong positiveearlier - to let him create Coronation Street.  reaction helped Harry Elton to persuade the owners to commission thirteen episodes.Tony Warren was a bright and talented young manwho’d been employed by Granada TV to write scripts One major and an important change of the programmeabout the heroes of yesterday (the likes of Biggles, was its title. The original title ‘Florizel Street’ was takenbased on the adventure stories by W.E.Johns), but he from an illustration (come painting) of the male herohad become increasingly frustrated by what he was ‘Florizel’ hacking his way through a forest to reachbeing asked to deliver. Tony wanted to write something ‘Sleeping Beauty’, the classic folk story dating back as‘real’ something that meant something to the people of far as the 1300’s. But, it came under question when‘Granada Land’ people that he knew so well. a staff tea lady commented that the name -Scripts with ‘grit and guts’ and stories that would - “sounded like a disinfectant.”engage and relate strongly with the inhabitants of boththe City of Manchester and the City of Salford. Perhaps it is safe to assume that the Coronation ofHe had written a TV script with these ‘dirt under Queen Elizabeth 2nd, in 1953 (with the celebratorythe fingernails’ ingredients before, but it had been wall murals still in evidence in and around Manchesterrejected by the BBC. & Salford even in 1960) may have played a part in

17choosing ‘Coronation Street’ as the title for the image #2programme, we may never know the absolutereason for the choice of the now ‘famous’ title.The characters in the script called for local actorswith Northern accents. And although the castingdirector may have struggled at first, the rightpeople were finally selected with Tony Warren’spersonal involvement and his vision of how thepeople should look and sound. Using North Westbased actors was also an imperative for GranadaTV, as the owners were ‘contractually’ obligatedto employ people of the North West region in the‘Licensing Agreement.’The theme music for the new programme, whichtoday is instantly recognised by people in manycountries and the UK, was also an inspired pieceof writing.The composer was Eric Spear, who forhis effort in coming up with, what has become aniconic piece of music, received the princely sum ofsix pounds as his fee.The composer entitled the score “LancashireBlues” which he must have believed suited thescript, perhaps he felt it was a confirmation of thebelief that it really was, “Grim up North” (Eric Spearwas living in Guernsey when he wrote the score).Tony Warren however, was born in Pendlebury,Salford in 1937 and never lost sight of the richnessand depth of the ironic humour that Northernershave almost genetically and culturally built intothem. And the drama, tragedy and comedy hewove into the scripts is linked to an almost ‘faitaccompli’ attitude of living in the back streets ofManchester and Salford during that era.The exhibition of the life and work of Tony Warrenthat the Salford Museum and Art Gallery are toinstall later this year (dates to be confirmed) will beformed in three parts.1.The first part covers Tony’s life up to the firstepisode of Coronation Street. It will illustratehow his family and the people surrounding himcombined with the industrial environment thataffected and inspired him as a creative writer.2.The second section is an installation, whichwill include recreating a living room of a typicalterraced house in Salford, where a black andwhite television will play the first original episodeof the world famous TV programme. On displaywill also be his original scripts from ‘Biggles’ andthe ‘Shadow Squad’. With items from his earlychildhood acting career, samples from his book,various awards he received for the script(s), hisMBE and the ‘Red Book’ from “This is Your Life.”3.The third section is all about Salford in the1950’s with paintings to set the mood and recallthe atmosphere of the time.This mood will be acheived with the help of anextensive exhibition of paintings, created especiallyfor this exhibition by David Coulter.

18image #4 image #3 Dave Coulter, whom I had the great pleasure of interviewing and spending time with recently, was the reason why this forthcoming exhibition at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery was selected to be featured by painters Tubes magazine. Photographs: (1)-Tony Warren on the Street.” (2)-Tony Warren with “Bet Lynch” played by Julie Goodyear. (3)- Tony Warren on the studio set of Coronation Street, (4)-Tony Warren with “Elsie Tanner” played by Pat Phoenix Our grateful thanks go to Kieran Roberts (ITV) for his help, advise and guidance with the detailing and substance of this article. All photographs courtesy of ITV. ©ITV1960-2017

19“ in the company of... ...Dave Coulter”a great artist who has been painting Manchester and Salford for fifty or more years“street Kids” Dave Coulter in his studioearly work. ©Dave Coulter photograph ©Lee Harrison Dave Coulter is a genuine ‘old school’ Northerner with a deep love for his City, one that is clearly reflected in his work. I’d seen some of David’s work on the web over a period of six months or so. His name was always popping up in conversation with other Artists and Galleries, ones that I had been interviewing in the UK for another art magazine over the last two or three years. On this, my fifth trip to Manchester for painters Tubes, I had finally managed to arrange a meeting with him in Salford Museum and Art Gallery. My schedule was unfortunately tight as I had crammed several Artists and Art galleries visits for material for this issue and Dave was first on the list. And so it was necessary to travel directly from my arrival from Sweden to Manchester Airport and then on to Salford

20 Salford Museum & Art Gallery Café - ©Dave Coulter in order to maintain my arranged appointment times with the others artists and galleries on the list. I am telling readers these details as it is relevant to a surprising end of ‘the time that I spent with Dave Coulter’ - the painter of life on the streets of Manchester & Salford. He was patiently waiting for me in the café of the Art gallery. I had been delayed by an hour, which was caused by my own mistake of getting off at the wrong railway station. I had walked at a brisk pace the extra few miles or so to Salford Museum & Art Gallery and was in need of refreshment. Dave and I instantly recognised each other. He shook my hand with the words “do you want a cuppa tea lad” - My need was obviously written all over my face with the traces of perspiration. We settled down over a pot of tea to talk about his paintings and how he had suddenly become known in the North West by the art loving public and the Galleries, at the age of 64 years old. David, now at 68, has been engrossed with Art and painting from childhood, but it was his first major

21 exhibition at the Zion Arts Centre in Manchester that revealed his depth of talent to the City of Manchester and Salford. “my dad made sure I had the basic’s right and used to make me draw things over and over again if he thought I had got the drawings wrong.”New Work. ©Dave Coulter 2017 (Courtesy. Cheshire Art Gallery) He has been painting street scenes for almost half a century and it was his habit of setting up his ‘spots’ in various parts of the busy City, having first gained a ‘nod and wink’ from the police that it was OK for him to leave his van in the street (without fear of getting booked), that led to his first exhibition. A local Police officer, whilst on duty, (PC Dave Vose) on seeing David’s paintings, contacted Saskia Metcalf of the Lion centre and suggested she put on a show for him. It was a sell out and second exhibition followed quickly at an established high street gallery. He told me how his father was the source of his love of art and how a child he was taken to art galleries with exhibitions and was encouraged to draw and paint. He was born and raised on the same street as Arthur Delaney (Clifford Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock),another renown Manchester artist who was always‘popping in’ to the Coulters home. “He was rum one,and the stories told about him are all true.” David saidwith a broad smile on his face. Dave paints in a very fastimpressionistic manner, yet for me his work avoids toomuch similarity with impressionism, as his colour palettereflects a more late modernist approach. He loves all formsof Art:- Abstraction, surrealism, expressionism and evensome more exploratory forms of painting. He recalled howhe was bowled over by Rauschenberg’s work in the late1960’s, which sort of opened a door to his understandingthat in Art - “anything and everything is possible.”David also loves to give younger artists advise, should theyask for it.He has often spent a great deal of time with youngsters A very early painting ©Dave Coulter.showing them how to ground the canvas to obtain greaterdepth and form. Some of his early paintings e.g. ‘WakesFair’ and ‘Jubilee Party’ show a definite nod in the directionof L. S. Lowry, whilst say, ‘Factory Chimneys’ leans towardsTheodore Major, an artist who Dave visited many yearsago and chatted with him about Art.

22 Recent work of scene on Salford ©David Coulter - photographer. ©Lee Harrison. “He didn’t like the men in suits, didn’t I felt a warm glow from Dave, as he said Major. When they come up from himself, it was though we had know each London to try and get some of his other for years and not just met that day. And work, he wouldn’t sell them anything maybe that statement was indeed a truism. and tell them to bugger off.” Two mancunians from the inner City. We chatted for quite some time and he After I left Dave I rushed to my next meeting introduced to the Exhibition Manager of the and believed I had more than enough Art Gallery. After a brief tour of the viewing material to write about this deeply devout the space where Dave’s new work would painter who’s religion was Art. I was wrong. be hung for the Tony Warren exhibition he asked her. “How many painting would you The day after meeting Dave I needed to like, I can do as many as want, I work quick travel to Wales to interview another artist, you know?” I think he settled on 30 or 40. (our cover artist John Smout). It was going to After a while I had to interject and explain be a long journey and a long day. that I really had to leave to get to my next By the time I had returned to Manchester appointment and asked to be excused from (by train) it was approaching early evening the tour. and the conversation. As I said my and I’d been on the go since very early that goodbye’s and thanked the Manager for her morning. I received a text from Dave, asking time, Dave offered me a lift to Manchester. me if I could go back to Salford and meet up in his Studio, as he had something he He drove me to the main railway station in wanted to show me. To be honest, it was the Manchester, as it was not only beginning to last thing I needed, but, nevertheless I fought rain, I was late and I hate being late. my way through the rush hour crowds and hopped onto another train to Salford where We talked more in the car, by now the Dave picked me up. We arrived at his flat at conversation had strayed away from art per the top part of a high rise. As we walked in sé to our personal memories of Manchester, Dave instinctively put the kettle on for a cup as we were both children from the same era. of tea, He asked me to sit down. “I’ve done this while you were in Wales” He said.

23 Recent work of scene on Man- chester ©David Coulter photographer. ©Lee Harrison.On his easel he had painted a portrait of me in the Cafe at Salford Art Museum. “Hope you like it” He said, afterhighlighting a few points on the painting he then presented it to me as a gift. I sat with him for another few hours.We talked about life and how his had changed dramatically after he had suffered an heart attack. Thankfully he haslearned how to handle the changes to his life, changes that surviving heart attacks and the consequential surgeryinsists upon. It was an emotional farewell and yet I felt honoured to have been the subject of a Dave Coulter originalwork of art. I know that Dave and I shall remain good friends and I for one will be the first in the queue when hispaintings are on show at the exhibition of the life and work of Tony Warren. And the life and times of the ‘not-so-ordinarypeople’ of Salford in the 1950’s at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery later this year. (dates to be announced).Denis Taylor was in the studio and in the company of Dave Coulter. 6th and the 8th February 2017.You can find more information about This artist and his work from interviews made by Viaduct Art on You Tube.link:https://youtube/KdEjHAIiFWQ - ©viaduct art. early work - ©Dave Coulter

24 a new Art Gallery... ...sweeps into Cheshire photograph: ©Lee Harrison. 2017

25A new Gallery, sweeps onto the Art scene in a Cheshire villageI’d arrived in Bramhall (the Cheshire village with that old English name ‘Bramale’ which means broom) in the lateafternoon after first having a rather long meeting at the Salford City Art Museum & Gallery with another Artist,having flown straight from Sweden to arrive at Manchester around midday. And as usual the North of Englandwelcomed me with the sort of weather that I am all too familiar with, drizzle.I’d walked from the railway station to the Cheshire Art Gallery and the door was opened to a rather soaked versionof myself. I was greeted with a welcomed warm and a much needed hot cup of coffee.The Gallery is located on one of the main roads that cuts through the village of Bramhall (Ack Lane East).The old village of Bramhall dates back to the Anglo Saxon period before William the conqueror ‘acquired’ it - Andthe land surrounding it. The village was recorded in the Domesday Book, but today it’s a borough of Stockport,twelve and a half miles to the South of Manchester. So, historically the village is a part of Cheshire (hence theGallery name) with a current population of around 26,000 people.Phil to the left and Matt sat on the newly swept floor inside the Gallery. Photograph: ©Lee HarrisonCheshire Art Gallery opened its doors less than The ambition to open a Gallery was galvaniseda year ago. The new Gallery, owned by Matt when Matt and Ella reconnected with Phil Ashley,Leech and his wife Ella, was initially born from an old college friend of Matt’s.their passion of collecting art and that age old Phil’s personal drive was to become a full timeproblem of owning too many pieces, resulting in painter and helping him achieve his goal was thethe need to pass their much loved work onto new final push they needed. Together with the passion,homes. Matt has been dealing in art for more than knowledge and contacts between the three ofa decade, mainly with an online presence however them was obviously an opportunity they simplyopening a physical gallery was the natural next had to act on.step of progress.“my passion for paintings fuelled an Art collectors Phil told me how they had re-establish contact,habit, it has grown so large that the whole of the “We met and became good friends when we bothwalls in my home were covered. Part time dealing attended Tameside College studying Art (Ashton-wasn’t quite cutting it as there is only so much wall u-lyne). Then we sort of lost touch, for a while,space you can fill, I wanted to carry on collecting but we met up later in life through Matt contactingmore new work also, an Art Gallery seemed to me after seeing a painting I had uploaded onbe the perfect answer. I could ‘rotate’ my own Facebook.”collection and help others for fill theirs”

26 It seems that meeting was fortuitous as it coincided with Matt’s growing need to ‘rotate’ his Art collection and Phil’s decision to dedicate himself to becoming a full time Artist, which was around four years ago (2013). The discussion to open an art gallery became an organic one, as the two friends began to realise they could help with each others artistic ambitions. They were also aware that of the benefits possible with a ‘High Street’ Gallery. As it could help other artists either start a career or help take them further along the art career path. Between the three of them, they also felt they could attain a good mix of works in the gallery. “Something that has given us great pleasure since opening the gallery is when someone falls in love with a piece that they just have to own, matching someone up with art that brings those sort of emotions out in someone is an additive feeling. I also have great relationships with many artists over the years and know how hard it is for them, so to know I am helping them on their journey is a privilege. “ The owners seem to have solid business credentials, but even so, starting up in a specialist field as is the Art world must have taken some courage. I quizzed them on what difficulties they had encountered to date. Matt told me finding suitable premises and then obtaining the lease for the property was a bit of nightmare and seemed to take far longer than he thought it should have. “It must have been just under a year to finalise it [the lease], but it felt longer.” Gallery interior: Photoraph: courtesy Cheshire Art Gallery As is usual with the setting up of an Art Gallery, the shop fitting not only took time and careful designing, but much financial and physical input. The careful planning was worth the pain as the gallery does look impressive. It was bespoke made from the onset. From the dark charcoal grey fabric walls to the hand crafted gloss black desk, they opted for this black out’ design they believed would show the art work off at its best. It certainly is distinct from the normal white walls of most galleries. As is usual with a start-up, enthusiasm for the ‘idea’ and love for Art per se, kept driving them all onwards until they reached the point of being able to open the door to the public. I do believe all three of them really feel the need to surround themselves with Art and Artists more as a way of life. I asked them how they began to get the Gallery known to Artists and the art loving public. Matt had long decided that it would a good idea to position Phil and his easel by the front window, which he believed would make the Gallery be viewed as, not only an Art Gallery, but a living and breathing art studio, and that would encourage passers by to come through the door.

27new art gallery sweeps into town - special feature. inside of the Gallery with the easel set up. Paint- ings: on the easel) & to the extreme right is by PhiL Ashley. photograph: ©Lee HarrisonAn idea that is beginning to show dividends by way of the steady and increasing foot traffic. It wasa shrewd piece of physical marketing and one not many high street Galleries have employed. Mattspends a lot of time maketing horough social media advertising and putting his experience to use inutilising the power of Google. Although, he did tell me that Google Adwords advertisements can costquite a lot and it’s hard to quantify the effectiveness of the adverts, but they did bring in many unexpectedenquiries from day one, some from as far away as China.“ they [the Chinese] seem to love those very old English original oil paintings,especially the traditional portraits, ones that you can find in old Cheshire mansions.” Gallery interior: Photoraph: courtesy Cheshire Art Gallery

28new art gallery sweeps into town - special feature. As far as the space in the Gallery is concerned. It’s subdivided into three rooms. The ground floor is separated towards the back by a staircase that leads upstairs to two other display areas. One of the spaces upstairs is reserved for ‘one off’ exhibitions for either guest or new Artists that have joined their Gallery, whilst the other room is dedicated to what you could call traditional figurative art. Downstairs meanwhile has the main stay of the well known, or increasingly well known painters and some of Phil’s paintings arranged discreetly so as not to show any bias or favoured positioning. One of the over-riding observations I have made over these last years of visiting and interviewing galleries in the Northern part of England, and something that bugs me, is the fact that the same ‘style’ or genre of paintings and the same artists are seen time and time again. Whilst I do understand the financial reasoning for this repetition, what I fail to understand is why Galleries do not take the occasional risk with the ‘new’ or the ‘different’ contemporary paintings that are being created today in the North. Cheshire Art Gallery are aware of this and are really trying to alter this habit, by exhibiting examples of work from artists that are not in the other Galleries in the Great Manchester area. Of the sixty odd artists that they now exhibit, thirty five of them are unique to them. This policy is encouraging Art collectors to expand their parameters and open their minds to other forms of art from the current status quo which in general limits itself to mostly nostalgic images of a time past, or the reconstruction of the City of Manchester.Above: Painting by Mark Demsteader. ©MarkDemsteader“ In some high street galleries, they do not dare take a risk with new art whatsoever...” ...editors comment

29With this ‘new-directions’ policy in mind, the Gallery is to introduce two new Artists in the coming weeks.One is the figurative painter Mark Demsteader who has made a name for himself in London. Although he was born inManchester. Cheshire Art are the only gallery to represent Mark in the North West. Like many artists Mark’s love for artstarted in his youth, however to earn a living he found himself working and helping his dad in the family business (atthe Manchester meat market as butchers) whilst he pursued a career in art. In the early 1990s the family business fellvictim to the recession and Mark was spurred on to find a commercial outlet for his work. Which allowed time to builda portfolio, so he took a job as an art technician at an Oldham grammar school for another ten years.A course at the ‘Slade’ gave him an opportunity to tour the London galleries with his work and eventually a gallery inBlackheath (London) offered him space in a mixed show. He sold six works which kick started his career, since then hehas become successful and he is now considered one of the UK’s best selling figurative artist in the UK.He rarely exhibits outside of London, however he has collectors around the globe and has representation in countriessuch as Japan and the USA.The other artist Cheshire Art Gallery are introducing is Jamie Green, a young Manchester based artist (b.1988) whohas never exhibited in a commercial Gallery before. He gained a degree in Fine Art at Manchester University and wasrecently seen on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year. His diverse style includes unusual textures that is incorporatedinto his work which may ensure his creations are not run of the mill. The creative mix of using concrete, sculpture andcarving on unusual subjects and surfaces are indicative of his work.In some high street galleries, they do not dare take a risk with new art whatsoever, but the Cheshire Art Gallery seemdetermined to constantly develop and maybe even ‘discover’ paintings that they feel should be given space andexposed to the collectors and art lovers of Cheshire.above : Jamie Green. With new visual art presentations. Courtesy of Chesire Art Gallery.

30 Other painters in Cheshire Art Gallery include Rourke Van Dal (example left) and Hugh Winterbottom (example right). Speaking generally, the decision of purposely showing ‘new-art’ will obviously rest on the Gallery owners own taste perhaps. And taking a risk with new contemporary paintings often means exhibiting artworks that is not personally ‘liked’ by the owner of a Gallery. It’s the perennial Catch 22 - which can only be broken by a conscious thought to realize that the art marketplace cannot stand still and it will demand forward thinking for the generational change of taste over the next few decades of the 21st century. The daring gallerist today, will be the leading gallery of tomorrow, me thinks. And with the diverse taste of the three characters of Cheshire Art Gallery it is unlikely they will grow into being the typical ‘run of the mill’ Northern Gallery, who concentrate on one genre and one genre alone. From a business point of view Matt, Ella and Phil are old enough to have a sensible head on their shoulders and yet young enough to think outside the conventional Art Gallery box. For example, they have recently come to an arrangement with a very cool Wine Bar opposite them (Blanc de Blancs). An arrangement that allows more contemporary artworks to be displayed in the Wine Bar without any monies actually exchanging hands. This gives both the new Wine Bar a trendy street cred and perhaps a younger audience to nurture in favour of the Gallery in the future. Matt and Phil have also made an effort to visit some of the other more established Galleries and introduce themselves. Their thinking is that ‘a co-operation’ of Art galleries is far more productive for all, rather than the 20th century thinking that other Galleries are competitors. It’s a refreshing attitude and one I personally wish more gallerist everywhere, would adopt. The Art market in the North of England is big enough for everyone, with inter-gallery co-operation it could be so much bigger and thus give Artists (painters) greater possibilities to sell more of their current work and form the base to finance their own development as Artists and create new art for this new century. I wish the Gallery all the very best for the future and look forward to meeting Phil and Matt again (and Ella), perhaps on the opening night of one of their ‘discoveries’ of a new Art. Cheshire Art Gallery will be holding their Premiere Exhibition from the 19th May to the 16th June 2017.

31“Mossley Boys” from 1999 an extra special interview “in the studio with.... ...Chris Cyprus.”The old mills of Lancashire, those that have not planning of how to physically get there. I finallybeen demolished that is, are often the sort of elected to use the local bus service that ranplace that Artists inhabit and create their studios. from the centre of Ashton to Mossley. I askedMore often than not, the low rent for these the driver [of the bus] to give me a shout asbuildings are the attraction with the caveat that we neared the mill, unfortunately he had nevercan be linked to the dilapidated state they have heard of it. I then asked him if he could drop mebeen left in. One such old Cotton mill (Woodend) off near the railway station. I knew (from Googleis in a small town to the north of Ashton-u-Lyne maps) I could walk from there on in. The driver(Tameside) and is no exception to this rule. forgot my ‘shout’ and finally I alighted the busSituated out of the town centre it was once the in the lower part of Mossley town, quite someemployer of hundreds of cotton workers from distance away from the Mill. I’m telling, you thearound 1830 until the industry collapsed under these boring details so you can understand howthe pressure of cheaper imported textiles. I came to actually view the town, experience it’sIt’s a grade two listed building with most of the challenging steep hills and its geographical andartists studios being on the top two floors. architectural environment All these elementsMy early morning visit to interview Chris in his play a pivotal role in understanding the paintingsstudio was pre-empted by a previous evening of Chris Cyprus.

32Having reached the Mill I then followed the signs for ‘artists studios’ and eventually, after many flights of old worndown stone stairs, arrived at my destination. I knocked and opened the door before entering an open space with highceilings, modern spotlights and two comfy looking sofas. It looked more like a gallery than it did a studio, I thought.A drum kit was positioned in the centre of the space with paintings hung all around the walls. Chris entered fromanother room and greeted me. “They are there for my son, he loves playing music as much as I do.” He said lookingat the drum kit, we then quickly moved to the back room where he painted. Our talk began by me complementing himon his studio “Yea, it’s a good space, I built the inside and renovated it all myself.Well, the rent was really, really low and at the time it was all I could afford to pay, but it took time to get it to this level.”He said in a genuine modest sort of way.He went on to tell me that originally his mum and dad moved from the centre of Stockport when he was about sevenyears old. His dad having moved to find work in the cotton mills of Mossley, Chris had been in the town ever since.It’s clear to me that Chris’s personality was very much like an open, if not unwritten, book and my best approach forthe interview would be to listen closely to his story of how had become a painter. He told me that it was by accident,literally. He had earned a living in the building industry. And, although he’d always loved drawing and painting hispassion and greatest enjoyment came from playing music in a band. At work one day he had an accident thattotally wrecked his back - and so he turned to Art as a way of earning extra money to support his young family andsimultaneously satisfy his inner need to be creative. “I couldn’t stand up, so playing music in a band went out of the window, drawing and painting was all I had left.”He pointed to a small piece of art on the wall as one of his first attempts (Mossley Boys). It’s a delightful drawing whichclearly shows that Chris has a natural gift and keen observation which couples with a deft ability to capture mood andthe culture of his environment. He told me that he knew absolutely nothing about Art or the Art world in the beginningand it was a case of learning as he went along. All of the City galleries rejected his work outright and so he began toread and learn from other major artists and their work, how they gained an audience whilst gathering any advise hecould about how to sell and market his Art on his own. He placed his drawings and paintings anywhere he could in thetown, eventually he began to make some progress and be regarded as a [locally] known Artist.It’s a familiar story, one that I have heard more than once, but Chris didn’t stop there, nor was he satisfied to becomejust another Northern artist, little known outside his village with twee paintings of a small, almost forgotten old cottonvillage on the foothills of the Pennines.

33Chris wanted to create his own unique world, one that was full of colour and life.The subjects would all be ones that he knew intrinsically and emotionally well, ones that he and others from the widerworld could relate too. The ‘feelings’ and unique subtle power that comes from many of them (when viewed in real life), hedistills, like so many artists throughout history, with the help of and through music.Chris began to paint is series of work, perhaps not so much as a conscious artistic intention, but because he foundmuch of what he wanted to paint was around him. A series called ‘Northern Lights’ has been on the go for a decade, forexample. And are now placed in many of the better commercial galleries in Manchester and beyond. Being totally frank,when I first viewed some of Chris’s work, it seemed to me as if it was simply a stylised naıve painting with the colourpalette of the André Derain (1880-1954) - And it may well be that that period in radical painting has influenced him.That does not detract from his work in a negative way at all, in fact just the opposite.painting to the leff and top: “Over & Under”. Above: “Northern Lights” (163)

34 He explained to me that he started the ‘Northern Lights’ series because he was aware that the ‘orange’ glow of the old street lamp posts were slowly being replaced by the ‘white’ light of the new filaments. And he wanted to capture how that ‘orange light’, enhanced and gave its own character to the village. This presented a whole different aspect of images to his mind as an artist. Another series, ‘allotments’, came into being because of another emotional related reason. He remembered the family allotments, (this is an area where local residents can grown and tender to their own fruit and vegetables). Before he started on the work, he actually worked on an allotment. An old gentleman, showed him the ropes and guided him in every aspect of how to become a successful ‘allotmenteer’ - He later painted a portrait of his mentor. Again this approach show the levels paintings above top: “backstreet Gardens” and below: “the intruder” (allotment series)

35 Chris Cyprus at his one man exhibition at the Central Art Gallery. (Tameside)Chris goes to ‘get to grips’ with what he wants to portray in his own unique way.Not too long ago, Chris was diagnosed with cancer. Thankfully his treatment was successful and the danger of this killerdisease has passed. He has also had surgery on his back, which after many years of restriction, he now has full mobility.Personal life health crises changes ones mind about what to do with the rest of your life, and to ensure you do everything,that at one time, was resigned to the ‘should have done’ box, one that many people keep hidden within themselves.It wasn’t long before Chris picked up his guitar and began playing locally, just for the sheer fun and enjoyment ofperforming live to an audience. When he was younger Chris had written some music, and now these scoreshave been resurrected. Typically, Chris wants to do the music ‘thing’ one hundred percent - Recently he haspurchased the software and peripheral hardware need for recording and producing his very own music on hisMacintosh, with the intention of creating a complete album of it.It may be that Chis will now be inspired in his painting by his own music instead of others, and maybe this willopen a door to another way of painting, utterly different from what he has ever done before.from my point of view, I certainly hope this will be the case. Denis Taylor was in the studio with.... Chris Cyprus. 6th February 2017Editors note; Chris kindly gave me a lift in his car to Ashton, where I was to visit the Central Art Gallery,a space Chris has exhibited in some time ago. I asked him how that went...?“ ...it was OK, and great to see my work in a fantastic space and all together, but I never wanted to sell,because I don’t think its right to have price tags in a public gallery, I mean, it should be seen as free publicservice, I think”His comment gave me food for thought about provincial galleries and what role they could play for painters inthe future. Look out for an article on that very issue in the May-June painters Tubes magazine.

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37 Part Two For those of you that may have missed Part One, we have repeated the last two paragraphs to enable you to gain the essays train of thought...from Part One...Conceptual Art had a major influence on a generation of stu-dents in the late 1960s and 1970s, a generation that was ‚ politicized by the anti-Vietnam War protests and the ferment around the upheavals of 1968. Culturalradicalism followed the political and social radicalism, and established itself as acentral ingredient in late twentieth century art.An aspect of this broad tendency was summed up by the British artist TerryAtkinson in 1987. Atkinson had been involved with the Conceptual group Art& Language. Their thinking had led him to the conclusion that: The possibilityof making an affirmative culture today seems to me to be... absurd. The world‚dominant political systems are prurient, self-regarding and barbarously repres-sive. Any cultural work that celebrates such a world - intentionally or not - thatholds uncritically to the status quo of the relations of production and relations ofdistribution can be seen to have, on rudimentary historical reflection, a carefreecharlatanism or - in harsher judgement - a grotesque negligence. Atkinson wasnot only articulating his view, but formulating his version of a disaffirmative artwhich, borrowing from the ideas of the art historian T.J. Clark, might make useof 14 negating practices‚ which included: Deliberate displays of painterlyawkwardness... The use of degenerate or trivial, unartistic materials... [and] theparody of previously powerful styles. If his art lacks quality(intentionally so, of course), it certainly does not lack clarity of purpose,underpinned, as it is, by his totally uncompromising belief that, life-affirming art is ridiculous‚ because it is part of the same values and system thatproduced Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Atkinson represents a fundamentalistposition about the need for disaffirmation.

38 More widespread since the 1980s has been art shaped by post-structuralist thinking about disaffirmation. Post-structuralist artworks attempt to expose art assumptions about such things as authorship and the selfhood of the artist, authenticity and originality, gender and race, and the relationship between the producer and consumer. The cultural theorist Janet Wolff has called for a post-modern practice in the visual arts, which self-consciously deconstructs tradition, by a variety of formal and other techniques (parody, juxtaposition, re-appropriation of images, irony, repetition, and so on). Cindy Sherman’s film still photographs are examples of work which question assumptions about narrative and personae in relation to gender. Her stated intention is, to put the viewer on the spot and make them feel uncomfortable, perhaps in recognition of their expectations. In a series of pictures based on, centre-folds‚ she deals with the male gaze and its connotations of voyeurship and ownership. The male viewer is, she writes, often a violator‚ “with the photographs, I’m trying to make someone feel bad.” Here again is art, or visual representations‚ as it might more accurately be called, which is disaffirmative. Part Two. Affirmative Art in a Disaffirmative Climate The work of Sherman, Atkinson, Baldessari and Duchamp are all examples not just of disaffirmative art, but a disaffirmative practice which is a ‘theorised’. Wolff argues that a theoretical underpinning is crucially important because ...cultural intervention as political critique is necessarily grounded in a particular analysis of social inequalities (as well as in a theoretical grasp of culture and the possibilities of its subversion). And in the second place there is always something disingenuous about the insistence

39on a free-floating critical consciousness, engaging in the guerrilla tactics of localdisruption but uncontaminated by theory. What I would argue has happened in the1990s to the present is that the ‘theorised practice’ version of disaffirmative art withits commitment – however well-intentioned, misguided or naïve. to social equality,has been superseded by a largely untheorised practice which has the appearanceof radical questioning and subversion, but which is little more than the carcass ofdisaffirmation – disaffirmation as a pose, an attitude. The work of Martin Creed isa good example, in my view, of superficial and trivial ‘local disruption’ An inventive writercan attempt to convince the reader that blu-tak on the wall, layers of masking tape, ora crumpled up piece of paper are posing profound questions about the role of the artistin contemporary society, but such ‘free-floating’ signifiers can mean anythingto anyone and so, in effect, nothing – certainly nothing of any significance orimportance. Disaffirmation and subversion have become an art world orthodoxy in whichworks are no longer sufficiently critically scrutinised, for we live in a media world thatdevours visual one-liners and image-bites. Clement Greenberg. Photograph:©Phillipe Halsman 1959There is an important historical perspective to this which must not be overlooked.When Duchamp presented his ready-mades he was doing so in the context of aconservative and often parochial art world. He was attacking a complacent mainstreamand doing it in a way that one can only admire for its bravery and radicalism. A valuesystem which emphasised traditional values dominated until the mid to late 1950s.It was epitomised by Clement Greenberg in his famous essay ‘Modernist Painting’ of1960, which detailed the path for true and pure art: painting,for example, was obliged to exclude all that was not necessary to maintain its essentialcharacteristics of flatness and coloured shapes in inter-relationship. Such exclusiveaffirmation is bound to set off a disaffirmative reaction, especially in the revolutionaryand antiestablishment times of the 1960s. Equally, disaffiliation and disaffirmation arehistorically understandable following the politicisation of the post-1968 period, and themajor rethinking developing out of the women’s movement constructively made use ofpost-structuralist techniques of disaffirmation.

40 My argument, I want to emphasize, is not with disaffirmative art per se, it has been historically necessary to counter complacency and make society more critical but I do have an argument with the contemporary unquestioned dominance of disaffirmative art, and with art within that value system which is self-serving. I think this began to happen when post-structuralism met consumer capitalism in the 1980s, the time when the avant garde became institutionalised, market-oriented, and a vehicle of and for publicity. Today, disaffirmative art, characterised by the recent Turner Prize shortlisted and winning artists, is far from critical or cutting edge. It is far closer to a new establishment conservatism. In a global culture which is so self-absorbed as to show little interest in history, it is probably not surprising that we have lost a historical perspective on art and humanistic affirmation. We need to remind ourselves that by far the majority of art in the twentieth century has been undeniably affirmative, and in a range of ways, some of which I am going to outline. “One of art’s greatest claims has been that it provides heightened, aesthetic emotion.” Clive Bell was closely associated with this Formalist point of view and wrote in Art in 1914: ‘Great art remains stable and unobscure because the feelings that it awakens are independent of time and place, because its kingdom is not of this world. The forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy.’ Aesthetic ecstasy was, it goes without saying, life-enhancing and, therefore, affirmative. An artist who exemplifies Bell’s Formalism is Henri Matisse whose decorative, colourful paintings capture what the art critic Robert Hughes once named the ‘landscape of pleasure.’ Matisse described what he was looking for as ‘...an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.’

41There is the world of difference between Matisse’s armchair viewer and today’s couchpotato – the latter is passively overwhelmed by dumbed-down banality and left tobe stifled by mass media mediocrity, while the former is imaginatively stimulated byformally-inspired delights and transported to the realm of aesthetic exaltation. Another major affirmative claim is that art is a form of primeval expression, a wayof affirming existence and identity. Jean Dubuffet claimed that ‘The need for art isas basic as the need for bread, perhaps even more so. Without bread, one dies ofhunger. But without art, one dies of boredom.’ Art was an intrinsic human activity and,in that sense, ‘Everyone is a painter. To paint is like to speak or to walk. For the humanbeing it is just as natural to draw on any surface available and to make some kind ofimage as it is to speak.’ Dubuffet defined art not in formal configurations and aestheticproperties, but in terms of authentic human purpose and sincerity, valuing ‘savagery,instinct, passion, capriciousness, violence, and deliriousness.’ His own paintings wereheavily and often coarsely textured and crudely executed, sometimes so as to evoke ‘...very ordinary [materials] with no value at all like coal, asphalt or even mud.’ This wasn’t a disaffirmative gesture at all, but a celebratory one: ‘[in] the name ofwhat... does man bedeck himself with necklaces of shells, and not spiders webs, withfoxes’ furs and not their guts, in the name of what I’d like to know? Mud, rubbish anddirt are man’s companions all his life; shouldn’t they be precious to him, and isn’t onedoing man a service to remind him of their beauty?’ It is worth noting that Dubuffetis seeing these materials as unconventionally beautiful even though they may beconventionally ugly: ‘My position is exclusively that of celebration, and whoever hasthought to detect in it intentions of humour or satire, of bitterness or invective, hasmisunderstood it.’ Yet, although Dubuffet shared many values with Matisse, his theoryof art was fundamentally different in the respect that ‘The beauty of an object dependson how we look at it and not at all on its proper proportions.’ Affirmation is not a style. Art can also, of course, affirm spiritual values, and has done most effectively in thetwentieth century in the work of artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Mark Rothko.Kandinsky’s premise was that a work of art consists of two elements, the inner and theouter: The inner is the emotion of the soul of the artist; this emotion has the capacityto evoke a similar emotion in the observer. Being connected with the body, the soul isaffected through the medium of the senses - the felt. Emotions are aroused and stirredby what is sensed. Thus the sensed is the bridge, i.e., the physical relation, betweenthe immaterial (which is the artist’s emotion) and the material, which results in theproduction of a work of art. And again, what is sensed is the bridge from the material(the artist and his work) to the immaterial (the emotion in the soul of the observer).The artist was nothing less than a kind of shaman, a medium of communication to auniversal state of being: ‘The artist is the hand that purposefully sets the soul vibratingby means of this or that key.’ A generation or more later, Mark Rothko was making asimilar claim, explaining that the motifs he and other Abstract Expressionists utilized‘are directly communicable to all who accept art as the language of the spirit.’ Aspiritual experience ‘must come out of a consummated experience between pictureand onlooker.’ Those who have spent time in the specially designed Rothko Room atTate Modern in London, or have visited the 1971 Rothko Chapel in Houston, will havewitnessed the consummation at its most spiritual, facilitated, as it is, by a carefullyconstructed environment designed to enhance the paintings.

42 The aesthetic, the primeval and the spiritual are just three modes of affirmative art in the twentieth century. Many other modes can be added to them. For example, there is the creative playfulness of Picasso’s three-dimensional work, from the cardboard and wire violins of his Cubist period, through the found objects, reconfigured, like the bull’s head assembled from a bicycle seat wire violins of his Cubist period, through the found objects, to his ceramic pieces with their almost throw-away casualness. There is the childlikeness of Paul Klee’s meandering paintings; the dreamlike quality of Jean Miro’s biomorphic landscapes; the deadpan illogicality of Magritte’s visual conundrums; and the sensuous poetry of Chagall’s imaginings. Then there is the homage to humanity in Lucien Freud’s paintings and Paula Rego’s recent work, and the celebration of landscape and place in the work of Grant Wood and Ivon Hitchins. The list of affirmative types of art is endless. What they all share is that they are life-enhancing. There is a ‘pleasurable shiver’ of excitement when you spend time with works of art like these. They make life better and they stay with you, not just as memories but as companions. With this rich legacy of affirmation, why do we see so much conceptual, disaffirmative art of empty gestures? It makes one question whether an affirmative art is possible, let alone desirable. If you are guided by Terry Atkinson’s disaffirmative thinking, we are too fallen and corrupt to make affirmative art. If you are seduced by the idea of global media art hype, then the answer is going to be overwhelmingly ‘no’, because only disaffirmative art has the coolness, ‘attitude’ and media-friendliness of street cred. For an Intelligence artist to produce affirmative art would be a bad career move. There is no doubt that affirmative art is still being produced – at an international level consider the work of artists like Robert Ryman, James Turrell, Anish Kapoor and Andy Goldsworthy. These may be artists who receive solo shows at prestigious galleries but their affirmatory outlook is outweighed by the conceptually-derived, controversy- oriented disaffirmative work which is publicity-seeking. Most artists producing affirmative art and worthy of exhibition are frequently left in the cold because their work will not attract large visitor-numbers or provoke media attention because it is not ‘shocking and controversial.’

43 Exhibition after exhibition draws on the same range of characteristics and throws upart which is instant, controversial, outrageous, easily accessible (‘dumbed-down’) fast,throwaway, impactful, busy. Art which is contemplative, slow, subtle and complex (in thesense of rich rather than esoteric) does not recommend itself to contemporary cultureindustry entrepreneurs. As the Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies puts it: ‘“..today we hardly know how to see things or find time to. Our senses lose theirsharpness in the excess of bustle, garish colours, and noise by which we are alwayssurrounded. We must conquer and learn the most important sense of all: being ableand knowing how to look...” My unshakeable belief is that this type of art is just as relevant today as it wasin the twentieth century. Affirmative does not mean happy-clappy and uncritical artwith a superficial feel-good factor – there is a world of difference between art whichis profound or serious (but not necessarily earnest) and trivial or trite. Nor shouldoppositional art always be assumed to be disaffirmative, the terms are not synonymous.Artists understandably and rightly critical or disillusioned with our consumercapitalism may utilise some of the genuine and authentic forms of disaffirmative artbut, equally, their opposition may be affirmational, the way someone like Kapoor is.Indeed, I would argue that an art which provides an entirely different type of experienceto global capitalism and the mass media, an art which nurtures stillness, thoughtfulnessand meditation may well be more completely and successfully oppositional than anycrumpled gesture of easy-come easy-go artiness. I would argue, too, that in a societyin which art is dominated by media culture, art which requires – again in Tàpies’swords - ‘loving care and watchful attention’ is not anachronistic, nor is it irrelevant,but corresponds to deep, even timeless emotions we, as humans, still feel in life.Disasters – whether caused by nature or people, whether they make us sad or angry –remind us of our humanness and provoke an outpouring of genuine, heartfelt emotion.Sceptics might claim that, in our society, emotion is vicarious and mediated through(and by) the media, but more personal, less public events that cause us to grieve also,inevitably and usually constructively, make us reflect on what it is to be human. An artwhich is sensitive to our humanness will never be anachronistic or irrelevant. In spiteof what cultural theorists like Jean Baudrillard seem to suggest, not all our life is givenover to, or formed by, the simulacra of post-modern communications. Emotional depthis still an everyday part of our lives and we truly require more than Intelligence in art... “...we need an art of emotional intelligence.” This essay (part one and two) was originally written for the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Heart 2 Art ‘ mounted at Steninge Palace Culture Centre (January 2002). The exhibition was commissioned by The International Support Group(Sweden) and the Swedish Governements Estonia Trust Fund on behalf of the survivors and the family of them that perished on the MSS Estonia in 1994. The exhibition was designed and curated by the WORK art group Sweden and the UK. The exhibition shown over 100 works of art from 27 artists from nine countries. Lead artist was the Editor of painters Tubes magazine. Nigel Whiteley phd.F.R.S.A (1953- 2010) was Professor of Art at LancasterUniversity and gave lectures on modern art world wide. He wrote several books and was a highly regarded academic of 2oth century modern art.

44 this issue our resident art critic talks of the Weltgeist of an Artist. And if an artist needs it, is haunted by it, or maybe is it contracted like some sort artistic deadly bug? “...the weltgeist of a painter...” Weltgeist is a German word that describes a sort of world spirit, perhaps it can be best explained as a sort of awareness of your own consciousness. The weltgeist experience is not uncommon, especially for a painter and many have recorded experiencing it at one time or another during their lifetime, i.e. Van Gogh, Rouault, Gauguin, Malevich, Chagall, Pollock and Rothko, just to mention a few. I guess another way of describing the ‘weltgeist’ of an artist is arriving at a state of mind of a momentary spiritual connection, whilst simultaneously creating art. What that connection point is, or what that spiritual link is for, remains a mystery. But it seems to depend on the personal history or the deeply held beliefs of the Artist themselves. Be that of a religious nature or of a wider secular view of what humans are here on earth for, where we come from and where are we going. Summed up in modern language as, “what’s life all about?” Answers to the basic questions that humanity have been seeking to discover from the very beginning of time. Gauguin was probably the first artist to make visual that question in his famous painting of 1897.“Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” 1897. Paul Gauguin. ©Museum of Fine Art Boston USA

45A weltgeist or inner awareness, could also beexplained as an Artistic epiphany.The American art critic Donald Kuspit mentioned theword when discussing his book,“The End of Art” (2004) in an interview that wascritical of contemporary Art at the time. Much of whathe outlined in the interview reinforced many of mythoughts about the ‘Post Modern Art’ movement ofthe late 20th and into the early 21st century. Kuspit’sbook insistence that the “End of Art” had arrivedhowver, was ‘not a new idea.’The (UK) Art Review magazine published an essaywritten by Brian Ashbee in the January issue of2000, which had exactly the same title.Although the front page did show the ‘End of Artwith a question mark. At that time it the magazinewas Edited by David Lee who is well known as thecreator of the term ‘Art Bollocks’ In his splendidarticle, Brian Ashbee questioned the validity of thephilosophy of Post Modernism and its application tothe Art World. The Art Review’s front page illustratedthe ‘End of Art’ by a rather horrific yet gripping[detail] of a painting by an artist who I came to knowquite well over the years.(note to self, I should nudge the Editor of thismagazine into interviewing him, one day).In the interview Kuspit pointed out that he avoidedusing ‘spiritual content’ as a description for Art.“I hate that word (spiritual] and preferthe German word weltgeist, becauseit holds a greater width to explain the artistic process.”Although Kandinsky was obviously unconcernedabout using the term ‘spirituality’ in 1912 when hepublished his book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art.”Perhaps it didn’t hold the same narrowunderstanding that it probably does today,i.e. spiritual = religious.To describe an artwork as ‘spiritual,’ these days is top: Front Cover ‘Art Review’ 2000. ©Art Review.still a bit of a turn off for many in the contemporary bottom: Original Painting: “Warehouse -A” ©Terry Ffyffe.art world. Perhaps that’s a reaction to the over useof the term by the masters of 20th century Art, ofwhich Kandinsky is a very good example,By the late 20th century terminology for the creativeforce had become cerebral, not spiritual.Art is innovative by nature and it has been commonfor one movement or terminologies to give wayin favour of another. For example, the Dadamovement, was a reaction to a perceived stagnantand corrupt culture. The Dadaist art ‘innovation’ wasto present totally banal unscripted artistic absurdityto ridicule the establishment.

46Futurism, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism and other such terms were put forward to categorise the various‘weltgeist’ of artists throughout the 20th century.Indeed, manifestos of Art, at one time, seemed to be raining from the skies. Art works were categorised, labelled andbought by museums, which inevitably resulted in their acceptance and absorption into the annuals of Art History.Once accepted as ‘of real Art Historical value’ - these movements lost their street cred and the uptake of the ideals byother artists evaporated as quickly as they had appeared. It’s a process that continues to today.Editors note: Northern Art (UK) is fated to go down that path, after it has exhausted itself.A more dogmatic movement that has had a high uptake with the support from Art institutions is the term ‘PostModernism.’ Originally a philosophical theory that goes ina large way to describe much of todays Art.It’s an open-ended theory, one which is wide enough to allow anyone to make anything they so desire and call it Art.Be it banal, absurd, sexual, political, beautiful, naive or a totally mundane form. The term Post-Modernism covers allmodes of Art with a large un-bigoted cultural umbrella, one that the Art Institutions and the culture media open at regularintervals. For the Art world Post Modernism seemed to be the answer to eliminate, “that old Modern Art”. And theintellectual elites, who prophesied to understand ‘it ‘ better than anyone else.Post Modernism was proposed as the freeing and levelling of the Artistic playing field, much further than it had everbeen freed or levelled before. Initially ‘shock of the real’ tactics were employed to gain public awareness of this newart doctrine. As PM developed pace, plagiarism was held in high esteem by those in charge of national art institutions(especially in the UK), For them plagiarism was not copying, but re-inventing the Art of the past and presenting this toa new generation. They argued that all Art throughout history was a derivative or a copy of another.There was also a belief that the Artist could not achieve an authentic original art.And therefore originality was a pointless target to aspire to, or indeed strive towards.Of course many Artists questioned the Post Modern dogma. They also became aware of the original work that theleading Post Modernists had plagiarised. Which was not that difficult to prove as some of the UK examples were lessthan a decade or two years old and had been exhibited in NYC by the originators of them. These artists were outragedat the dishonesty of what they viewed as fraudsters. Those accused of the plagiaristic art work hit back by saying the Artthat they made were versions or ‘tributes’. These ‘tributes’ were easily justified by simply quoting Pablo Picasso’s muchrepeated (mischievous) statement.. “...good artists copy, great artists steal.”

47One or two of the more established and well known Art magazine writers (in the UK) were thumping their fists on thetable in disgust at the overpowering enthusiasm for the much media hyped Post Modern creations, but they weregenerally ignored or labelled as yesterdays cultural voices. note.David Lee was discharged from the Art Review andreplace by a PM sympathiser. Unabated public exposure of the purported ‘sensational’ art increased daily as didthe reaction to it. The Art world seemed split into two distinct factions, both camps intransigent to accept the othersposition. The public stood on the periphery wondering what all the hell all fuss was about. After all they said... “...it was only Art, and it’s not that important.”After the year 2000 Art had become inexorably intertwined with marketing, the media and money. And marketing,money and media had become Arts keenest followers. It was perhaps the blue sky days for the last throws ofDadaism. Absurdly that early 20th century art movement had finally been transformed from a reviled destroyer of theArt institutions, into being as a sort of duplicitous art export business, run by its supporters. Most of what you couldcall, ‘working’ artists, kept their critical opinions to select confidants or chatted in guarded whispered sentences aboutthe Post Modern spin culture in trendy new coffee houses in the Capital Cities. Although they persisted to presenttheir own Art in under funded or totally unsupported exhibitions, until someone liked what they did enough to buy oneof their works. The fact that the ‘customer’ always bought an art which had a more affirmative, original or sustainablenature to it, (in direct opposition to the then post-modern art creations), never came as any surprise to anyone, thatincludes the writer of this article.The desire to own Art with longevity of appreciation and enjoyment remains a powerful human desire. Painters, inparticular, were fully aware that their work was being ignored by the institutionalised art galleries yet despite that faitaccompli, they held on to a belief that one day a reaction to the Post Modernist Art movement would surely happen.Over the last three decades of Post Modern Art dominance, many Artists caved in and followed the trend, manysimply gave up waiting for their moment in the light and retired to work in isolation and “glorious obscurity.” as Rouaultonce said after he had become a ‘famous-artist’. Some went back to painting ‘local’ landscapes and exhibiting them insmall venues for a small audience which kept their toe in the Art world water. What’s all that got do with an Artists weltgeist moment? “...a debate on the Institute of Art and Ideas forum “Let the Light in” on iai.tv. It was forwarded by Professor Hilary Lawson in 2015 (see here on the left). A philosopher who came to the conclusion that he was a ‘Post-Post-Modernist’ and presented an extremely reasoned argument with propositions for an alternative thought process...”

48It’s clear to many artists that the Post Modern decades of dogma has actually created a Visual Art World that is flatrather than round. What can be seen is a kind of cacophony of visual Art. It is hard to disseminate or view it as havingany particular direction or indeed any message, other than identifying the various stylistic origins from the last five orsix decades of Art history. Arguments for a new way of ‘thinking’ have being proposed and rejected more often than onewould imagine. The anti-post modernist philosophers have been bang at it for some time, people like Noam Chomskywho has said: “postmodernism is meaningless because it adds nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge.” Possiblythe most convincing argument I have personally listened to was discussed within a web debate on the Institute of Artand Ideas forum “Let the Light in” on iai.tv. It was forwarded by Professor Hilary Lawson in 2015. A philosopher whocame to the conclusion that he was a ‘Post-Post-Modernist’ and presented an extremely well reasoned argument withpropositions for an alternative thought process. And he hoped that the many would implement PPM to help change thestatus quo. We shall have to wait and see if anything at all does change significantly, especially within the visual artworld as a result of his suggested philosophical game changer.This lack of ‘Weltgeist’ in painting today makes me wonder how long painters in England will keep on knocking out thesame tired nostalgic images that are created in the same, or even worse, a trendy way, that many been doing for quitesome time, and in my opinion, for far too long. Surely we they can do something else? “Weltgeist of a painter” by Spike/dt/ps©2016 for painters Tubes magazine ©2016 &2017 above painting Mark Rothko had many ‘Weltgeist’ moments - (above) - this was one of them ©Kate Rothko Prize & Christopher Rothko- DACS.

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50T U B E Spainters the magazine for Art, Artists and Art Galleries painters Tubes is a bi-monthly publication free to read on line for the general public printed copies are available as a single purchase quarterly or annual subscription go to www.painterstubes.co.uk for other information and issue releases go to www.painterstubes.com Editorial and article submissions or full page gallery exhibition announcements gallery features, advertsiement rates (note: full pages only available) telephone: 0046 431 44 10 50 mobile 0046 76 19 19 007 email: [email protected] painters Tubes magazine is an independent publication. Designed & Produced by Studio 5 Sweden Ekerodsvagen 253 - 266 905 Munka Ljungby Sweden Printed and distributed in the United Kingdom of Great Britain