30
Philip Clairmont
Although undated, Helter-Skelter belongs
palette is acidic – full of lemon yellow,
stylistically to Philip Clairmont’s
viridian green, a psychedelic purple and
Helter Skelter
important early period in Christchurch,
various corrosive highlights of blinding
acrylic on two jute canvas sections and
after he left art school in 1970. He was
brightness. In 1975, he said: “Avoid
married with a very young daughter
natural colours – those that imitate
and spent a lot of time at home minding
nature are always harmonic.” His art
her in various flats in old houses with
came out of the 1960s’ hippie culture
elaborate fireplaces, staircases and
with its rejection of materialism, the
sash windows. His was a domestic
pursuit of wealth for its own sake and
environment – even if it was not one that
social respectability. He often painted at
conformed to typical conventions of the
night by a naked light bulb, revved up
period. Somewhat unusually for a male
to the music of Bob Dylan and his hero
painter, he drew his subject matter from
Jimi Hendrix. He added drugs and drink
this domestic sphere where he painted
to the lifestyle noting: “At that time, I
in the midst of passive objects like old
was using a lot of odds and sods. When
couches, tables and wooden chairs. The
I was smashed, I would see things that
main motif in Helter-Skelter is a wooden
reinforced what I was putting in my
chair set in a chaotic, untidy room
paintings. It was a way of trying to get
upon a rumpled, patterned rug – one
close to it.”
collage on board c.1972 - 1974 2150mm x 950mm $40,000 - $50,000
Among his many visual sources was
of a number of chair paintings made in the early 1970s. Of the attraction of
American psychedelic art, as seen on
such things, Clairmont wrote in 1970:
vinyl record covers, with heightened
“A room contains within its four walls
colour effects involving haloing of
residue of human thoughts, actions and
objects with light, spatial disruption
emotions, a visual catalyst of memories
and a surrealist freedom of association
and associations, past and present.”
and metamorphosis of forms. In
He believed that commonplace objects
Helter-Skelter, we find several little
could become significant if transformed
eye-like holes seemingly looking at us,
by the painting process. He once wrote:
a body-less, staring face with glazed
“I need an image, a starting point for
eyes and what appears to be a severed
my paintings... I like to start with a
foot nailed to the floor with a knife.
subject – whether it’s a chair, a fireplace,
There are various hidden and partly
a staircase – and then transform it.”
revealed meanings, including the word
His was a self-confessed expressionist
Helter-Skelter itself, integrated into the
approach. He said: “I found the whole
rich visual tapestry – the final letters
expressionist thing came closest to the
‘er’ of the title are visible at the lower
core of the matter. If I paint a chair,
centre. Helter-Skelter means ‘disorderly
my reaction to it and how I feel about
haste or confusion’ – qualities magically
it becomes the thing. So, in a way, each
embodied in this remarkable image. The
painting is a self-portrait.”
word helter-skelter is usually an adverb describing how something is done rather
Using a rough hessian support for his painting with a visible join near the
than what it is – and that fits perfectly
middle, Clairmont builds up an agitated,
with the quick intuitive way the picture
flickering surface of colour and pattern
has been made and the feeling it gives of
that moves up and around the picture
process rather than resolution.
surface rather than into depth. His
MICHAEL DUNN
IMPORTANT PAINTINGS and CONTEMPORARY ART 51