Painters' Painters: Nine Minutes with David Brian Smith
In the Painters' Painters show, the Saatchi Gallery presents the work of artists of today who inspire artists of tomorrow, bringing together a group of distinctive figures in the field of contemporary painting. The display features no discernible style or movement, it examines the very individualistic and non-conformist approaches explored by painters who are proving to be inspirational to a younger generation of artists emerging from the world’s leading art schools. Ahead of the exhibition, opening to the public on the 30th November, After Nyne's Jessica Rayner spent Nine Minutes with exhibiting artist David Brian Smith.
JR: Can you give After Nyne a brief look into your history as an artist, and how this has, in turn, affected your craft?
DBS: I grew up on a farm in Shropshire, England. My Art education began at Shrewsbury College of Art and Design. My tutor, Peter Bishop, a former Slade graduate, and landscape painter, would regularly pack the students into a mini bus and head into the countryside. We were encouraged to paint, draw, take photographs and consequently, learn to think through a medium.
JR: Could you outline your main artistic influences and how these feed into your work?
DBS: I can tell you the artists I was told to research, whilst I studied at Wolverhampton University, on my BA course in the late 90s. Peter Doig, Michael Raedecker, Paul Morrison, George Shaw. However, they were suggested to me, because of the mixed media landscape paintings I was making at the time. Did they influence my next paintings? not really. My main artistic influences have always come from life, not an image in a book. Paul Hempton was a big influence, my tutor at Wolverhampton university, he regularly made work that impressed me. On one occasion he was looking at my candy coloured landscapes during a studio visit and said “David is your world really that sweet”. This is when I began to use Bitumen, a black tar like paint. My world wasn't that sweet.
JR: Can you talk through your work for the Painters’ Painter exhibition, what were the pieces trying to achieve and what inspired the work?
DBS: I was at Chelsea College of art in 2005 when my father, a shepherd, died and a year later my mother was forced to sell the farm I grew up on. She moved to a new house and removed a carpet to discover a Sunday Express from the 1930s. In it was an image of Shepherd amongst a flock of sheep, head bowed, with a loyal dog at his side. The picture was printed to commemorate the armistice. She sent it to me because its a lovely photo, but more significantly, because my father was a shepherd and it seemed to sum up how we felt at the time. This ongoing series of paintings is entitled Great Expectations.
After receiving the found image and working from it in the studio. I re-enacted the shepherd composition on a friend’s farm and have made several paintings from the photographs we took. The images I paint from have an autobiographical link back to me. My great grandfather, a vicar, was a missionary in Bangalore between 1912-1919. In a family photo album, I found a picture of him sitting on top of a giant termite mound, with an unknown man at the foot of the hill. The trippy nature of the photograph and its simple composition appealed to me.
JR: How would you sum up the main themes involved in your work?
DBS: I try to discover different ways of exploring colour, for example, an apple red oil paint appears quite different washed over gold leaf, than when applied to a white gesso ground. I’m interested in these complexities. When I begin a new body of work I limit my palette. Recently eight paintings have gone on show at Albert Baronian Gallery, Brussels. On this occasion I began with the colours yellow, orange and blue in mind. This helps me when I get stuck and creates a consistency throughout the series and ultimately the exhibition. I always work from black and white photographs, colour is to distracting when you are trying to understand colour.
Painters' Painters
30th November - 28th February 2017
Saatchi Gallery
Duke Of York's HQ, King's Rd,
Chelsea, London SW3 4RY
