PAUL WINSTANLEY

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19:40

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 Paul Winstanley Add to contacts

To jake laffoley

Dear Jake,

Thanks for your enquiry. Painting from photographs is something that artists have done since the invention of photography and, before that, they used camera lucida's or camera obscura's. There is a very good book by David Hockney called 'Secret Knowledge' that shows artists have been using lens based technologies since the 15th Century. It's well worth a read. It shows that the sudden realism painters were able achieve from this period onward was not the result of incredible powers of observation unavailable to previous artists but the use of these technologies with which they were able to steal a march on their competitors. Since the invention of printed photographs all sorts of painters have used them. I suspect Degas is one, as is Munch, The impressionists in general were influenced by the arbitrary framing of snapshot photography and even Picasso used photographs at times and, coming up to date, Peter Doig uses photographs extensively amongst many others. So, painting from photographs is nothing new at all; it's what you do with it and how you relate the painting to the photograph that is important. Many artists have photographs in the studio as source material and the images these contain may find their way into paintings. They may not 'copy' the photograph as such but need to see what something looks like which they can then interpret. This is simply about having visual information available in the studio which can be used or mis-used. Then there are those painters who not only use the information in the photograph but also use the 'language' of photography in their paintings. I include myself amongst these. I also include Vermeer as an early exponent of this attitude. There is a softness to the edges of his imagery that is purely the result of seeing the quality of the projected image using his camera obscura and retaining this in the painting.

I use the language of photography on three levels. First the space in my paintings is consistent with a lens based perspective. This is true even when I 'collage' elements together to create an image. Second the surface of my paintings is generally unified out of which the image emerges. Third I employ soft edges, even 'blurring,' which helps with this sense of a unified surface. In extreme circumstances this can create a tension between what one knows and expects of the language of painting and what looks like the language of photography. The American Photo Realists of the 1970's really played on this contradiction. However I do not regard myself as a photo realist in the same way. I am much more interested in notions of time, memory and the metaphors needed to deal with these things.

I could go on but hope that helps.

Best wishes,

Paul.

On 13 Mar 2011, at 17:48, jake laffoley wrote:

Hi Paul, Im a student studying fine art painting. My tutor told me to look at your work as mine reminded her of yours. I was wondering if you could tell me your opinion on painting from photographs? as I use them quite a lot. 

Thanks for your time, All the best 

Jake Laffoley