Some thoughts on January 2025 and my creative process
“The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend. What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is our portal to the unseen world.” – Rick Rubin
‘These Days V’ – Richard Heys
January is the month of looking backwards and forwards almost simultaneously inviting a binding and an imaginative skill all at once. It is a time of reflection and thought, a time of balanced action, of rediscovery and goal setting, creative imagination and wise reflection. Bearing in mind the actions of a tempered and self-aware human being are cherished by the world, as we can intuit what is needed in the moment.
January is the month of Janus. It is the month of nascent time, when we are awaiting new growth, and things coming into existence, showing signs of future potential. Janus was the Roman God of beginnings, gateways and doorways; he was the two-faced god that glimpsed both past and future. He was a God of the threshold, a guardian of the liminal, of transition from one state to another, which perhaps links him to sublimation, so important to the alchemists and their transformations.
Closely connected to these themes for me are considerations of abstract painting and the non-figurative: this approach to art and painting in particular calls on the multi-valent, mercurial, interconnectedness of it all: – colour, feeling, learning, composition, looseness, sharpness, definition, undefined. The push and pull of it, as the paint flows, goes on, scrapes off, drags, lifts, smears, sits just so, just right on the surface. A surface which is also an image, a surface that has depth, at once a flat plane, an object, and again an image with inner depth.
‘The End of feeling’ – Richard Heys
When we engage our deep interiority, we apprehend our own individual creative power, and awareness. When we begin to look with interest and empathy within and without, isn’t this the raison d’être of all the creative arts, to describe and share this ever renewed living awareness.
Marina Warner, a long term explorer of the art of the inner eye, writes in her book ‘Forms of Enchantment’, how recent findings in cognitive psychology, show that “the same synapses of the brain fire whether you are remembering something that has taken place in your own experience, recalling a scene that you once read or saw in a film, or dreaming up an event that has yet to take place.”
The wonderful artist Peter Doig has described the effect he would like his paintings to have on viewers, saying he’d like his paintings to feel familiar but somewhat otherworldly, like a memory, or even the memory of a dream.
‘Jetty’ – Peter Doig 1994
I should like us to explore the liminal quality of the painting process. This process unfolds over time, we have an early direction which is often lost, or at least changes its course as the reality of what is created takes shape, the alchemical processes as a time process, painting weds time to matter consciously. We need to consider the edges, being out on the edges where things meet, the edges where things also become obscure, become lost and where things may transform from one state to another. I think liminality is something over-used these days but it still carries the quality of a pilgrimage, of a healing journey and a transformative process. Victor Turner in his The Ritual Process describes liminality as being;- “…like death, like being in the womb, like invisibility, darkness, bisexuality, the wilderness, and an eclipse of the Sun or moon.”
In alchemy the focus was on both outer and inner processes, the outer material forces and elemental states were reflected in the conscious mind of the observer. An outer transformation could lead to inner development and the long coveted “Ahha” moment, the moment of new understanding, the moment of breakthrough and sudden growth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe the great Romantic poet and natural scientist developed an amazing approach to nature and light, a phenomenological approach where;-
‘The human being knows himself only insofar as he knows the world; he perceives the world only in himself, and himself only in the world. Every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ of perception in us.’
The Alchemists described the process of sublimation as a similar loss of and renewal of self, where one is reinvigorated and transformed. The outer chemical process was possibly discovered by the ancient Greeks. For them Sublimation was the change from a solid to vapour and then to solid again (importantly not via a liquid state). Therefore, it represents an elevation and an ecstasy of purification by the process of transmutation into something higher. The liminality of the sublime is an indication of this loftiness, this elevation.
The ancient Greeks discovered a process of the patination of copper and they did this by the use of a ‘kerotakis’, a hot plate placed on top of hot coals used in encaustic painting to liquefy the paints. At some point somebody discovered how to colour copper jewellery. In the process sulphur was put on the hot plate and a hood placed over this, the jewellery being positioned on a shelf high under the hood. Once the sulphur was heated sufficiently it transformed into a gas which rose up and solidified again on the jewellery creating a very beautiful purple.
The process of transformation was complete, from dry crumbly sulphur to the beautiful transparent patina of the jewellery. The sublimation of earth to gas and then to earth again, (importantly not involving a liquid state) from a fixed to a volatile and back to become fixed again, but now transformed from a brittle, bright yellow mineral, to a shining purple patina of transformed copper jewellery.
These Days IX – Richard Heys
The Greek world for jewellery ‘Kosmos’ had meanings other than cosmos, it also described order and good behaviour, to the ancient Greeks nothing was mere decoration everything was involved in the realisation of beauty. Plato’s definitions of ‘Truth, Beauty and Goodness’ as lessons for living the best life, and more to the realisation of one’s responsibility to the community and the aim of a well ordered life. The Greeks taught how outer and the inner find harmony and balance, just as thoughts are ‘remembered’ when one engages with the world of nature.
Perhaps such reflections can sustain and refresh our creativity, and our experiences and questions become material for our explorations. I believe we need questions, we need to discover and repeatedly define our questions, and as we work creatively we will uncover the answers we need so badly to sustain us through troubled times. I’d like to end with a thought from Paul Klee’s notebook, ‘The nature of Nature’ in these pages he explores the ‘concept of the infinite as a cosmic-earthly tension’ and he places consciousness at the centre of this tension, illuminating the remarkable role of the inner eye of the artist.
“Creative power is ineffable. It remains ultimately mysterious. And every mystery affects us deeply. We are ourselves charged with this power down to our subtlest parts. We may not be able to express its essence, but we can move towards its source, insofar as at all possible. In any event it is up to us to manifest this power and its functions, just as it becomes manifest within ourselves.” – Paul Klee
These Days XV – Richard Heys
Hello everyone!
I hope you’re doing well. I have been working on my garden for the past couple of weeks, making new flower beds, pathways and a patio. I’m really enjoying this different focus!
I’m not sure if mixing cement during the hottest week of the year was really the best plan, but paving stones have to be set!
In this newsletter I’d like to keep you updated with upcoming classes and exhibitions, an inspiring trip to Howard Hodgkin’s studio and more!
Wishing you a wonderful July!
Best wishes,
Richard
A work in progress
July classes
Come and explore painting and colour in a wonderfully inspiring and enabling environment. I shall be opening my studio for weekly classes again in July after we’ve completed the Summer Retreat which runs over the first week. Thursday classes 11, 18 & 25 July from 1 to 4 pm, and the Friday classes 12, 19 & 16 July from 10 am to 1 pm.
Link to Thursday classes
https://richardianheys.co.uk/product/thursday-afternoon-painting-group-11-18-25-july-2024/
Link to Friday classes
https://richardianheys.co.uk/product/friday-morning-painting-group-12-19-26-july-2024/
Coming to Light
In the summer of 2023 I met up with my friend and fellow artist Alex McIntyre. Alex lives in a small village in Hertfordshire and had long had the dream to turn the downstairs of her home into a gallery space. She invited me to show my work alongside hers in the first of these exhibitions and we decided on the theme of “Coming to Light”. The show took place in January of this year with an opening talk by the poet John Prebble and over the course of that Friday evening and the weekend Alex’s neighbours, friends and other people from the village and surrounds popped in to see the work, have conversations about art while enjoying a cup tea or glass of wine. It was a real festival! Two weeks later we ran a 3-day painting workshop on the same theme in the village hall. We had a full house for these concentrated days of painting, working on colour, texture and composition. Truly a wonderful start to my year!
We’ll be bringing the exhibition to Emerson College showing through September and will also be offering the 3-day Coming to Light workshop from 6 to 8 September. There are still a few places available should you wish to take part
https://richardianheys.co.uk/product/coming-to-light-6-to-8-september-2024/
“Alex’s and Richard’s expertise, enthusiasm and encouragement, their ‘light-touch’ approach to tutoring and their sensitivity to and respect for individual’s interests, needs and concerns enabled me to see making artworks in a new light.”
Ken Ager
“I’m responding to the landscape in new ways … let’s play!”
Louisa Crispin
Alex McIntyre is a painter, facilitator and coach based in Hertfordshire. Her paintings speak of physical, spiritual and emotional experiences of landscape and often explore transitional light as a metaphor for hope, resilience and change.
https://www.alex-mcintyre.co.uk/
A visit to Howard Hodgkin’s studio
with artists from the Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum
On a Wednesday afternoon in April I found myself in London walking across the enclosed open space to Howard Hodgkin’s studio, admiring the palm tree reaching up overhead and the lush greens, the steel platform ringing underfoot, my heart somewhere in my mouth before entering into a large, light filled studio, with possibly 40 paintings and prints on the walls. Some like glowing coals, some tropical, some dark as midnight and a breaking wave. There were Jewel-like paintings everywhere, everything lively, everything moving, pulling me in and pushing me out. His pieces are so much stronger in the flesh – their power doesn’t come across in photographs. Some of the paintings were pulsing with colour – they seemed to have a heartbeat.
We were welcomed into the space by Anthony Peattie, Howard Hodgkin’s partner, and Andy Barker, Hodgkin’s long-term painting assistant. The paintings were nicely grouped into series – Venetian paintings, Indian paintings, prints, collaborations and more. Anthony and Andy took us through the work and shared many stories and humorous anecdotes about Hodgkin’s rather gnomic approach to questions. The night before the visit I watch the Imagine interview where Alan Yentob interviewed Howard Hodgkin. Howard was a secretive fellow, not wanting to reveal how pieces came about, not wanting to be pinned down at all, so as not to narrow the potential interpretation of the works, all of which were posited as remembrances. Remembrances of situations, atmospheres, conversations, people – all these “ideas”. Some paintings taking many years to complete. It seems that he found his answers slowly, so not mere renditions of memories but something else. No one pressed him for answers – he didn’t allow that. The work remained mysterious and holds secrets to this day. The thing that struck me was how free, how inventive and how unfussy and unpedantic, passionate and filled with life his work IS
The Sunshine Selection
It seems Summer is finally here I’ve put together a small selection of paintings to celebrate the heat and light of mid-summer. To see the full selection follow the link bellow.
https://www.artworkarchive.com/rooms/richard-heys/c5f49a
Copyright © 2024 Richard Heys Fine Artist, All rights reserved.
Works on the Table
Art during the lockdown – Stolen Time paintings
Stolen Time i
The Stolen Time series began when we went into the lockdown. Several pieces were started and even thought finished before this time but I went through a significant sea-change as events unfolded and it became clear what was happening.
The first piece in the series is an angry paining, angry due to all the deaths . It started as a very joyous piece with yellows, bright orange, teal and light blues. However, as the expected process of the pandemic became clearer to us the painting process changed. This effected what I was doing on a profound level, I was painting, so not consciously making an ‘angry’ piece, but gradually the work became darker, with the addition of dark reds and transparent magenta being the last elements that were added before being scraped away.
So, this became a fascination for me, I had been making bright, joyful, out-streaming works. I started to rework other canvases, some which had been in the studio for months, soon running out of surfaces. So, I pulled things out of storage and re worked them. I felt driven preparing many small canvases and boards, ordered huge stretchers, rolls of canvas and new paint, soon amassing over 60 paintings.
This has been a challenging time for me, but a time of passionate change and creativity, which is still ongoing. The gift of having four months alone in the studio painting, without the pressure of feeling I should be doing something else. Not preparing; teaching, marketing, social media, gallery and open call applications, approaches to gallerists and curators. Somehow, I found I was making work I had been attempting to create for a decade.
I experienced these paintings like visitors their presence was there with me rolling in like the rhythms of a great tide. Wave after wave washing through me sometimes recognised but often not grasped in the moment. I would perhaps only realise the worth of something in the next days or weeks later, once it had settled. These discoveries each day were reason enough to enter the studio with my heart in my mouth. I couldn’t wait to see “What’s new today? What can I make of today?”
