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Inspiration from Artists Week 131 Bonus Artist - MARK EDWARDS

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Hang on Studio Wall
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Denise Cat

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The White Woods series are fascinating. It's difficult to comprehend the artist's views about them. There has to be meaning to them, direct or indirect maybe the artists cares not to share. The paintings are so interesting I keep looking at them. Of course they are full of mystery. Artists don't paint from a void space, they paint from emotion, ideas, passion and a point of view. I think that's why I'm finding it difficult to accept that there's no explanation. I do think they're wonderful.

Norrette Moore

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Just to distracted us even further from working, he also made a video. https://vimeo.com/153544271

Jenny Harris

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I had a look at the video, Norrette, thinking it would show him painting, but it’s just a short clip of a couple of bowler hatted men walking backwards and forwards through some snow covered woods - a bit like a living painting! A few more - 

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by Jenny Harris

Norrette Moore

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Sorry about raising your hopes, Jenny.  But it reminded me of a renaissance(?) piece by an Italian(?) which I know well, but I cannot remember the name of the artist or piece. However, Magritte picked up on it, and here's his version.  I'm sure someone here knows the original picture I'm talking about.

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by Norrette Moore

Tessa Gwynne

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I think Denise is right. There has to be some reason and explanation behind his snow paintings, but maybe he just wants us to conjure up our own thoughts. Intriguing, and I also keep going back to look again.

Jenny Harris

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There is an explanation as to why he started including bowler hatted men in his woodland scenes in the intro.  I’ve also just found an extract from an interview with him about his White Woods series - see later post below.

Edited
by Jenny Harris

With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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The fact that he doesn't offer explanations is not an indication that he doesn't have one; perhaps he has, perhaps he hasn't; perhaps he paints his dreams.  I think, if you want explanation, provide your own: the only caveat being, don't then insist that your explanation has to be the right one - that's the realm of the art critic.  I discourage people, so far as I can, from looking for meanings just as much as I'd encourage any artist not to provide them. Someone - I forget who - said "if I could say what I mean in words, I wouldn't have painted it"; if you could "explain" poetry - would you write it?  If in doubt, stop looking: if you see psychobabble posing as explanation, it invariably means that an artist has been bullied into ransacking the thesaurus to explain their work so that some gallery can stitch a catalogue together; confession time - I've done this myself. I was asked to write an introduction to an artist's work; while I didn't engage in the language of the sociological textbook - sociology was not so pervasive a cultural influence at the time - I did coin the phrase "silently expressive landscapes": as though the alternative would be that they shouted at one ... the difference between me and the kind of hack who puts these things together is that I cringe at that memory, while others revel in their luscious plums of purple prose, even as the juice rolls unattractively down their chins.  So in the words of the defendants at Nuremberg, "in the sense of the indictment, I plead not guilty": mind you, now I think of it - that didn't work for most of them.   In the meantime, I'll use the gentlemen in these paintings as my sartorial models: I've always fancied a bowler hat. 
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Hang on, those latest ones aren't bowlers, they're Homburgs!  And I already have a couple of those.  

Jenny Harris

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Found an extract from an interview with him, but in one of those irritating articles where you have to subscribe to continue.  Apparently the full interview was in Dec 2018 issue of A&I magazine.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Yes: well; that's a rather clear indication of "don't press an artist for an explanation", because that just doesn't take you an inch further.  Well researched on your part, Jenny, but I'm not sure that A & I is ever likely to delve deep; and I don't mind that, because he has revealed nothing here we couldn't have worked out for ourselves - A & I looked for an "explanation", plainly couldn't find one, and probably had the sense not to keep digging a well when there was obviously no water.  Could we not just enjoy what we have, rather than try to elicit or impose meaning?  https://cattogallery.co.uk/artists/mark-edwards/

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by Robert Jones, NAPA

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