Lubaina Himid at Porthmeor Studios, St.Ives UK

 Lubaina Himid talking at Porthmeor Studios. May 23rd 2023

 

Lubaina Himid is an engaging speaker - a Professor of art and winner of the Turner prize and no stranger to St Ives, where she said trying to paint the sea from observation was what first showed her the allure of paint. She feels like an imposter since she was never taught how to paint but I don’t think students have been taught any painting techniques on fine art courses since 1970?
Here in the daylight lit high ceilinged studio with no sea view she has felt free of the attractions of naturalism and her love of simplified bright shapes is clear.
She says galleries don’t have such daylight and rarely light shows well.

Most of the large works were from a series called ‘street sellers’ and are destined to be shown in New York.
The images of the black sellers of baskets, shells and ribbons, or chickens, relate to the black figures included in eighteenth century British paintings such as by Hogarth, where often black figures were slaves, included without concern for their plight. Lubaina thinks about what it’s like to be a street seller performing , connecting with passers-by in a different way from shop sellers. It made me think of all those black sellers of stuff I have encountered on Greek beaches about whose lives I have found out so little.
Lubaina often paints the backgrounds before the figures and she operates as if she knows these people. She speaks of dialogue between figures and of moments where decisions are made after which one’s life goes in a direction as a result.
She says the chicken seller, who has no chickens and whose baskets are too open to keep a chicken enclosed is ‘kind of broken hearted’.
We learn all sorts of fascinating and amusing details about various other works, about how this artist is always looking to try out new things, thinking and feeling in various directions like her cast of characters.
Afterwards Lubaina Himid answered questions very thoughtfully.

I noticed she did not pause before telling us about the content to ask what we understood from the images with no further information. I am always keen to find out what I have communicated via images because I hope to get some things over clearly and to hear reactions which can show surprising other interpretations from my intentions.
Lubaina is so successful now and maybe doesn’t care to find out what we understand.
As so often happens I don’t think the wealth of ideas and feelings she puts into her work can be received by looking at it.

The delicious soup afterwards and lively conversations made it a really pleasant occasion where artists and others meet to enjoy art in St Ives.
(It was a pity it started half an hour late with no explanation or apology.)




 

Two talks, Lubaina Himid and Nashashibi and Skaer

Lubaina Himid, Turner Prize Winner, talk at Pothmeor Studios, St.Ives Cornwall, 2018

Lubaina Himid speaks well. The moment she began I relaxed into the absolute pleasure of hearing

a well prepared talk by someone who can speak clearly with wit and also was adept at answering

various complicated questions at the end before we milled about with delicious soup provided

afterwards.

Lubaina Himid has taught at the University of Central Lancashire at Preston for a long time and

has been working also as an artist since 1981. Because of this busy life she found her residency at

Tate St.Ives in the 90's, when Mike Tooby was director, very valuable as a space and time for

uninterrupted concentration. She returns to work at Porthmeor studios next Spring and will give

more talks and invite people in to see her work in progress.

Her themes have included slavery, fear and dread, safety and survival, and her media have been

various, including wooden figures and painting on ceramics she found, or on wooden carts or on

drawers.

Inspired by two piece East African clothing called 'tangas', which use text and image, she has

produced work including philosophy and politics and seeking an audience that imaginatively

respond. Often she allows the audience to touch or move elements of the installation. Lubaina

trained as a theatre designer and wants to communicate.

Recently Lubaina was at the Guardian for 3 days, one of the many opportunities now open to her

since winning the Turner prize. She has long collected all the pages of the Guardian that feature

images of black people and she has used them to make work that draws attention to the

unthinkingly insensitive juxtapositions that happen because no one is noticing how the pages work

together.

Lubaina Himid told us that in the past her work was often made for shows in museums, referencing

their collections. Often she considered throwing out works because they were taking up space but

luckily was persuaded to keep them. Now that she is a famous Turner prize winner galleries are

keen to have her shows, allowing greater freedom to work in ways that museums cannot because

they need to be so careful of their objects.

At Folkestone Trienale Lubaina Himid showed 100 life size cut out freestanding figures, each of a

black slave with their real name, their slave name and their circumstances written on them. Visitors

could walk amongst them.

We saw an accompanying slide show of works, often brightly coloured, lively figures, always with

important ideas in the making, with consciousness of dire situations in life, but hopes for people to

work to improve society.

I was very impressed.

Tate St.Ives talk by Nashashibi and Skaer on their exhibition, October 2018

The audience persuaded the organiser that we would rather see the screen images than have light

stream in and that she needed to speak louder.The speakers were introduced by the curator who

said their names so rapidly that I did not get which was which. The speakers had not trained to use

microphones or to be animated and their delivery was tentative and glacier-like.

These two ex Turner nominees work together on projects using other peoples' art to prompt their

responses. I think of this as what Griselda Polock described as 'an avant-garde gambit' and I also

note the trendy a la Tacita Dean use of analogue film, then often translated to digital video.

The artists have the jargon, 'transgression', 'male gaze' etc., they have some ideas, but talking of

symbolic gestures I feel like making one because it's years since I felt so bored and I leave wanting

to scream. I sympathise with the priest at Matisse' Vence chapel who co-operated with them

wearily.

Afterwards I went round the show.

It's an excuse to bring us a lot of interesting paintings from the Tate and elsewhere, Bonnard,

Gauguin, Nash, Sickert, the Lee Miller photo of her in Hitler's bath, etc. The artists have been to

New York to take photos of museum objects at night, to Hongkong to film the ex-British consul and

to Tahiti to shoot where Gauguin painted. They have selected all sorts of art with vague

connections. Their videos are so slow moving that I couldn't watch them through.They have

selected a few  contemporary women artists none of whom are very attention grabbing.

Aaaaarrghhhh!