Geoff was one of the first artists I met when I moved into my new art studio at Second Floor. He was instantly warm and open and made me feel very welcome and included, which was great for me as a self-taught, untrained newcomer and full of inferiority complexes, who was now silently & punishingly comparing myself to all of these ‘proper artists’ at the studios.
Straight off he had this air of mischievous freedom and joy that you often see in people who have not ‘toed the line’ during their life, and who have followed their own path, uncompromisingly. This observation proved to be accurate as I got to know him more.
Many of the paintings in his studio are inspired by the squat he moved into in the late 80’s, which he shared with other artists and musicians. There he painted the garden and the views from the roof overlooking Battersea Park . Charmingly, as he recounted the story, a girl he met at an art class had said ‘I live in a castle, there’s lots of room, you should come and live there too’. The squat was an old hospital and later to become the ‘semi-official’ pro-active co-op, Stockwell Studios, where he stayed for 25 years until it was sold a few years ago to a developer.
These huge oil paintings feature effusive vegetation, climbing ivy and Buddleia overtaking windows and doors untended, frogs hide and dragonflies flit around a small pond. The paintings are overflowing with life. More recent paintings feature the view from the studio at Second Floor; boats on the Thames, the steely river reflecting the changing light. Most of these paintings take years to complete. He admitted he even goes back to some after 10 years, as what he’s painting is constantly changing, and he sees something new there that he feels should go into the painting. He says that in that way, so much more becomes 'built in' to the painting ‘the growing, dying, changing...’
‘Some people say I’m an obsessive’, but he reckons that’s not true, he’d rather say he's ‘patient’.
I observed that he seems to be inspired to paint his surroundings, wherever he finds himself. ‘You paint or draw best what you know." He says, "Why go to the South of France to paint when you have this?!”
He also shares that it was a pragmatic choice to paint his surroundings, from a desire to spend more time painting the subject. Prior to this he was working mainly from life, figurative work with models. He found that the models were never around long enough to paint them to the depth he wanted, and hiring a model can be expensive when you want to hire one for more than a few hours. The garden, his surroundings were always there and free, so he could take as long as he wanted.
He amuses me at times with some of the leftfield stories he comes out with. He was recently complaining about the unusual problem of honey seeping through his walls. When I inquire further he goes on to tell me about how over the a period of a few years, some bees had made their home in the space above his bathroom. During the exceptionally hot spell earlier this year, he noticed honey dripping into the globe light fitting, which soon became filled with honey . Experts finally came to the rescue, drilled a few holes into the ceilingand revealed a 3 year supply of honey .
20,000 bees were safely transferred into two hives at a bee sanctuary, but Geoff was left with, a bath full of honey, honey covered walls and floor, and acontinuous oozing of warm molten honey through the ceiling and walls. Despite having spent months cleaning, the honey still re-emerges. He did get a few jars of very nice honey out of it though.
You can come and see Geoff’s work, and have a drink and chat to him (and me!) this Saturday between 10.00am-2.00pm at www.paulmcgallery.com, 17 Lasselle Street, Greenwich, SE10 9PJ. Tel; 02082692990.
This isn’t right in the centre of Greenwich, it’s towards the east side, close to Maze Hill. However, Geoff tells me that they’ve recently realised that where they put the Greenwich meridian is wrong. It’s actually further east and apparently runs through a certain waste paper bin, and ccould well run through the gallery too. So there’s double reason to come to Paul Mc Gallery tomorrow
Hope to see you there :-)
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