ARTIST INTERVIEW: Daniel Shadbolt
Daniel Shadbolt
Tell me about yourself, what inspired you to become an artist?
I’m 42, I am from Hertfordshire and I live and work in London. I was encouraged to make art since I was at school. It was the expressivity of the activity of painting that absorbed me, since I was young. In other words, it was the exploratory process of painting that inspired me to keep making new paintings.
What type of art do you create and what motivates you to create it? When did you develop your style?
I paint portraits, still lifes, landscapes and interiors. Spending my time observing, mixing colours and painting, motivates me to continue and to try out new ideas. My style has become more abstracted over the years as a result of two things; one is the simplification of what I see, in order to be able to paint it and the other is in the technique of painting, breaking down the painting process and arriving at a simplified expression.
There are many of your works that depict a human figure, what is it that interests you about the human body? How do you achieve a likeness, whilst having an abstract approach?
Portraits were the first subject to interest me. I drew and painted friends and family. Seeing figures in other artists’ work made me want to try to paint them myself. Painting still life helped me to develop my observational methods and painting language. I paint from life. I look at a person as closely, as if I were intending to paint a photographic likeness but when I paint, the application has a more abstracted feel. I concentrate on observing the relationships of colour that I see and this is what I want a picture to be made of.
What do you believe are the key elements producing the perfect composition?
I think if there is a way in for the eye, through the foreground, if there is an event of some kind in the middle, and if the background compliments and maybe bounces back the eye, then that might work. It can only ever be a question. I use overlap and perspective shifts in order to balance the whole effect as I want it.
You have talked previously about having a painting diary where you write notes about painting from life. What is the last note that you made?
It was about observing tone… “The most obvious method is to squint. When we close our eyes almost shut, the sensation of light is diminished so that we can see more clearly where the lightest areas are. You could also use a curtain or blind, so that there is slightly less light in the room. Reducing the intensity of the light helps our eye to identify the order of the tones” .
Tell me about your process for creating one of your works, where do you find your inspiration?
I can easily spend an hour testing out what subject matter and background would interest me for a still life. I then paint until I lose interest or get distracted. I follow one thought after another, wherever they lead. Begin new pictures. I return to subjects in order to get closer to what I was after. I get inspiration from specific light and subject combinations, mainly natural light. Sometimes I will paint from drawings.
Who is your favourite artist? If they were sat next to you right now, what would you ask them?
Paul Cezanne. I would ask him about his method of construction for the bathers pictures and how much they changed over time? Did he like any English painters?
What are your greatest achievements/challenges as an artist?
I think that painting is it’s own reward and that I can carry on painting, I think of as an achievement. The hardest challenge is to continue to be in the right frame of mind. To think always in paint. It is a receptive state. Ideally there will be movement of ideas. Either to see something and then to make it visible directly, or to build up a picture steadily over time.
Why do you think art is important in society?
Painting suspends the ordinary and can trigger contemplation. Society values paintings for what can be seen in them and painting allows and encourages personal interpretations.
