Page 9 - Art First: Kate McCrickard: New Romantics

KMcC Yes, these busy scenes come from the observed environment of our
crowded planet and a recent leap into imagination and memory that
is hard won. All kinds of things come to mind during long hours in the
studio, often tedious hours, but then a connection might come as in
Knight and the Devil. Here I took a sketch of a local waiter and juxta -
posed him with a figure inspired by an extraordinary miniature draw -
ing of a cheval ier by the French 17th century artist, Jacques Callot.
I liked the idea of Callot’s character turning up at my local café; history
and images can be considered retroactively. Then a younger version
of my son peeping over the bar appeared (his curly red hair lends itself
well to paint). Ben also appears in Feasting as do my two daughters,
planted among imagined ghosts and new romantics. I like this retro -
active interweaving that seems natural and playful to me and the faces
that I know well can help prop up the imagined ones. Art history is
extremely important and I don’t mind if the references are both ram -
bling and pointed. The Table of Ghosts is, of course, drawn from Bon -
nard’s most famous French table scenes and this table is in a French
house that we visit every summer—a long table that has served genera -
tions of children that needed to be painted. I also enjoy the formal con -
trast of scale that planting a small child in a scene stuffed with adults
can provide, different eye levels, and the continuity—like an evolving
musical pedal point—that painting recurring characters can provide.

CC How does portraiture play a role in your work?

KMcC I wouldn’t say that any of the characters roaming across the paintings
are portraits, but they nearly always have a real person behind them
that has been sketched from life. The prostitute is a lady with a sheet
of black hair who comes to the café next door for her morning
espresso with her ‘client’ at the same time every day. The jump from
that rapid line sketch to a large oil painting leaves a huge gulf to be
filled by imagination and memory, however, and I’d like to avoid types,
but if not painting with a model in front of you, we all fall into painting
types, so I would say rather a ‘portrait of a drinker’ for example, or 7
a ’portrait of a goth’. Types that I hope we all might recognise.