6 minute read
Painting people - two Ramsgate-based artists on their passion for paint and portraits
Painting people
Writer Twinkle Troughton
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Images Courtesy of artists
Harry Pye and Felicity Allen are two Ramsgate artists with a passion for paint. Both often feature observations of other people in their works, but to very different ends. Harry uses bold colours, affectionately portraying quirks in human behaviour and often incorporating humour, while Felicity has intensity in her process, but with a gentle palette and great tenderness in the portraits she produces.
Here we meet both artists to find out more about their ideas and influences.
Felicity Allen —
Can you tell us what themes run through your practice?
Dialogue, close observation (looking, listening) and borders and exclusions. I work with talk, text, painting, drawing, video and audio, always in dialogue with historic and contemporary artists’ work.
What inspires you?
Motivation: anger at the life of the world, including people, being treated as disposable. Inspiration: exuberant life, nature, laughter, art, knowledge, brilliance, energy, dissent, weather.
How do you choose who to paint?
In part the work is about exchanging personal recognition with my sitters (as opposed, for instance, to algorithmic surveillance or the standardisation of selfies), so I like to paint people whose social status renders them individually unrecognised (eg asylum seekers), along with others who are more securely visible. For me, a sitter is part of a particular series so I invite people accordingly. I usually ask someone to do a minimum of two full days sitting – more is more interesting. I’m excited by difference and the problem of translating whoever it is into watercolour paint.
As an artist who also writes, can you tell us about how you use writing as an art form?
I used to write before I started painting, in order to clear my mind of interference. When I had children I needed to write a lot more. In the 1990s I was founding editor of a journal and have continued to write and publish critically. For a while I developed what I called “practice
Artist, archivist and researcher Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski Margate-based ceramicist Luke Eastop
writing”, because I had no time to make paintings, working at improving my writing but without any intention to publish. When I met my husband, a poet, he encouraged me to publish as well as to paint. My ideas led me to coin a new word, the “disoeuvre”. The PhD I did at Middlesex University developed this, resulting in a few published articles, as well as a tiny book The Disoeuvre, whose four voices are visual, diaristic, didactic and quotations from other people.
Does life in Ramsgate have an impact on your practice?
Yes, in that I frequently invite people who are local to sit. Yes, in that I started working with Refugee Tales, an outreach project that uses storytelling to draw attention to the inhumanity of detaining refugees, because it partly came out of a local network.
Where can people see your work?
There is an exhibition that I’ve worked on with another artist, in which I have to remain anonymous for the safety of the other artist, so it’s hard to publicise! Two of my books came out earlier this year and can be ordered online: The Disoeuvre: an Argument in 4 Voices and Psycho-Neurological Poem in 3 Parts & A Clean Heart and a Cheerful Spirit at felicityallen.co.uk.
Harry Pye —
It wasn’t until you were 30 that you started painting. How did you start?
I stumbled across a really inspiring show of work by an artist called Mathias Kauage at London’s Horniman Museum. His paintings were very colourful and direct and they made me feel happy. John Lennon said he wanted his songs to be like postcards. I felt that what Kauage was doing in each painting was sending out a postcard to the world.
How do you start a painting?
I like putting different colours together, so it often begins with simple experiments. Some of my paintings are made collaboratively with friends and some of what I do is Neo Pop Art. Some paintings are inspired by painters such as Henri Matisse or Vincent van Gogh.
Tell us about your distinctive playful style of painting.
If I have problems I can’t deal with I sometimes paint just to cheer myself up. When I did my foundation course in Camberwell, a tutor said my work was both “funny – as in peculiar, and funny – as in ha ha!”. And when I went to do a degree in Winchester a tutor said my work was like “a merry-goround of insanity”.
Life Drawing Class by Team Beswick and Pye
You’re also a prolific curator. What is it about curating that you enjoy?
When I was a schoolboy I promised myself that I would surround myself with creative people. I love to put other people’s art on walls and make it look interesting. Sometimes people say they’ve seen something in the show that’s made them want to go home and try making a painting of their own.
Can you tell us about your magazine The Rebel?
My parents had a copy of The Rebel by Albert Camus on their bookshelf. I was way too young to understand what Mr Camus was talking about, but I loved looking at the cover. Right before secondary school I began making a zine called The Rebel that featured silly drawings and cheeky interviews. Many years later I started a blog called The Rebel. I promote projects I like or am involved with and I interview artists, comedians and pop stars.
Where can people see your work?
See my new work on Instagram @harrypyepaintings and find out about events by subscribing to my blog therebelmagazine.blogspot.com/. I’d love to have a solo show in Thanet in 2020. If anyone has a suitable space please contact me via my website harrypye.com.
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