Hi Wormwood, thank you for speaking with us. We are very excited to be holding your exhibition Just Things That Happened. Your use of darker, more muted tones adds a beautiful emotional depth to your work. How do you go about choosing your colours, and how do you feel they help shape the mood or story of your paintings?
It has been a bit of a journey when it comes to colour. For exactly the reason you mention, the darker, more muted palette seems to give me the solemnity and mood I desire. It has taken a while but I’m pretty much set on the colour palette now and the mixing of the muted tones has become second nature.
I always work from dark to light on a black board. I paint by layering opaques and then transparents until I hit the tone I’m looking for. The temptation to do just one more layer to lighten things is always there, but I tend to regret it when I’ve succumbed and end up muting again.
There is a point when lightening the image completely changes the mood of the painting and things become too ‘obvious’. I’m no longer wary of making the viewer exercise their eyes and do a bit of work themselves.
(PICTURES: Studio photographs)
You’ve shared your admiration for artists like Carel Weight and Joan Eardley. In what ways have they influenced your artistic journey, and are there particular elements of their styles that you hope to incorporate into your own?
Putting into words the reason an artist’s work has an influence is difficult. It’s more a feeling. A kind of visceral connection and appreciation. I think with Joan Eardley’s work it was the mark-making that really fascinated me. Her application of paint and her palette choice is wonderful, especially in her series of paintings depicting the street children of Glasgow. Maybe part of me also identified with the children.
I’m certainly no expert when it comes to reading paintings by other artists but I do know when a painting has a certain something that evokes a feeling or emotion. Carel Weight’s work does this for me, although I’m not sure I could pinpoint exactly why.
I can remember the first time I saw his painting ‘After The Funeral’. The palette, the solemnity, the figures, the ‘where are they going over that rickety bridge?’ In my eyes it is a wonderful painting.
Another favourite is ‘The Silence.’ Totally different to the aforementioned and, to me at least, there is a somewhat unnerving, almost surreal quality to the painting that leaves us with many questions. I like the fact that it does this, as do several of his other paintings that depict ethereal and, at times, sinister figures.
As for incorporating elements of these artists style into my own work, it is actually something that I actively avoid. As much as I admire, I also resist. I don’t want to be like anyone else. I just want to be me. I’ve worked hard to try and create my own style of painting and although I don’t believe it is totally unique, it’s as close as I can get. I think that, in a gallery full of paintings, you’d know which were mine.
Your art often delves into loss and grief, especially following the passing of your wife, Lisa. How has your creative process changed as you’ve moved through different stages of healing, and how do you manage to weave in humour and playfulness amidst those raw emotions?
Until quite recently I never really analysed the progression of what I was painting. The creative process itself has always remained much the same but maybe the themes and stories I paint are now less consumed with the raw pain that they were straight after Lisa died. Some of these early paintings were pretty agonising to work on, but the compulsion to paint them was overwhelming.
(Picture: detail of 'Your Pillow')
I think the difference now is that, with the passing of time and my acceptance of Lisa’s death, I can approach the themes and stories from a slightly different angle. The sadness and melancholy is still there but maybe now it’s more discreet.
I feel there’s been a slight shift in my recent paintings towards focusing more on the loneliness that bereavement can bring as well as the love, friendship and comfort between Sad Bloke and his dog. It’s another phase of the grieving process but I believe it gives me scope to further develop the stories in a way that is more accessible and not as brutally painful.
(PICTURES: 'Dog Boy: Blackballed', studio photograph, and 'Dog Boy: Benched')
Another big factor has been the response on social media and my realisation that my paintings aren’t just about me, they’re about anyone and everyone who has experienced loss. This has been a real eye-opener for me. It has opened up a dialogue on Twitter with people in similar circumstances who have spoken about their own experiences because they could relate to a painting that I did. The viewer can create their own narrative. The story isn’t just mine, it’s also theirs. I find that extremely satisfying.
Without doubt, the most profound, and somewhat surreal, example of opening up such dialogue came when I was contacted by the chair of 10th grade English at a high school in Canada to say that their teaching schedule now included a Wormwood Stubbs lesson.
She sent me a copy of the teaching schedule. They were using my paintings as a pathway into letting their students interpret what the paintings said to them and therefore opening up discussions around the difficult and sensitive subject of loss and bereavement. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.
As for the humour and playfulness in some of my work, I suppose it’s just a reflection of me as a person. I’m actually just a big kid at heart and I steadfastly refuse to grow up. Lisa always used to say I was the fourth kid in our household and despite everything that’s happened, nothing will ever take my sense of humour.
I’m sure there are those who, because of my work, may have the impression of me as someone who is permanently sad and miserable but this is certainly not the case. There’s no denying I’ve been to some pretty dark places but I will not let those places define me as a person. Hence the need to sometimes use a bit of humour in my paintings. A prime example of this is the fact that I paint under the name Wormwood Stubbs because I don’t take myself too seriously and I found it amusing. It made me smile. If the viewer notices humour in my work it can act as a form of respite and maybe even make them smile. That’s good. Smiling is good. People should smile more.
Symbolism, like hidden initials and hourglasses, plays a gentle but important role in your art. How deliberate are you in including these symbols, and do they offer new perspectives on your work once the painting is finished?
I do enjoy using symbolism but I try not to force it into a painting. If I can find a way to add it without being too obvious then fine.
I’ve used the hourglass many times. I like it as a symbol and I like what it represents but I don’t now always paint it as an actual hourglass. Sometimes it’s part of a wallpaper pattern, or the shape of a gate in a fence, or a pattern in a stained-glass window. I do enjoy finding ways of adding symbols like this in a surreptitious way.
Similarly with the initials. I don’t do it so much now but my early paintings often had an ‘L’ for Lisa in a tiled floor or inside a tiny heart that was carved into a wooden bench or wooden fence. It was just my way of including her in the painting.
I’ve used quite a few other symbols over the years. Some have been noticed and some are still to be discovered. I like the playful aspect of this. It’s like a little game with the viewer but it makes no real difference to the overall theme or story as far as the viewer is concerned and therefore doesn’t detract from the painting.
(PICTURES: 'Heart Strings' from Wormwood Stubbs Just Mulling Things Over, and detail from 'Without U' from Just Mulling Things Over)
You once described your routine as "paint, eat, sleep, repeat." What does a typical day in your studio look like now?
Exactly that. I’m a somewhat reclusive person so I don’t really venture out much. Apart from to feed the birds.
I get up at 5.45am. I’ve never been one for breakfast so I’ll just have a couple of mugs of tea and start thinking about what I’m painting. Feed the birds. I like to be at my easel for about 7.30am.
I never start painting until I’ve decided what music I’m going to play. Music on and off we go to my happy place. I normally paint, with the odd 5-10 minute break, until 12.30-1.00pm.
Cup of tea and into the garage to do some sketching. I’m not sure why I do my sketching in the garage but it’s something I’ve always done. Our old dining table is in there and I use it for preparing and painting my boards and also sketching. It’s covered in paint and Lisa would probably go ballistic but I like to work on it. I’m sure she’d forgive me.
Whenever possible I like to have ideas for my next two paintings in very rough doodle form so I’ll spend an hour-or-so fleshing these out into proper sketches or playing around with different compositions. Not only is it nice to have a break from painting and do some sketching but it also means that, when I return to my easel for a couple of hours in the afternoon, I’m looking at what I’ve already painted with fresh eyes.
I normally finish for the day at 5.00-5.30pm when my son gets home from work. He’s the only one at home now, both my daughters have got their own places. I’ll cook us a meal and we’ll sit and watch a bit of telly together before calling it a night.
Paint, eat, sleep, repeat.
(PICTURES: 'The Sculptor', and Wormwood Stubbs studio photograph)
If you could collaborate with any artist, living or dead, on a wild and unconventional project, who would it be and what would you create together?
Now that’s a really difficult question. There are so many brilliant artists whose work I admire.
I think that maybe I’d have to say Bernard Buffet. I really like the fact that his art was termed ‘miserabilist’. That amuses me. As does the fact that in spite of, or maybe because of, his success the art critics and so-called experts of the day looked down their noses at him. Snobbery, especially in art, is a wholly unnecessary and unpleasant characteristic exhibited by those with delusions of grandeur and no manners.
I feel that Buffet’s style of painting could have worked with my own style. I’m not sure what we would have created together but there would have been plenty of interesting figures who were probably sad. Bernard liked a sad figure too. Or maybe a detailed interior depicting a gathering of figures and lots of unusual objects and random furniture and vases of flowers on tables. The main thing is, it would have been a huge painting. The size of a front room wall (if the front room was a really big front room) and the figures would all have been life size.
I’ve never painted anything on that scale. I’d be really interested to see how my work looks super-sized. I reckon that would have been a most enjoyable project for me and Bernard.