Artists_amp_amp_Illustrators__July_2016_

SURFACE AREA

Working on a grand scale in

his studio, Bill gets through

his fair share of palettes

PAGE BY PAGE

The artist recently turned a

collection of his works into

a book, Bill Jacklin: New

York, Scala Arts Publishers,

£19.95

What’s your approach to light in your paintings now?

I don’t sit in front of something and paint alla prima;

it’s not what I do. I always see it coming out of a

European tradition; if Turner could paint big scenes on

his kitchen table, I can do the same thing, but it’s an

emotive force. Light is an emotive force. When people

at the Royal Academy asked Turner about light, he

said he was a meteorologist to get out of the situation.

But it’s about the movement of form and light. It’s

about language, and it’s an abstraction.

With the crowd paintings of New York, is it true that

you don’t start with a composition?

I usually start with a sense of place. I have to have

said, ‘I was there’. What I am actually painting about is

the relationship. Whoever you meet, what you’re aware

of is the relationship you had with someone. That is

the food that you remember, the emotional food that

comes from a discussion with someone or meeting

them... From a painting point of view, I couldn’t have

painted Coney Island unless I actually spent three

months there in the summer, which I did.

A sense of place is a powerful resonance.

Are there any painters you feel an affinity to?

I’ve liked lots of painters for different reasons, without

wanting to be them, and that’s about

friendship, isn’t it? I have a friend who always

speaks from her intellectual centre, and I

can’t do that, but I love that person for

thinking that way. Certain painters come from

that place. You can get the opposites of

Lucian Freud to Howard Hodgkin to RB Kitaj,

and they all have something I might want to

grab and dissect and say, ‘well, you know,

how can that be useful to me?’ I think all

artists do that.

Bill’s solo show runs at the Marlborough Fine Art

Gallery, London, until 7 June, and wll be followed

by an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts,

3 June to 28 August 2016. http://www.bjacklin.com

IN THE STUDIO

IF TURNER COULD PAINT BIG SCENES

AT HIS KITCHEN TABLE, I CAN DO THE SAME

Artists & Illustrators 27

26 In the Studio.indd 27 12/05/2016 10:35