My feedback on The ESOP's Visiting Artist Talks

I have been studying on the Essential School of Painting's Advanced Painting alternative MA course for the past two years as the ESOP Newman Scholarship student, whilst also working for the school as a technician, occasional graphic designer and copywriter. In one of my various roles for the school I have been writing the captions for the ESOP's Instagram posts about the visiting artist talk programme. I use the brief wordcount as a way to provide an overview of the talk and a thank you to the artist, giving an idea of the impression my fellow students and I were given. The posts can be found on the ESOP's Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/theesop/ but I have also collected them here for ease of reading. The visiting talk series continues after the easter break and I will have more feedback captions to add to this blog in the coming months. 

Sara Shamma – 6 March 2024

Thank you to today’s visiting artist Sara Shamma, @sara.shamma.artist a Syrian painter who recently exhibited a new body of work “Bold Spirits” at the Dulwich Picture Gallery responding to old master paintings. Shamma’s works share core attributes: an uncluttered, spacious background, one or more figures (some painted in meticulous layers of glazing, some in thick impasto marks) and abstract marks that hover at the front of the picture frame, overlapping the figure. The figures are often accompanied by ghost-like apparitions: transparent and often blurred companions to the main figures. These figures sometimes represent movement (whether that be in space or through time), or the internal/psychological experience of the figure. Shamma explained that she doesn’t start out with a theme when starting a new body of work, instead, she works uninhibited by concept, and often discovers the thread running through the works afterward. The themes that Shamma talked about very movingly involved Modern slavery, ageing, motherhood, death and conflict.

As part of the ESOP artist talk series for the Advanced Painting course. @esop_advanced_painting and @esop_eady

Written by @louis_loveless ESOP Newman scholar

Humphrey Ocean RA – 7 February 2024

“The still image reigns supreme”. Today we had the honour of receiving a talk by Humphrey Ocean RA @humphreyocean at ESOP. We can catch a glimpse of the world through Humphrey’s eyes when taking in one of his small gouache pieces. Done in a few deft strokes, the unnecessary details and distractions are left behind, the essential elements concentrated and slotted together, creating a calm and quiet scene of humble beauty. Often these pieces are sized up and repainted in oil, but the temptation to overcomplicate is avoided and the atmosphere of each scene is preserved. The foundation of these paintings is a focussed attention on colour and tone, opting for muted colours, such that are seen at dawn or dusk. The same goes for Humphrey’s portraits, with only the most important elements in view, the figure is built up piece by piece creating a form that speaks of the character of the sitter, not just how they look.

Written by @louis_loveless

As part of an artist talk series for The Essential School of Painting Advanced Painting course. @esop_advanced_painting

Gina Birch – 24 January 2024

For this week’s visiting artist talk we had the honour of being visited by Gina Birch @gina.birch , painter, musician, filmmaker. Many people know Birch from her career in music, as the lead in The Raincoats, and more recently they might know her from the Women in Revolt exhibition at Tate Britain @tate , in which stills from her film “Woman Screaming for Three Minutes” were used for the poster and the full piece featured in the show. For her talk, we were given a run through her paintings from the last ten years. The humour, courage, sensitivity and strength found in her music and film work is evident in her paintings. Her energy and ability to jump straight in shines through in the application of paint and in the vitality of the drawings. She isn’t afraid to let the charcoal muddy the colours and to leave figures or backgrounds unfinished which gives a sense of honesty and character. The voice of protest and the struggle against oppression also carries through into her paintings, ranging from the personal and emotional to global and structural politics, making her talk at ESOP and her participation in the Tate Britain exhibition essential in its timing.

Written by @louis_loveless

As part of an artist talk series for @esop_advanced_painting

Guy Allott – 10 January 2024

In today’s artist talk, ESOP’s very own Guy Allott @guy_allott kindly shared an insight into his work spanning the early 2000s right up to his new exhibition at Mountains Gallery in Rosa Luxembourg Platz, Berlin opening on Thursday 18th January. We were led through the different stages of his practice, starting with his series of spaceships on alien worlds, depicted with romantic landscapes painted on their hulls in homage to the hand-painted buses and cars at hippie festivals of the 1960s. Then we were shown his series of tree paintings, where the landscape in the background can be seen through large holes in the trunks. The holes in the trees and the painted spaceship hulls act in a similar way, in that Guy’s paintings use the object of main focus as a conduit to explore the wider world of the painting. The delicate realism begins to make way for paintings with highly textured surfaces in the latest stages of Guy’s practice. Thick, brightly coloured paint piles up on the canvas, but the mark-making still retains an order and preciseness that permeates all Guy’s work. This careful organisation of shapes and gestures allows him to be freely imaginative with the imagery that bubbles up in each scene, creating a joyful magic, even in recent work which at times tackles difficult subject matter.

Written by @louis_loveless

As part of an artist talk series for @esop_advanced_painting

The Glasgow Girls - 29 November 2023

Following on from their exhibition at the Art Pavilion Mile End, the Glasgow Girls came in today for our fortnightly artist talk. We were shown work made at various stages in the careers of Rosemary Beaton, Lesley Burr and our own Alison Harper. Their lives as artists encompassing teaching, travelling, motherhood and politics. The artists all possess their own unique traits and visual languages but there is a few threads running through the collective output of the group. An empathetic approach to depicting people and places, a vitality and a rebelliousness in the work is another. It was a pleasure to hear about what inspires them and the topics that are important to them. It was also very interesting to get some insights into the practical techniques used in their works. Resist much, obey little!

Written by @louis_loveless

As part of artist talk series for @esop_advanced_painting @esop_eady and Painting Year 2

@beatonrosemary @lesleyburrartist @alisonharperartist

Ken Currie – 15 November 2023

We were honoured to have Ken Currie @kencurrie1 come to the studio and give a talk today, interviewed by his former tutor and Head of Painting at Glasgow School of Art, Dr Sandy Moffat OBE RSA. Currie presented a series of work from his recent show at @flowersgallery "Black Boat" and some works made during lockdown. The pieces displayed in Black Boat depicted various mysterious and haunting scenes that shared the narrative setting of a boat at sea. Contemporary-looking fisherman are shown in one triptych in various stages of processing their haul, entrails fill the boat, and a ghostly translucent spray collects on the ships mast and some fishing rods. In another, nude figures are adorned with streams of blood, animal heads and a red robe, alluding to Ancient Greek mythology. The gothic narrative paired with incredibly sophisticated paintwork projects cinematic scenes of the inherent brutality of nature.

As part of the guest talk series for @esop_eady @esop_advanced_painting and Painting Year 2

Written by @louis_loveless

Jane Hayes-Greenwood – 1 November 2023

We were delighted to have Jane Hayes Greenwood @janehayesgr visit us at the ESOP studios today for a talk on her work. Her studies into psychoanalysis inform a range of approaches to her work, exploring the sensual and surreal experiences of bodily life. The work she showed us brought together a range of visual languages ranging from graphic drawings to the highly rendered. The subject matter ranges from recognisable objects and body parts to mysterious and ancient-seeming totems. The sexualised and the eerie are conjured up via depictions of plants and sculptural objects that feel both scientifically analysed and completely unreal. The atmosphere of Hayes Greenwood's paintings and installations are both humorous and somewhat unnerving. The body is often treated as a sculptural object in her work but also operates as symbols of various metaphysical experiences.

In conversation with Dan Coombs @dan.coombs

Written by Louis Loveless @louis_loveless