Drawing is a Different Language
An Interview with George Dawnay
Tell us a bit about yourself, both as a person, and as an artist. Do you remember the moment you fell in love with art, or was it a gradual process?
I was born in London. My father was a soldier, which meant we had to move around alot. My mother taught my siblings and I to paint and draw from an early age, she encouraged any interest we had in the arts. She was a working painter herself and her studio was our home- the smell of turpentine was always in the air, and there were hundreds of art books to study. She always said we had “the gift”. I apprenticed with a number of different artists. I studied at the Florence Academy of art where I learnt, primarily, to draw. It was only after I left school did I learn anything about what it is to paint.
2. Your technique is gorgeous — it seems like your work is fluid and visceral and extremely controlled simultaneously. Can you tell us about your process, from the beginning to the completion of a drawing?
Drawing, to me, is like a different language. I studied it tirelessly for years before a had any kind of fluency, so this might sound a little abstract to some. I work the whole piece at once as fast as I can so I don’t have time to think, I often listen to fast music to distract me from what I’m doing. The most successful pieces I have made, in my opinion, are ones in which I’m not really present, a bit like a dance.
F3. Are there any writers, artists or musicians that are an inspiration to you at the moment?
Right now I’m reading Karl Ove Knausgaard “My Struggle” — I’m not sure if it’s inspiring me but I cannot put it down. I’m looking at Mariano Fortuny’s watercolors at the moment — his virtuoso technique of describing form is only there to enhance the abstract qualities of the whole image. As far as music…. Nova Radio (Paris) and sometime Gladys Palmera (Barcelona) but only the vintage grooves.
4. Can you talk about the body of work currently in your studio? What did it evolve from, and where do you see this series going?
I have a body of work that I am in the process of framing for a show next Thursday called ”Unreal City” in Chattanooga Tennessee, at Gallery 1401. Dec7–29 . I work on many pieces at the same time — the pictures start quite abstract at first, and then I populate them with people, architecture and form. It’s a place for my imagination to run riot and to see them all together in one room framed and well lit will, hopefully, be transporting.
5. Is there any advice you wish someone had given you when you were just starting out on your career as an artist?
Your primary concern should be to create something you love. Clean your brushes.
