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| dial a deadly number • oil • 120cm x 60cm |
To coincide with Steven Lawler's new painting, Gallerina managed to get a quick interview with him.
Dial a Deadly Number makes me think of old detective films and thrillers of the 40's and 50's - is that intentional?
Yes it is. I'm a big fan of a set of black and white American films from the 40's and 50's known as Film Noir. Film Noir movies were cynical crime dramas often filmed in high contrast, expressionist black and white. They rarely had a happy ending and often had an alluring and deadly female character at the centre of the plot. Cinematographers like John Alton turned these films into an art form - some look as if Caravaggio had been in charge of the camera.
Who are the people in the painting?
People that model for me. In Dial a Deadly Number my brother Paul and two young ladies that model for a living - Rachelle and Tabitha. It's important to remember that I'm not painting portraits. They are characters in a story.
How do you go about painting a picture like Dial a Deadly Number?
I hire people and photograph and sketch them. I then take the images into a programme called photoshop on my computer and set about creating a scaled down image of what I want the painting to be. It's a bit like collage in a way. I can put people together that I've photographed at different times and move them around and see how they work in a painting. There's quite a bit of measuring and maths involved which seems to come naturally to me and is strange because I was never any good at mathsat school. When I've decided on how the painting will look on the computer I draw a detailed image of it onto canvas and then set about painting it all in monochrome. I do this to establish all of the tones. It's a technique used by the Flemish old masters and is called the 'Dead Layer' - in Italian Fresco painting it was called 'Verdaccio'. Michelangelo used Verdaccio when he painted the Sistine Chapel. When the tones are established I then work with colour - building it up in thin layers over time until I reach the finished effect.
Have you always been interested in comics and crime films?
When I was young I used to be a great reader of film books and magazines. I particularly liked to look at photographic stills from crime and horror films that I had not seen and then imagine what they might be about just from looking at them. I also used to read comics - in fact I collected them even before I knew how to read. I remember at about five or six years old having a strange obsession with examining each comic strip panel in minute detail. My eye would focus on the centre of the drawing and move outwards following an imaginary square, maze like pattern until it reached the edges of the panel - a bit like a computer might scan something. I did this for every panel in the comic and remember my parents being very confused as to how and why it took me so long to get through a story as I couldn't actually read. This seems a very strange thing for me to have done when I think about it but I do believe somehow, in some odd way, that in this obsessive compulsive act I was unconsciously teaching myself how to draw. That's the long answer - the short answer is yes I've been interested in them from as far back as I can remember.
When did you start painting comic strips onto canvas?
I think I prefer the term storyboard to comic strip because I'm trying to have a dialogue with cinema too. A storyboard is essentially a comic strip designed to help work out the process of making a film - establishing shots, editing, timing and rhythm etc. I painted my first storyboard painting at university in about 1993 so it's not a new thing for me. The subject matter was different back then but the idea was there. What's happening now is that I am integrating storyboards into the work I've been doing over the last decade or so.
How do you see them working as paintings?
The shape and position of the panels are important to me. I hope they create a rhythm and have a formal abstract balance which is a very 'painting' thing to do. If you take away the images and just look at the panels you'll see that they also have something in common with abstract painting - like a Mondrian for instance. Mondrian painted grids of vertical and horizontal lines filled with primary colours that have a lovely balanced feel to them. However my end result is not abstract painting, film or a comic. I'm using the space of the canvas to create something visually balanced and hopefully pleasing to look at while at the same time presenting the viewer with a puzzle. A fragment of a story that sends the eye back and forth across the canvas searching for a meaning and hopefully always coming up with different interpretations.
So you are using the basic tenets of formal abstract painting, comics and film and distilling them - leaving something very simple and yet very complicated at the same time?
Yes although not necessarily complicated - more open ended. So that you can go back to the painting again and again and think about what it might mean.
Do you know what they mean?
I have my own ideas but then they change around a lot too...and I start to think of other ways that the story can be unfolding.
Are they pop art?
No, not at all - I don't believe so. I haven't seen anybody else work this way before so there isn't a recognised category for it - or at least none that I can think of.
What are you working on at the moment and how do you see the idea developing?
I'm working on a more existential storyboard painting at the moment. It's called 'The Age of Reason' and will be slightly more of a montage - in the Eisenstein sense. Eisenstein was a famous Russian film maker from the early part of the 20th century who believed that film montage could create ideas or have an impact beyond the individual images. Two or more images edited together create a third thing that makes the whole greater than the sum of its individual parts. It's comics meets old master painting meets abstract painting meets film noir meets metaphysics. I realise that sounds a little complex but it isn't really and I don't think it will matter whether the viewer understands the references or not as the painting can be read on all sorts of levels. In the end I just want to paint pictures that will make want to come back to them time and again - paintings that communicate something to everyone but at the same time make people stop and think.
Yes it is. I'm a big fan of a set of black and white American films from the 40's and 50's known as Film Noir. Film Noir movies were cynical crime dramas often filmed in high contrast, expressionist black and white. They rarely had a happy ending and often had an alluring and deadly female character at the centre of the plot. Cinematographers like John Alton turned these films into an art form - some look as if Caravaggio had been in charge of the camera.
Who are the people in the painting?
People that model for me. In Dial a Deadly Number my brother Paul and two young ladies that model for a living - Rachelle and Tabitha. It's important to remember that I'm not painting portraits. They are characters in a story.
How do you go about painting a picture like Dial a Deadly Number?
I hire people and photograph and sketch them. I then take the images into a programme called photoshop on my computer and set about creating a scaled down image of what I want the painting to be. It's a bit like collage in a way. I can put people together that I've photographed at different times and move them around and see how they work in a painting. There's quite a bit of measuring and maths involved which seems to come naturally to me and is strange because I was never any good at mathsat school. When I've decided on how the painting will look on the computer I draw a detailed image of it onto canvas and then set about painting it all in monochrome. I do this to establish all of the tones. It's a technique used by the Flemish old masters and is called the 'Dead Layer' - in Italian Fresco painting it was called 'Verdaccio'. Michelangelo used Verdaccio when he painted the Sistine Chapel. When the tones are established I then work with colour - building it up in thin layers over time until I reach the finished effect.
Have you always been interested in comics and crime films?
When I was young I used to be a great reader of film books and magazines. I particularly liked to look at photographic stills from crime and horror films that I had not seen and then imagine what they might be about just from looking at them. I also used to read comics - in fact I collected them even before I knew how to read. I remember at about five or six years old having a strange obsession with examining each comic strip panel in minute detail. My eye would focus on the centre of the drawing and move outwards following an imaginary square, maze like pattern until it reached the edges of the panel - a bit like a computer might scan something. I did this for every panel in the comic and remember my parents being very confused as to how and why it took me so long to get through a story as I couldn't actually read. This seems a very strange thing for me to have done when I think about it but I do believe somehow, in some odd way, that in this obsessive compulsive act I was unconsciously teaching myself how to draw. That's the long answer - the short answer is yes I've been interested in them from as far back as I can remember.
When did you start painting comic strips onto canvas?
I think I prefer the term storyboard to comic strip because I'm trying to have a dialogue with cinema too. A storyboard is essentially a comic strip designed to help work out the process of making a film - establishing shots, editing, timing and rhythm etc. I painted my first storyboard painting at university in about 1993 so it's not a new thing for me. The subject matter was different back then but the idea was there. What's happening now is that I am integrating storyboards into the work I've been doing over the last decade or so.
How do you see them working as paintings?
The shape and position of the panels are important to me. I hope they create a rhythm and have a formal abstract balance which is a very 'painting' thing to do. If you take away the images and just look at the panels you'll see that they also have something in common with abstract painting - like a Mondrian for instance. Mondrian painted grids of vertical and horizontal lines filled with primary colours that have a lovely balanced feel to them. However my end result is not abstract painting, film or a comic. I'm using the space of the canvas to create something visually balanced and hopefully pleasing to look at while at the same time presenting the viewer with a puzzle. A fragment of a story that sends the eye back and forth across the canvas searching for a meaning and hopefully always coming up with different interpretations.
So you are using the basic tenets of formal abstract painting, comics and film and distilling them - leaving something very simple and yet very complicated at the same time?
Yes although not necessarily complicated - more open ended. So that you can go back to the painting again and again and think about what it might mean.
Do you know what they mean?
I have my own ideas but then they change around a lot too...and I start to think of other ways that the story can be unfolding.
Are they pop art?
No, not at all - I don't believe so. I haven't seen anybody else work this way before so there isn't a recognised category for it - or at least none that I can think of.
What are you working on at the moment and how do you see the idea developing?
I'm working on a more existential storyboard painting at the moment. It's called 'The Age of Reason' and will be slightly more of a montage - in the Eisenstein sense. Eisenstein was a famous Russian film maker from the early part of the 20th century who believed that film montage could create ideas or have an impact beyond the individual images. Two or more images edited together create a third thing that makes the whole greater than the sum of its individual parts. It's comics meets old master painting meets abstract painting meets film noir meets metaphysics. I realise that sounds a little complex but it isn't really and I don't think it will matter whether the viewer understands the references or not as the painting can be read on all sorts of levels. In the end I just want to paint pictures that will make want to come back to them time and again - paintings that communicate something to everyone but at the same time make people stop and think.
To view more of Steven's work please click here or contact us if you would like any other information.
Amazing work! What a talented artist!! I know somebody who owns one of Steven Lawler's paintings and they are just stunning.
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