Who are the artists who have inspired your work?
Oh definitely painterly painters!
Masaccio, El Greco, Rembrandt, Chardin, Pissarro, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh. I love the spontaneity of Chardin (he often used his thumb when he was painting) and also the immediacy of El Greco who painted with great speed. El Greco’s View of Toledo is my favourite landscape painting.
Van Gogh produced some of the most beautiful painter’s drawings in existence. I have visited the asylum in St. Remy, near Arles, where Van Gogh was confined and Auvers-sur-Oise, where he spent the last few months of his life. His paintings, drawings and letters continue to inspire and influence my work.
The contre-jour paintings of Pissarro are also important to me. When I was at Camberwell, Ben Levene took me to Lordship Lane in Dulwich, to paint on the exact spot that Pissarro had painted the station in 1871.
Regular visits to museums and galleries vivify my work. I have recently returned from Italy where I saw the beautiful Giotto cycle of frescos at the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. I also visited the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan to see paintings by Mantegna,Giovanni Bellini, Raphael, Caravaggio and Tintoretto.
Like many other artists, it is important to challenge the influence of other artist’s work in order to get to something that is new.
How do you think your work has developed over time?
Mainly through colour. My colour palette is less subdued. I give more consideration to colours in counterpoint to each other. Colour temperature varies with different lighting conditions and I now use a brighter palette with more Cadmiums. I’ve added Cremnitz White which has allowed me to soften skies in a low light. My landscapes have become less ‘umbrified’.
I also dilute my oil paints a lot more. Nowadays, I begin with the colour and work on several canvases at the same time in order to take advantage of the changing light. I use pastels more when working outdoors in the landscape.
The scale of my drawings has changed. My smaller pleinair drawings were often scaled up in the studio to make medium sized drawings. However, over the last two years I have been drawing on a much larger scale, up to 6 feet.
You worked as an art teacher. How was that experience and how did it impact your work as an artist?
In hindsight, teacher-training has been the kiss of death for many artists. So many of them are forced into teaching, either full or part- time, as it is nearly impossible to get enough money from the sale of their work.
After I completed my studies, I worked as a lecturer in Art at St.Joseph’s Teacher Training College and also at St.Mary’s University College in Belfast. Later, I became Head of Art at St. Louise’s Comprehensive College in Belfast, which at the time, was the largest single-sex school in Europe. I didn’t have to wear a tie as the Principal was more interested in what was in my head rather than what was round my neck. Art was given great support at the school and the art department had a substantial budget.
St.Louise’s was extremely fortunate to have, Vernon Carter, as a member of its art staff who was there when I first arrived. Vernon was a charismatic, inspirational, groundbreaking art teacher and a multi-skilled artist. I learned a lot from him.
There were so many talented art students. Some of them went on to study at Camberwell College of Art, the Royal College of Art, The Royal Academy, Rome and Florence.
Northern Ireland has an unjust education system. It is backward and divisive. It secures privilege and creates discrimination. It is about ring-fencing middle-class children and keeping them from having daily contact with working-class children. It is based on discredited psychometric tests which brand children failures at the age of 11. For sure, teaching in this rotten system impacted, considerably, my work as an artist.
To see more work by the artist, John Price – see the following link – www.johnpriceartist.com
