in icons which depict a central standing figure, full frontal, looking directly out. Russian icons often deal with ideas of symmetry and asymmetry. The figure may be standing with the arms outstretched either side in a symmetrical fashion, but then in each hand something quite different is held; so one has this curious mixture of symmetry and asymmetry. In the recent group of paintings Twelve /Standing, I’ve been working with a vague central vertical form, which perhaps touches on some of these issues. SG: For a long time now your paintings deploy the properties of transparency and light. Would you talk further about the relationship between a pigment-based object, a painting, and its relationship with light? IM: Well a painting is just a dumb flat surface; just paint on a surface. The question is what does one do with it? How does one transcend pure material? Something which increasingly intrigues me is how can one actually bring the luminosity of light to a painting, not depict light, but imbue the painting with light, its fragility and strength. For me light is both illusive yet very present, as is a painting. SG: You clearly have strong feelings about the significance of paintings. I read once your description of the agony of deciding when to walk away from Simone Martini’s Annunciation in the Uffizi. How is it that rectangles of mud and glue can be so significant? 2
IM: Painting has such a phenomenal history which is so closely wedded to our understanding of the world, and to what it means to be human. I am drawn to look at paintings because they can stand still in the world. Our world is now almost pathologically manic; it never stops moving, yet paintings have this remarkable capacity to foster in one the desire to stand still. I think it’s one of their great redeeming qualities, that they can slow you down and make you enter into an intimate one to one dialogue, which moves outside of the speed and buzz of the contemporary world. For me it’s one of paintings’ great values that they can still have this effect on us. Ian McKeever’s new book of writings (incl. images) Black and Black again… is available from the bookshop of the Royal Academy of Arts, London
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24 art Autumn 2011