My fascination with the enigmatic ‘still-life’ paintings of Giorgio Morandi which began some thirty years ago, was reawakened during my visit to an exhibition at the Museo Fortuny in Venice in 2010 and revived, yet again, on discovering a painting on loan to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. The title of the Morandi exhibition in Venice was ‘Silenzi’, (‘Silence’), a title I found to be highly appropriate. My personal attraction to his paintings relates to the fact that, in spite of their apparent simplicity, they possessed the capacity to hold my attention for some considerable time. The term ‘Still Life’ suddenly becomes, not only a description of a ‘genre’, but perhaps serves as a catalyst prompting a calm and contemplative engagement with their almost poetic form and content.

 

 

Morandi’s obvious fascination with the paintings of Chardin, Cezanne, De Chirico and an interest in the characteristics of emerging issues within both cubism and (to a lesser extent) metaphysical painting, clearly informed his development. Also, the fact that he was known to reference black and white reproductions of paintings published in magazines also proved a revelation. His paintings clearly appear to promote associations with the art of the past and most significantly, to have a continuing relevance for a number of contemporary artists. (A recent exhibition at the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh - ‘Resistance and Persistence’. – presented evidence of selected artists responses to the paintings of Morandi – the title being a direct reference to an essay concerning Morandi by Sean Scully. The exhibition included work by Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly, Sean Scully, Rachel Whiteread, Edmund de Waal, Roger Ackling).  Morandi’s notion of returning to the same or similar subject matter throughout his lifetime raises interesting questions in connection with the process of  ‘looking’. Although there was consistency in his choice of subject matter, each of his paintings remains distinctive. The fact that a ‘still-life’ painting can stimulate such intense scrutiny on the part of the audience seems to be almost beyond any simple verbal description. However, although his work has justifiably continued to stimulate a considerable amount of theoretical analysis, one might suggest that the form and content of his paintings clearly reflects evidence of a conspicuously personal and exceptionally disciplined response to visual experience. Key concerns, whilst clearly referencing the histories of painting, involved a sensitive engagement with the manipulation and handling of his materials, and periods of intensely focussed decision–making connected to the construction and reconstruction of an image.

 

I have found that my own predominantly visual response to his work has largely been through making drawings. The process has provided a means of negotiating questions surrounding both the form and content of his work. What I initially assumed to be frustratingly repetitive soon became addictive. My approach has continued to be both intuitive and improvisational and the process has remained challenging throughout. There have been occasions when I have been uncertain how to proceed but the solution appears to have been to think visually and to make more drawings.

 

Drawing has continued to provide an essential means of both enquiry and discovery with varied (and often unpredictable) solutions concerning the possible visual relationships that continue to emerge during the process. For example; relationships between positive and often ambiguous negative spaces, issues suggested by the colour of the objects, tonal relationships and shadows, formal concerns linked to the grouping of objects, collisions between straight and curved edges, and relationships concerning scale etc.

 

My response has also been explored through painting and sculptural objects. Morandi’s fascination with a still life constructed from essentially ‘humble objects’ resulted in the production of some extraordinary images. The ‘poverty’ of the subject matter is interesting and the transformation of its status through the intervention of an artist becomes a particularly significant issue. Consequently, I was prompted to reference ‘arte-povera’ and the considered use of found materials as a medium. Once again, the potential relationship between found elements was negotiated visually and assembled intuitively according to both the visual and material characteristics I discovered in the process of ‘making’.