ARTIST INTERVIEW: ALISON MITCHELL
Alison Hannaford
Please introduce yourself. How have you developed your passion for art into a career?
Alison Mitchell. I’m a visual artist from rural South Australia, working from life and predominantly in oils and watercolour. I was born in Malaysia (British father, Malay mother) and we migrated to Australia in ’65 when I was 2 years old. Whilst my parents didn’t overly encourage my early affinity for drawing/painting, they provided me with a stable, healthy and richly diverse childhood that gave me enough confidence to pursue life without fear of failure and with an independent sense of self that has been helpful.
I consider my ‘passion for art’ as a ‘calling’ rather than a career though. I am an artist partly because I always managed to backtrack out of situations or work that took me away from a creative path. My 20’s and 30’s were spent sign writing, painting murals, body and face painting and taking on illustration/design gigs to enable me to raise 3 daughters – all things that I could do whilst painting part time and that also enabled me to develop the skills that I still use today. I considered options such as teaching or academia but whether consciously or not, have always chosen to pursue art, despite it being such an unpredictable way to earn a living. The first solo exhibition that I had in a gallery in the 90’s, (mostly watercolour nudes from life drawing sessions I attended regularly) sold well and I guess that gave me some confidence to persist.
Why is your work centered around still life, in particular domestic objects? What are the characteristics of an interesting subject to paint?
With still life there is some control over the light source, the space and the conditions in the studio. I paint what surrounds me, which seems to be an expanding mass of accumulated objects and what grows in the garden. Seeing subject matter, as a shape of a particular tone and colour, placed against another tone and colour, or a soft edge against another shape, rather than as a named object, helps me with the process of visual resemblance. When the subjects are not named they do not lose meaning but they become easier to understand visually. When the words get omitted, the painting can begin, so in a way it doesn’t really matter what the object is that is being painted.
That said, of course I have an affinity with certain things and I have my own, slightly vague, set of meanings. Jugs for instance usually bring to my mind the act of ‘sharing’, butter knives – a sense of impotence, being blunt and non threatening – and on it goes, nothing too concrete though. Also, the interplay between objects and the negative spaces created gives some sort of meaning, perhaps.
I like still life with its ‘humble’ positioning within the art genre hierarchy, and am content to continue exploring its potential. If I lived in a city I’d probably paint people more regularly and turn my attention to buses and buildings too – but I tend to paint what’s at hand and I live surrounded by vast acreages of cropping land, a little, old farmhouse, a vegetable garden and lots of ‘stuff’ on my shelves.
I’ve been told that my still lifes induce a meditative sense of calm and that they ‘vibrate with stillness’. I like that, if that is what they evoke.
What ignites your imagination? What inspired your most recent artwork?
I enjoy working on a body of work or a series as a coherent whole. I’ve had ‘Still Water’ which focused on still life seen through clear water-filled vessels, and vicariously the importance of water, not just to me (an avid swimmer) but to life on this planet. Then, ‘Unlemon’ in the Museum of Economic Botany, SA which told a ‘meandering tale of citrus’ – its history, its diseases, its pertinent place in Australian flora and the relevance of the curling lemon peel in Dutch seventeenth century still life paintings – which continued on to exhibit around Australia in a tour of regional art galleries. My most recent show, ‘one wild and precious past’, May – July 28 2024, is at the Hahndorf Academy in the Adelaide Hills. This one delves into my own personal history with its confluence of two cultures and includes musings on Indonesian batik textiles, colonial attitudes to wildlife and the evidence of cross-cultural intermingling in depictions of material culture.
To me, a painting is like a poem or a song that, whilst standing perfectly well on its own, when it is part of a series or a coherent exhibition, becomes a book or an album, offering deeper meaning and discussion. So there is a narrative element to my work that ignites my imagination. However, right now, I’m painting a bunch of persimmons – it is their season - and those creamy pale orbs of orange with a bluish blooming tinge are so exquisitely incredible in their turgid, ripening fullness, that my urge to see and then translate them fully, to the best of my ability, is intense. I have no idea of where this artwork will take me.
Describe your creative process for creating one of your paintings. Is the end result more, or less important than the process?
I love being fully in the process of a work and totally absorbed – and I’m not sure it ever ends – what’s that line about a painting never being finished, only abandoned?
I go into my studio, which is up a short flight of steps in an old stone ex-milking shed. If I’m smart I’ll have set up a still life the day before, as this can sometimes take a lot of time – interchanging objects with imperceptible shifts until it feels right. I place a suitably sized canvas on my easel, alongside the subject(s) and around 2-3 paces from my palette table (an old computer desk). A few extra metres for a long view would be nice, but I don’t have that available. Then I just proceed, walking backward and forward, easel to palette. As I wasn’t taught in any art institution, I don’t have any set process or method. It is as if I know intuitively what should be done, but of course there are basic rules; broad shapes, not getting caught up in details, fat over lean…. sometimes I listen to music or the radio or silence – but I’m in my own world and time just falls away. I can work for hours and hours, in summer when the days are long, sometimes 10 or 12. Occasionally in winter the light isn’t good until midday so I do other things – prepare canvas, paint edges, screw in hanging wire or throw a ball for the dog. If I haven’t painted for a while though I get a visceral yearning, only eased by some painting.
Sometimes paintings need to be put away for a while, and then seen with a fresh eye, perhaps a slightly more objective eye. Working directly from life though, is the essence of my work. If I couldn’t work from life, I’d turn my attention to other creative pursuits.
Has your background in Anthropology informed your practise at all?
Probably not that much, though anthropology does offer an interesting lens through which to observe the machinations of the art world: the gallery industry and the art prize system and its structures, particularly taking into account Bourdieu’s concepts of fields of competition and ideas of Cultural and Symbolic Capital. It is always interesting to view the world as an outsider, as ‘an anthropologist from Mars’ so to speak and in a sense, that is the role of the artist, to see things from another viewpoint. The sub genre of ‘material culture’ always drew my attention too, which is interesting because that’s essentially what I paint. However, everything we have done or experienced informs the artist we become – so anthropology probably has informed me, even if it’s at a subconscious level.
Out of all your work, which piece are you most proud of, and why?
Ooo no I couldn’t say. My works are like children, if I put one before another they might get jealous.
If you could spend a day with an artist; dead or alive, who would it be, and why?
I actually live with one of Australia’s foremost realist painters, my husband, Robert Hannaford and we have a close working companionship, and I know that there’d be quite a number of artists in Australia who’d like to spend a day watching him work - so I’m aware of how good it is to have another artist’s honest feedback at hand.
Someone I don’t know though …. So many…
Ones I’d just like to ask a question or two of, such as Goya. Is the man being executed in ’The 3rd of May’ the same man stabbing the horse in ‘The 2nd of May’?
I’d like to go sketching at the Paris horse markets with Rosa Bonheur, wearing our pantalons and cussing. I’d like to watch Henri Fantin Latour or William Nicholson for a while and there is a contemporary UK painter, Ben Henriques, whose work I greatly admire, I’d like to visit his studio.
What has been your greatest achievement so far as an artist? What are your future aspirations?
I’m not sure I’ve achieved much. I’ve never won a big prize or been singled out in any way. Whilst I’ve been a finalist in many art competitions and once, out of the blue, was invited and exhibited in New York, these aren’t really achievements. But I am consistent, maybe even persistent, and I’ve had 34 solo exhibitions (which surprised me when I counted) and numerous group exhibitions and to me it seems like a real achievement when someone just notices my work, really looks at it and appreciates something that I’ve done or is moved by it. It’s definitely the little things.
In the future I’d just like to keep painting, keep seeing things – improve. Oh, I know, I’d like to have an exhibition in the UK!
Why do you think art is important in society?
Art isn’t important in society, at least not important like stopping deforestation or species extinction is important. Or animal rights or sustainability, or ending wars and famine. It IS important if it helps people to reconsider and re-imagine the world in a better way. Art is important if it reconnects us, either by doing or appreciating, if it reconnects us to ourselves, to each other and to other, gentler ways of perception.
