Andy Farr shares a bit about his inspirations and the narrative aspect of his paintings in my latest interview with the Coventry-based painter.

Can you tell me about your background?

I came late to art, becoming a full-time artist in 2010 after spending the first part of my life in marketing and advertising. A serious illness and a damascene moment on the commute to London lead me to embark on a new direction.

Initially I experimented with different subject matter and styles, from cityscapes into geometric forms and then more abstract pieces. I then started to develop work around different types of motion, evolving into a semi-abstract style with a strong conceptual component.

It was the WW1 Centenary that took my work in a more socio-political direction. I remembered my old English teacher reading us Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum est. Now as a father, the thought that 100 years ago my sons would have been marching off the Western Front made those words take on a new resonance. I wanted to use art to reach out to the current cohort of teenagers to help them see that those events were still relevant to society today. With an Arts Council grant I was able to work with schools and colleges to produce individual and collaborative work, not just paintings but photography, sculpture, music, drama, and public participation events, as well as exhibitions. The response was positive and reinforced my desire to use art to communicate.

“Your work is inspirational and outstanding, and I cannot express my gratitude enough” [Chris Gabbett Headmaster Trinity school]

One of the works from this series, The Response is still on public display in Newcastle.

At this point having had no formal Art education I decided to embark upon a masters and enrolled at Coventry University completing my MA in 2017. One the pieces from my final show went on to win a prize in the 2018 Ashurst Emerging Artist competition.

I am now based at a brilliant studio in the Canal Basin in Coventry.

What ideas are you exploring in your work?

I used my MA to explore my memories of growing up, a time that was heavily impacted by my father’s bipolar condition. As I looked back it became clear that the strongest memories were of a feeling, rather than a precise, accurate recollection of place or situation. These investigations led to a body of work that proved to be both personally cathartic, and the paintings themselves acted as enablers to conversations about things that I had not discussed before.

The MA triggered a desire to engage with others to tell their stories. Working with the Institute of Mental Health in Nottingham (IMH), again with Arts Council support, I created a series of “narrative paintings” each inspired by a one-to-one dialogue with participants who were recovering from Post-Traumatic Stress.

Dr Elvira Perez (IMH) commented of the project, “Those that ‘donated’ their stories felt understood as if by translating their words into colour their sufferings diminished. Sharing alleviates pain and mental distress.” It was deeply moving to find that the cathartic effect I had felt personally was also present in their response to these works.

I did a second series of paintings during the first 2020 lockdown. Each work was again based on a now digital dialogue with a participant. During this process I was still responding to their thoughts, feeling and emotions, but also seeking to understand a little more of the how and why the “portrait” process could provide a release for some of those involved.

Tell me about the feeling you’re trying to capture in your paintings.

I have described myself as a storyteller, and that is certainly true to some degree. But I’m not trying to capture a figurative linear version of a “story”. I spend a long time trying to understand the essence and emotion, and then seek to find a composition, and maybe a metaphor, that works to convey that. The term “narrative portraits” applies quite loosely as the actual painting may not include any physical representation of the “sitter”.

For example, the title piece for the exhibition was the Twisted Rose. This painting was a metaphor for “Mac’s” recovery journey. He had suffered childhood abuse, and toward the end of his therapy described himself as feeling like “A twisted rose, growing out of the dark into the light, but still carrying the scars of his past”. I felt that this summed up much about post-traumatic stress and recovery, and so the painting was of an actual twisted rose.

In contrast, I created a painting based on a paramedic who was experiencing post-traumatic stress. At the heart of our conversation was his sense that he wasn’t allowed to be human, he wasn’t allowed to feel the same emotional response to tragic situations as “ordinary people”. When I met him, I didn’t know how I was going to communicate his feelings. We chatted for a while over a cup of coffee on his patio, me taking photos of him both in his uniform and as him just being a normal guy relaxing at home. That was when I had the idea for The Man Inside. It portrayed him in his uniform holding a picture of himself in his everyday clothes.

Explain your artistic process.

My narrative paintings start with a dialogue between myself and the subject. This can be in the form of emails, phone calls and face to face meetings – although the latter has had to be substituted with video calls of late! During the process I try to get to know more about the person, and their situation, their memories and if the subject relates to a mental health challenge then I try to explore how that makes them feel. My paintings try to be about the feeling rather than an event so understanding that emotion is key.

During this process I will be gathering photographs and starting to think about imagery, colours and textures that could work to express the emotion. I will often play around with the images in photoshop, overlaying and blowing up parts of an image.

I generally have quite a few paintings on the go at any one time. Not all will be narrative portraits, I also like to paint nature and landscapes, which are less challenging intellectually and emotionally for me. And to some degree lockdown encouraged me in this direction. The restrictions placed on us encouraged me to appreciate some of the simpler things around me.

Can you talk a bit about the evolution of your practice and work?

My visual style has evolved over the past decade. When I first started out as an artist, I explored shape and movement, with influences from abstract expressionism, cubism, and vorticism. This style developed out of early works featuring dance and carousels. It was the WW1 project that drew me back more toward the figurative.

During my MA my style evolved further to become more experimental, embracing elements of drawing and collage as well as layering, overlapping imagery, juxtaposition of images both abstract and defined, embracing serendipity.

My final piece during the MA was loosely titled SELF PORTRAIT it was the culmination of the freeing up process. The ground had been created on a large piece of canvas on floor with the colours derived from a recently seen sunrise flooded into the un-primed canvas. The image painted over this was based on two pictures, an empty room with windows and one of me from behind looking into the canvas. It was painted after the works focused on my childhood and I felt it was suggestive of an artist (me!) now looking forward, having exorcised some baggage from his past.

Which artists do you look to for inspiration?

During my MA, I discovered some brilliant Eastern European artists – such as Miriam Vlaming and Daniel Pitín. Their combination of the more figurative with the abstract and elements of the surreal gelled with my own desire to communicate elements of human experience.

I also enjoy the power of the great abstract expressionist works to convey emotion just through the use of colour and form.

Which 3 artists do you enjoy at the moment?

I follow an eclectic mix of artists, but the three below cover the spectrum …

Justin Mortimer – figurative and experimental artist whose work can be unsettling and forces consideration of the human condition.
Maria Natalie Skjeset – a digital artist whose works are a beautiful mix of nature with overlapping layers of colour and texture.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby – an artist of Nigerian descent based in the US, her figurative works use collage and photo transfer and draw the audience into her narrative.

What is the most memorable thing someone has said about your work?

The first narrative paintings I finished was based on Rachel’s story. I was extremely nervous when I sent her a picture of the near finished painting, and so when she wrote back saying how moved she had been it was inspirational, encouraging and humbling for me to be part of that.

Rachel:

I cried! the colours are perfect. The me looking round the corner completely sums up that feeling of lost in the grey world feeling frightened of everything. Welcoming Rachel is the old me too. It’s like you looked in my head and painted. It’s honestly amazing.

I went to bed thinking about the painting and it’s almost like now there is a third Rachel. The one I am now who is able to connect with both the figures in the painting. Which is really nice. Today also happened to be my last counselling session ever so it’s all come together really nicely. Funny how life does that.

Can you share a little about the 1-1 narrative portraits?

A friend asked me why I paint such dark subject matter. It’s a reasonable question as I have created work about conflict, depression, trauma, and isolation over the past five years! However, even in my most recent series of paintings the Portraits of Isolation, I found a mix of emotions, yes sadness and pain, resulting from feelings of isolation from friends and family, but also hope and transformation. So, for me the work is both rewarding and not as dark as some may perceive.

For example, Zara, is a stay-at-home Mum, her anxiety had started years before lockdown. She found that as we explored ideas for her paintings her understanding of her own feelings and thoughts changed. Her painting showed her as both puppet and puppeteer, a composition that evolved directly out of our conversations about her anxiety. She said in a recorded interview - “it revealed more and more to me about my own situation. I realised that the anxiety wasn’t bigger than me” … going on to say, “it has honestly changed everything about my life at this time - beauty still lies within darkness”.

Elle another participant said, at the end of the project “Thanks Andy - for taking me on such a remarkable journey of discovery”. I ask myself the question “what part did the artwork work or me, the artist play?”. I am not in any sense a therapist – but what I can do is make the intangible tangible – I can give physical presence to someone’s thoughts and memories –pinning those down, grounding them, making them visible - this can be in itself therapeutic.

Sometimes I have been the first person that people have shared aspects of their lives with – and shared their deep emotions with – and maybe because I’m not trying to answer or solve – because their story in itself is enough – that can provide some validation for their feelings.

This does place a huge responsibility on me – holding people’s hands as they put themselves out into the public domain – maybe not with their name but with something possibly more intimate that has come from their personal experience – maybe their portrait – their thoughts – their narrative – conveyed with my brush strokes …

I am considering investigating this further as part of a PhD – but would need funding and institutional support.

Do you have any projects coming up?

My next project is again a series of narrative portraits. These will be a series based on people who live in Coventry. I am being funded by Orbit a housing association and the bulk of the participants will be residents in their independent living schemes. So predominantly older people.

These paintings will all contain a more formal portrait element and portray some aspect the person’s life and experience of Coventry. Some have lived all their lives in the City, others came to find sanctuary or employment. As well as the challenge of conducting a dialogue in these difficult times I will also need to find ways to obtain good photographs to work from, something I normally like to take myself.

The works will be exhibited as part of Coventry City of Culture 2021 at Arcadia, a city centre gallery, in September/October 2021. Hopefully by then we will be able to have a physical audience!

Give Andy a follow on Instagram @andyfarrart

Andy Farr

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