The Bite of the Print: A Graphic Reality
Written by Bryan Edmondson from a recorded interview between the artist, Sue O'Brien and himself in June 1991
In a sense all art, for as long as it has been made, has dealt with the human situation, and artists have successfully communicated their thoughts and ideas through their artefacts, sometimes across thousands of years.
And yet, when Anthony Davies said he is "completely preoccupied" with it, he means just that.
His work deals consciously and directly with the disadvantaged and vulnerable members of our society, the ones why are surviving, defiantly: against the odds, or buckling under the strain, submitting to the situation they find themselves in, "the alienation of the young and unqualified, the old and frail, urban decay resulting in homelessness, violence and social upheaval." Davies is concerned about these issues: they form the content of his work.
In the 1990s, Anthony Davies was given the opportunity to live and work in Northern Ireland, initially through a teaching post at Belfast Polytechnic. His interest in the affairs of the province had been aroused for some time, but the death of the first IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands, committed him to exploring what was actually happening at first hand. He explains:
"There were lots of events happening around the world - lots of things happening in South Africa, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Beirut, Palestine, and I thought 'this is happening on my doorstep'. Lots of people seemed to go around making comments, which we all see through a screen, a TV screen and the media. I just wanted to make some sort of comment on that."
He moved his print-making studio from South Wales to Belfast and started to look at the way the people of Northern Ireland were affected by the troubles. Not just the politicians, the media, the people with power, but the people who found themselves involved simply because they lived there; people who had no influence over the events which had trapped them - the victims.
Initially, 'witnessing at first hand' meant visiting the homes of the residents, exploring the towns getting 'inside' the place and because he was an artist - commenting but not directly involved - he felt that the whole of the province was open to him. For Anthony Davies, there was no such thing s a 'no-go' area. Wherever he looked, he found the disadvantaged, people who did not fit into the ideal mould purveyed by advertising; where everybody is beautiful, size 10, has a house and at least one car. In the homes of the people of Belfast, Davies found that people can be beautiful in different ways, and he was drawn to their strength and resilience.
"I am interested in people who are vulnerable - as I am. I am a very emotional person- if I look at my own predicament - and my financial situation is an absolute joke, but I never seem to care too much about that. I get a lot more affected by other people; people who have stood very little chance in life; handicapped people.
There are people who haven't been given as much in life as others, and they should be helped - automatically."
The actual process Davies employs to research and then design his images is complex. He describes himself as a complete mercenary, using whatever material he feels is relevant to the content of his work. He will make use of drawings, newspapers, photographs, books, and even once hired someone to take photographs of Derry so it was not seen in a tourist role. From this material, he will start to 'throw things around' working out compositions.
Two main influences feed into the work affecting its form: the first from college days where his tutors Bill Crozier, and John Bellany introduced him to the work of the German Expressionists Beckman, Gorsz, Dix and Ensor, and the second, more recent, has been a fascination with the work of war photographers like Robert Capa and Don McCullin.
"I admire the person with the camera who can go into a situation, however perilous, and obtain an image - a moment in history."
How then, does all this information actually manifest as an image or series of images? Davies explains:
"By what I call a vision, and sometimes it can all be a bit naff. With lots of projects it can go round in your mind for six months, a year, two years, then you suddenly have the idea to put something down - it's fairly brutal. The whole thing about being intuitive is that you actually have the confidence to put an image down and make it work for you."
Putting an image down involves drawing directly onto the Lino, wood, etching plate, or litho stone with little preliminary designing. He greatly values the spontaneity such a medium affords, and yet spontaneity is not something normally associated with print-making, given the lengthy technical process involved. Nevertheless, print-making in all its forms is what Davies is committed to. He enjoy the various tools and the broad range of marks they are capable of making. He feels also that British print-making is still suffering from an inferiority complex and, though things are improving there is still a feeling that it's a secondary activity, some way behind painting, drawing and sculpture in status. Part of his interest in the medium he admits, is a kind of crusade to put British print on the map.
Another interesting aspect of Davies' work is his insistence on working in series, an idea he attributes to looking at early Hockney. A 'series' explores an idea by adopting a narrative approach, the works being designed to be shown together, each one relating to the others both in terms of the content, and in terms of the print process employed. Although the huge 'No Surrender' series is an exception, invariably Davies uses only one print process for an entire series, and his virtuosity and command of the medium is such that he can move effortlessly from Lino and woodcut, to etching and drypoint, and into lithography. He confesses that "it keeps me entertained, the idea of working in one medium then changing to another".
Each series then stands as a complete work in itself, but made up of a number of smaller works, each of which deals with a part of the idea. The individual pieces are successful images in their own right, and taken out of context can provide us with a tantalising key-hole view of what we sense is a much larger panorama. In context, as a series, they give us a multi-faceted picture of a very big subject. Perhaps the size of the subject requires a series approach? Davies confesses that the scale of print-making, governed by the size of the press can be a problem. Perhaps the series is a way of extending the scale of the medium in much the same way as the photographers Davies admires will exhibit sets of images dealing with a particular theme? Together the series can make a point which the individual images can only hint at.
Anthony Davies' studio is still in Northern Ireland and when he is not teaching in colleges in England, he likes to spend as much time as possible working on new prints. Now in his mid-forties, he is aware of 'time slipping by' and the need to make maximum use of his access to the studio. He observes:
"Being an artist is so much down to the individual. It's a very long life, there is no instant success that's what I like about it - it is done over a very long period of time. It can help you in lots of ways, for me it's a very spiritual thing, it's helped me through some bad times and, at the end of the day, you've still got your work. But if you're going to do it and be successful, it's seven days a week really. It's good, you can meet some great people, visit some great places, but it's 95% hard graft when it comes down to it!"
In conversation, one finds Davies returning again and again to the experience of Northern Ireland, and the problems faced by the people who live there. It is not just his studio which draws him to the province. He admires particularly, the Belfast women for their strong personalities and ability to come with almost impossible situations. He is sympathetic towards the young people and the pressure they are under to become involved in the violence, and he is aware of the constant pressure of the security forces..."They are evident, wherever you go they are evident. You can't get away from it."
In the catalogue for Davies' recent exhibition at the Orchard Gallery in Belfast, Declan McGonagle wrote:
"Never one to remain the distanced observer, the underlying strength if Davies' work comes from his sometimes painful participation in life"
The statement rings true, despite Davies' insistence that he is just a 'voyeur'. He describes his work as "social-political with the accent on the social". He is deeply involved in politics but has no affiliation to any political party. He feels that his job is to observe and comment on what he sees, and yet, the pictures betray a warmth and a concern for the plight of his subjects. Filled with incident, his prints report back from the front line, giving us an insight into the ways in which the everyday life of the people is affected by the 'troubles'. In a sense, Davies is a war artist - communicating his feelings about his experiences through his prints..."living in other people's space, feeling the intimidation, the atmosphere...hearing the helicopter". He wants to try to understand what it is like to try to lead a peaceful life in the midst of strife, and his work gives us portraits of people cast in different rules, but all of them desperately trying to cope with events which are beyond their control. His work is a mirror. In it we see ourselves in different circumstances.
We see ourselves as victims.
And yet, when Anthony Davies said he is "completely preoccupied" with it, he means just that.
His work deals consciously and directly with the disadvantaged and vulnerable members of our society, the ones why are surviving, defiantly: against the odds, or buckling under the strain, submitting to the situation they find themselves in, "the alienation of the young and unqualified, the old and frail, urban decay resulting in homelessness, violence and social upheaval." Davies is concerned about these issues: they form the content of his work.
In the 1990s, Anthony Davies was given the opportunity to live and work in Northern Ireland, initially through a teaching post at Belfast Polytechnic. His interest in the affairs of the province had been aroused for some time, but the death of the first IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands, committed him to exploring what was actually happening at first hand. He explains:
"There were lots of events happening around the world - lots of things happening in South Africa, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Beirut, Palestine, and I thought 'this is happening on my doorstep'. Lots of people seemed to go around making comments, which we all see through a screen, a TV screen and the media. I just wanted to make some sort of comment on that."
He moved his print-making studio from South Wales to Belfast and started to look at the way the people of Northern Ireland were affected by the troubles. Not just the politicians, the media, the people with power, but the people who found themselves involved simply because they lived there; people who had no influence over the events which had trapped them - the victims.
Initially, 'witnessing at first hand' meant visiting the homes of the residents, exploring the towns getting 'inside' the place and because he was an artist - commenting but not directly involved - he felt that the whole of the province was open to him. For Anthony Davies, there was no such thing s a 'no-go' area. Wherever he looked, he found the disadvantaged, people who did not fit into the ideal mould purveyed by advertising; where everybody is beautiful, size 10, has a house and at least one car. In the homes of the people of Belfast, Davies found that people can be beautiful in different ways, and he was drawn to their strength and resilience.
"I am interested in people who are vulnerable - as I am. I am a very emotional person- if I look at my own predicament - and my financial situation is an absolute joke, but I never seem to care too much about that. I get a lot more affected by other people; people who have stood very little chance in life; handicapped people.
There are people who haven't been given as much in life as others, and they should be helped - automatically."
The actual process Davies employs to research and then design his images is complex. He describes himself as a complete mercenary, using whatever material he feels is relevant to the content of his work. He will make use of drawings, newspapers, photographs, books, and even once hired someone to take photographs of Derry so it was not seen in a tourist role. From this material, he will start to 'throw things around' working out compositions.
Two main influences feed into the work affecting its form: the first from college days where his tutors Bill Crozier, and John Bellany introduced him to the work of the German Expressionists Beckman, Gorsz, Dix and Ensor, and the second, more recent, has been a fascination with the work of war photographers like Robert Capa and Don McCullin.
"I admire the person with the camera who can go into a situation, however perilous, and obtain an image - a moment in history."
How then, does all this information actually manifest as an image or series of images? Davies explains:
"By what I call a vision, and sometimes it can all be a bit naff. With lots of projects it can go round in your mind for six months, a year, two years, then you suddenly have the idea to put something down - it's fairly brutal. The whole thing about being intuitive is that you actually have the confidence to put an image down and make it work for you."
Putting an image down involves drawing directly onto the Lino, wood, etching plate, or litho stone with little preliminary designing. He greatly values the spontaneity such a medium affords, and yet spontaneity is not something normally associated with print-making, given the lengthy technical process involved. Nevertheless, print-making in all its forms is what Davies is committed to. He enjoy the various tools and the broad range of marks they are capable of making. He feels also that British print-making is still suffering from an inferiority complex and, though things are improving there is still a feeling that it's a secondary activity, some way behind painting, drawing and sculpture in status. Part of his interest in the medium he admits, is a kind of crusade to put British print on the map.
Another interesting aspect of Davies' work is his insistence on working in series, an idea he attributes to looking at early Hockney. A 'series' explores an idea by adopting a narrative approach, the works being designed to be shown together, each one relating to the others both in terms of the content, and in terms of the print process employed. Although the huge 'No Surrender' series is an exception, invariably Davies uses only one print process for an entire series, and his virtuosity and command of the medium is such that he can move effortlessly from Lino and woodcut, to etching and drypoint, and into lithography. He confesses that "it keeps me entertained, the idea of working in one medium then changing to another".
Each series then stands as a complete work in itself, but made up of a number of smaller works, each of which deals with a part of the idea. The individual pieces are successful images in their own right, and taken out of context can provide us with a tantalising key-hole view of what we sense is a much larger panorama. In context, as a series, they give us a multi-faceted picture of a very big subject. Perhaps the size of the subject requires a series approach? Davies confesses that the scale of print-making, governed by the size of the press can be a problem. Perhaps the series is a way of extending the scale of the medium in much the same way as the photographers Davies admires will exhibit sets of images dealing with a particular theme? Together the series can make a point which the individual images can only hint at.
Anthony Davies' studio is still in Northern Ireland and when he is not teaching in colleges in England, he likes to spend as much time as possible working on new prints. Now in his mid-forties, he is aware of 'time slipping by' and the need to make maximum use of his access to the studio. He observes:
"Being an artist is so much down to the individual. It's a very long life, there is no instant success that's what I like about it - it is done over a very long period of time. It can help you in lots of ways, for me it's a very spiritual thing, it's helped me through some bad times and, at the end of the day, you've still got your work. But if you're going to do it and be successful, it's seven days a week really. It's good, you can meet some great people, visit some great places, but it's 95% hard graft when it comes down to it!"
In conversation, one finds Davies returning again and again to the experience of Northern Ireland, and the problems faced by the people who live there. It is not just his studio which draws him to the province. He admires particularly, the Belfast women for their strong personalities and ability to come with almost impossible situations. He is sympathetic towards the young people and the pressure they are under to become involved in the violence, and he is aware of the constant pressure of the security forces..."They are evident, wherever you go they are evident. You can't get away from it."
In the catalogue for Davies' recent exhibition at the Orchard Gallery in Belfast, Declan McGonagle wrote:
"Never one to remain the distanced observer, the underlying strength if Davies' work comes from his sometimes painful participation in life"
The statement rings true, despite Davies' insistence that he is just a 'voyeur'. He describes his work as "social-political with the accent on the social". He is deeply involved in politics but has no affiliation to any political party. He feels that his job is to observe and comment on what he sees, and yet, the pictures betray a warmth and a concern for the plight of his subjects. Filled with incident, his prints report back from the front line, giving us an insight into the ways in which the everyday life of the people is affected by the 'troubles'. In a sense, Davies is a war artist - communicating his feelings about his experiences through his prints..."living in other people's space, feeling the intimidation, the atmosphere...hearing the helicopter". He wants to try to understand what it is like to try to lead a peaceful life in the midst of strife, and his work gives us portraits of people cast in different rules, but all of them desperately trying to cope with events which are beyond their control. His work is a mirror. In it we see ourselves in different circumstances.
We see ourselves as victims.