Interviewed by Edel Cassidy
What inspired you to become an artist and did you always have a desire to create, even as a child?
I believe some people are born with a desire to respond to their environment by making things. This might be a piece of furniture or a jet engine – the initial impulse is the same. I’m not sure I ever made a conscious decision to become a full-time artist, but I certainly had a desire to develop and improve the paintings I was drawn to make.
My father was a photographer in the Royal Air Force and also a keen amateur artist. I believe this certainly helped foster my interest in the visual arts and the idea that it was an acceptable and worthwhile activity to pursue.
Tell me about your experiences studying art and how you developed your style.
The notion of improvement is essential to my activity in that I find it very difficult to justify spending time on something that I already know how to do. Although many artists have a successful formula for making work, the idea of doing the same thing over and over again doesn’t appeal to me. I’m excited to see how far ideas can be explored and how I can find more elegant and complex solutions to visual problems.
I followed a fairly typical art education in the UK: an interest in art at school led to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at university. I studied drawing, painting, printmaking and typography, all of which have left a mark on my current activity. While realist painting is not particularly popular in the UK, I was fortunate to have been taught by two exceptional realist painters on my master’s degree, one of whom, Clive Head, I have remained in contact with. Head is one of the most significant contemporary figurative painters, and his works and writing have been a huge influence on me.
Describe your process as you go about creating one of your magnificent cityscapes.
Travel is normally the starting point for a painting or body of work. I take photographs and make drawings on-site, normally at different times of day and under different lighting conditions. The drawings are small and crude, but they’re a direct link to that particular experience. I believe the closer you can connect with that initial point in time, the richer the results are likely to be once you’re back in the studio. I try not to have any preconceived ideas of what I’m going to make or how I’ll make it; instead, I tend to just amble around in a fairly haphazard way.
When I return to Wales, I sift through the material I’ve collected and spend a few days thinking about it, letting the possibilities settle. From this point I will make a series of postcard-sized drawings, mapping out how an idea might function. I’ll pin these drawings up in the studio and just live with them for a while. Over time most of them will get rejected and destroyed. What’s left makes it to the final cut and becomes a larger-scale work.
Once I’ve decided on the size of the proposed work, a decision based on the specific subject matter in relation to my own physicality in the studio, I then start drawing elements in freehand in response to the postcard-sized drawing. I don’t use any kind of projection or tracing, as that leads to a predetermined outcome.
Once a drawing is established, I’ll loosely block in areas of paint, which are built up over time. Through a process of continual change and revision, the painting’s surface is developed to a point where it starts to find its own identity. I don’t have any fixed rules over how this might happen, but I am keen not to make the same painting twice or make it in the same way as the previous one. Over the years the work has become more texture-orientated, with a view to realising the potential held in the simple materials at my disposal. The goal is to make work that, although referencing the world around us, suggests an alternative reality the viewer can enter into.
Looking at your preparatory drawings, it appears that you’re very much in a mathematical space. Are mathematical principles something you explore or apply to your work?
My drawings are based on mathematical principles, but at most it’s schoolboy maths! While they might look complicated and contain a huge amount of information, they’re based on quite simple ratios. I start out by mapping out the largest shapes within the composition, which over time become refined and subdivided into smaller and more recognisable elements. I use perspective, but not in a way that follows any predetermined textbook approach. My drawings often end up with over a hundred separate vanishing points, a number of horizon lines and several different station points.
Taking a ‘freefall’ approach leads to unexpected outcomes, which means the work can move forward in a dynamic and original way. All these minor decisions and revisions get recorded and sometimes rubbed out as I go along, the finished drawing acting as a narrative of this activity. The goal is to make something more elegant and sophisticated than the last piece of work; whether it functions as a conventional architectonic drawing isn’t relevant. Perhaps in the future it might be interesting to record my decisions in another way – maybe through film or a long list of calculations.
Many believe that realism is no longer relevant. Did you ever feel pressured by educators or other artists to change to a more expressive style?
If you choose to become a contemporary realist painter, then I believe it’s important that you attempt to bring something new to the movement. Merely repeating the efforts of the past masters is of no interest to me, whether that’s paying homage to the pioneering photorealists of the 1970s or making neoclassical works in the style of Bouguereau.
I see my practice as a combination of painting strategies that ‘sample’ various other artists and movements. By mixing different approaches and techniques together, the goal is to present a visual language that celebrates the richness of art history without resorting to revivalism.
So to answer your question, I would say realism can only be relevant if it attempts to do something new. I haven’t felt any pressure to work in a certain way. Over time you tend to gravitate to other artists whose work you admire or who work with a similar approach or attitude. I think the work I make is expressive, even if that means it’s very methodical and meticulous in nature.
Who are some of your artistic influences, both historical and contemporary? How do they impact your work?
I started collecting art-related books as a student. This has served as a daily form of inspiration and guidance for my own practice. Looking at significant artists and paintings of the past can often be intimidating, but it can also suggest ways forward. My inspirations are numerous and varied, from Piranesi’s engravings to the decorative tiles of William De Morgan. What connects all of these interests is a strong sense of structure and pattern. Most of the artists and designers I admire had, or have, a rigorous approach to composition and a commitment to process more than outcome. I often think of my own work as ‘sampling’ these inspiring figures, whether it be the palette of Bonnard or the dynamism of a Berenice Abbott photograph.
I also have quite a close group of artist friends who serve as a support network, whether that be through email dialogue or visiting each other’s studios or exhibitions. Painting by its nature is a solitary activity, so the sharing of ideas and experiences with other like-minded individuals is often a healthy exercise.
Do you have any plans for the future that you would like to share?
Those who follow my work closely will have noticed significant changes over the past few years. The pandemic, along with other factors, brought on the closure of the gallery in New York City that had represented my work for a number of years. While this was very unsettling for all involved, over time it allowed me to start moving away from what had become, I felt, too conventional a mode of working. The newer work has become more experimental in nature. Starting with Hudson Yards, which is currently on show with the Simon Bart Gallery in Italy, the paintings have become composites of inside, outside and reflected space. This strategy is taken further in Metaphores, which introduces more personal subject matter alongside the reflected urban landscape.
The paintings are becoming less literal and more connected with my own internal world and interests. I’m currently working on a large painting which has as its starting point the Natural History Museum in London. Instead of a conventional description of the location, the subject matter has become fractured, combining views from different points within the structure. While this approach has links to analytical cubism, it’s also allowing me to invent more and take pictorial risks. I’m not entirely sure where this new approach is taking me, but exploration, I believe, is a fundamental part of being an artist.
- ‘Nathan Walsh’ is published in Anthology Volume 20. Read more features from this volume or buy it now.
- Browse more features in arts.
- If you enjoyed this feature, we’d love it if you would share it!