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JL. Have you ever
taken drugs?
RA. Never, because I
would be afraid that they would destroy the "seeing" that I have. For
example colours like those in "Dragonfly over a Pond" are colours from
another dimension.
JL. So in this
picture "DRAGON-FLY OVER POND" we could go on exploring this to much
greater lengths, but I am assuming it would be quite long. This
DRAGON-FLY - why the DRAGON-FLY?
Dragon-Fly over pond
RA. I listened to
Beethoven.
JL. You listened to
Beethoven?
RA. The 9th symphony,
listening to the depth of it, sort of played on my ears and gave these
vibratory feelings of the "DRAGON-FLY OVER POND".
JL. Ah - and you had
this vision and you saw the picture.
RA. Yes.
JL. But how much of
the picture was actually worked out in practice using colour and paint
and how much of it was vividly clear to you - do you follow what I mean?
RA. Yes I do follow
what you mean - I can't quite put that into words because it was there,
but it wasn't there.
JL. I mean some
people do see three dimensions - did you see the colour?
RA. It wasn't that
way; it was more that way, in a different time scale.
JL. A different
dimension.
RA. YES.
JL. So it was a
sensation rather than a visual experience.
RA. Yes - that's
right.
JL. So you had to
translate your Art. You had to translate sensations into a two
dimensional experience.
RA. Exactly.
JL. What is the
"HUMMINGBIRD" - how did that originate?
RA. Rather swiftly -
sound I think with amplified --- At one time (I was 17) I wanted to play
the violin and it was as if I wanted to get the strings of the violin
and play them with watercolours - so these lines we find in those oil
paintings become really keyed up as it were - much more clarity and very
intense.
JL. But these two
pictures "DRAGON-FLY" & "HUMMINGBIRD" are very dynamic - now a lot of
your earlier works was more static.
RA. Yes.
JL. Do you think this
was attributed to this particular vision?
RA. Completely -
watercolours like "Flowers in the Wind", St. Francis, Flower in the Wind
(2), Hawthorn Flower, Bee feeding, Woman in conversation, Man lost his
cat, Girl looking in a pond, Rose & Pond, Bird & Flower, THE MOON
COLLECTOR & WATERFALL WOOD - apart from the last two, you could say they
had an extemporaneous birth. It was a new life. It was like buying a
new brush and colours as if the colours had come from another dimension
- that they didn't belong to the old palette.
JL. So from what you
have just said, "THE MOON COLLECTOR" and "WATERFALL WOOD" took longer to
conceive.
RA Moon Collector; Watercolour 56×76 cm, Exhibited and sold at the private view, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1970.
RA. YES.
JL. Where did you get
the ideas, did you get them at the drawing board?
RA. Usually my
paintings take about 3-4 weeks to germinate from a seed, to the point
when I am ready to see them materialise on paper or canvas. THE MOON
COLLECTOR for instance grew out of the moon landing, and the memorable
words of Neil Armstrong on 21 July 1969, when he said, "That's one small
step for a man, one giant leap for mankind".
It reminded me of Antoine De Saint-Exupery's LITTLE PRINCE, when he landed on the fourth planet. The businessman said, "I am concerned with matters of consequence". It set off in my mind this idea of man being something of a magpie or Jackdaw - collecting - in some cases collecting for the sake of collecting - pure avarice. This can come in many guises - collecting knowledge for instance, just to boost the ego or chattels to impress the neighbour. It can however be seen as man collecting moon planets ideas, knowledge and skills. Then like the symbol for Aquarius, he can pour forth this "water" to bring riches spiritually and materially to all whatever their colour or creed.
Creating a brotherhood based on diversity not
uniformity. The only part that must be of uniformity is doing unto your
neighbour as you expect them to do unto you.
JL. From space we
come back to earth in "WATERFALL WOOD" or do we?
Waterfall Wood
RA. Yes, with a dash
of the visions. The Wood paintings started with this one and grew.
Developed from amalgam of thoughts /and inspirations. I was looking at
a map of Rye and its environs when I came across places ending in wood -
like Doves Wood - this immediately transported me back to my birthplace
in Charnwood and the house I was born in which also ended with the word
wood.
JL. The sections -
the picture is as it were a collection of pictures, would you attribute
these all to your railway journey experiences - seeing landscapes
through the carriage window.
RA. Not completely -
I am beginning to realise that it is possible that the night of visions
also contributed to these sections.
JL. How?
RA. I think memories
contribute to our metamorphism more than we are aware of. For example an
old painter friend gave me a human skull. This set a chain reaction in
process of what I call structure seeking. Everything has a harder
structure beneath the first apparent fleshiness. For example below the
soft earth are the bones of the planet – rock. Plants have their ‘bones’
in the form of strengthening fibres. Birds, bones strong enough to hold
them together, yet light enough for flying. Paintings I believe must
have a structure that subliminally reminds us of our interconnectedness
with the planet and all life upon it.
JL. But you hadn't
realised these could be shepherds before.
RA. No, no way. I do
believe the cockerels have got their own symbolic value and obviously
water.
JL. What is the
symbolic value?
RA. VIGILANCE.
JL. Of water.
RA. Water is the
water of life, it is the spirit coming through this heavenly part at the
top, passing through into the earth. That's where you have this
division as if the heavenly water is in a land of it's own passing
through into the earth water and then passing through the wood.
JL. But the
touchstone of the truth of what you are saying remains, does it not, not
subsequent reading, but the Christ visions.
RA. Yes.
JL. The danger would
be that you could read too much.
RA. Yes - I was
reading about re-births at least twelve months after the experience -
that was the marvellous part about it. If I had read about it before, I
would have been very suspicious.
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