Louise Wallace won the Oil Award in Jackson’s Art Prize this year with her work Pond Nite Life. In this interview, Louise shares her approach to colour and light, how she makes sense of composition, and the advice she received in art college that still informs her painting practice today.
Above image: Louise in her studio
Pond Nite Life, 2022
Louise Wallace
Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm | 20.8 x 25.1 in
Josephine: Could you tell us about your artistic background?
Louise: I studied law before art college. By the time I graduated, I knew that I didn’t want to be a lawyer so I started playing music in bands instead. I did that for five years and finally found my way back to art. I loved art at school so my boyfriend bought me life drawing lessons for my 28th birthday. It was such a great present, I ended up taking a degree in painting and marrying the boyfriend. I was about ten years older than most of the other art students but it meant that I realised how invaluable my time on the degree course was. I just loved every part of it: the studio hours, the art history lectures, the life room. I learned how to stretch and prime canvas; how to mix pigment and make painting mediums; the drying times of different colours. It was all alchemy and magic, especially after the book-heavy years in the law library. I moved straight from undergraduate studies to a PhD. Shortly after finishing my doctorate, I took up a position as a lecturer in painting. So basically, I started at Belfast School of Art as a student in 1999 and never left. I consider myself very lucky.
Painting bungalow windows.
Josephine: What does a typical working day in the studio look like for you? Do you have any important routines or rituals?
Louise: I get up early to run most mornings, no matter the weather. Then I have my breakfast and take the dog for a walk. All these daily rituals help clear my head for the work ahead. My studio is at the bottom of the garden and I take a coffee down with me. I will also stick some sort of sweets in my apron – ideally marshmallows. I had a toffee phase for a while but that’s over now.
Preparing to paint.
I put music on straight away, as soon as I close the door of the studio. It is often new music that gets me into the studio in the first place. I look forward to hearing a particular song or band. I get the marshmallows out and look at whatever I was painting the day before. I might also look at some art books or move drawings and objects about in the studio. All this is quite an elaborate preamble to starting to paint! Some days I don’t paint at all and that’s ok. I just look or think or mix colours or cut shapes out of paper. If I do have a painting day, then I work without a break for about four hours. It’s usually hunger that makes me stop. Once I stop, I am done for the day. I’m not one of those painters who goes back after dinner. I can’t reheat the souffle! Instead, I clean the brushes and turn the paintings to face the wall so they aren’t all looking at me when I go in the next morning.
Louise’s studio at the bottom of the garden.
Josephine: Which materials or tools could you not live without?
Louise: My stencils are very important to me. It sounds crazy because they are just random shapes cut out of paper but I have built up this library of forms for a few years now. They get used over and over and are covered in different colours. By extension, my scissors are important and I use them as another drawing instrument. Like any painter, my tubes of paint are perhaps the most important things in the studio. I use Michael Harding oil paints and I keep them in two large storage boxes under my palette. I spend a lot of money on paint. I love the Amy Sillman essay where she compares the value of Cadmium Red Light oil paint to other luxury items including gold, a mink coat, cocaine, and an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She concludes that the oil paint is ultimately more valuable if your unit of measurement is one hour of pleasure. There are infinite hours of pleasure in looking at a painting. I regularly buy those tester pots of household paint in a vast array of colours. They are great for working on paper and for collage work. The great thing is that they are cheap! I always encourage the painting students to buy those tester pots.
Josephine: What are the stages of your work on a painting? Do you make drafts?
Louise: I start with an underpainting in an earth colour, usually Yellow Ochre or Raw Umber. I draw positive and negative shapes into the underpainting while it is still wet. I like this slippy stage of the painting when anything seems possible and there are no mistakes. Well, the only mistake you can make here is to make the composition too large or small for the canvas. That does happen from time to time. Then the underpainting gets rubbed back and I start over. Once I am satisfied with this beginning, I try to get another painting underway. I like to have at least three paintings in development at once. This means I won’t be too precious about any single one. Plus they help each other as they develop. Like siblings.
After underpainting, I put down some high-key colours such as Napthol Red or Turquoise or Bright Yellow Lake. I know that if the painting becomes dark in places eventually, these brighter colours will live underneath and illuminate the whole. My tutor in college is a brilliant painter called David Crone and he once told me ‘If you put something down, move it’. He also told me frequently that I needed to loosen up. So now, if I put something down in the underpainting, I do seem to eventually move it – and that has loosened me up! I certainly realise now after over twenty years of painting that I can’t control the surface and that I need to listen to what the painting wants.
New works in progress
Josephine: Do you regularly draw or keep a sketchbook? If so, how does this inform your work?
Louise: Drawing really is fundamental to my studio work. I do look at photos but only when I am thinking about a drawing. Once the drawing is in process, I forget about the source photos. One drawing leads to another; a shape or an idea in one will get revisited and reworked in the next. I try to be very open and playful with the drawings so bizarre shapes and cartoony forms emerge. I cut up work to make collaged drawings and pin them all up around the studio. I find that having these works in my peripheral vision will help me when I am stuck in a painting. I also draw when I am in the middle of a difficult painting. Sometimes something fast can happen on paper that will resolve a sticky patch in a painting
Josephine: Have you ever had a period of stagnation in creativity? If so, what helped you overcome it?
Louise: It is inevitable to feel that the tank is empty sometimes. I can definitely relate to that. When there is a natural lull in the studio, it’s a great opportunity to get out, and leave the studio behind! Travel somewhere, walk on a beach, sit in a pub. Go and see an exhibition or visit a museum. Studio visits with friends and fellow artists are always inspiring. We are all struggling and questioning what we do. Chatting with fellow painters puts this into perspective. I would add that there are so many great resources online now for painters and I love listening to artists in conversation. Tal R is always very entertaining, always comparing painting to a melting ice cream or a stone in the shoe…it’s like Zen meditation for painters.
Josephine: Are there any specific artists or mentors who have inspired you?
Louise: I am inspired by painters who have been working for a long time, who show up to the studio no matter what and still keep pushing forward. Susan Connolly, Sharon Kelly, Sinead Aldridge, Mary T Keown, Majella Clancy, Patricia Doherty, Jennifer Trouton, Joy Gerrard, Alacoque Davey, Fiona Finnegan, Hannah Casey-Brogan, Catherine McWilliams. I’ve been a lecturer in painting for nearly 18 years now and the painting students, past and present, are always a source of inspiration. They sometimes miss the value of their mistakes – but I don’t! I think you have to keep seeking out trouble. Painting should be difficult! So an enthusiastic student who keeps finding themselves in trouble is a great source of energy to be around. In terms of painting’s history, there are artists that I look at constantly when I need a helping hand: Manet, Matisse, Munch.
Josephine: How did it feel to realise you had won the Oil Award?
Louise: The news was incredible and came through quite quickly. In the space of a couple of days I went from longlist to shortlist to award winner. I am so grateful to the judges and the Jackson’s team. The best thing about this award is the big box of oil paints that I received from Michael Harding. So many colours – a real opportunity to experiment. I am already testing Bright Green Lake which is a new colour to me. As an underpainting, it creates a weird, spectral light, almost fluorescent. The drying time is proving tricky though… new challenges in the studio!
Golden Delicious, 2022
Louise Wallace
Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm | 20.8 x 25.1 in
Josephine: Pond Nite Life uses sumptuous areas of colour to create an abstracted nocturne. Do you work from a reference of a physical place (in this case, a pond at night), or do you start with an abstract colour painting and then use the title to interpret the marks in a way that sets a scene?
Louise: I work in both of these ways. Right now in the studio, I have a work in progress that has a definite place in mind. However, Pond Nite Life was a long and difficult painting to make and I didn’t really know what it was or where it was until right at the end of making. That was across the first 18 months or so of the pandemic. Maybe that’s why the painting feels quite claustrophobic to me. It’s a dream about getting together to dance to music. There are garden shrubs in the foreground that I imagined were throwing shapes at a rave. That was how I finally made sense of the composition: a garden comes to life in the darkness and the pond is the epicentre of a bizarre nocturnal party.
Late Nite Lemons, 2022
Louise Wallace
Oil on canvas and painted wood, 38 x 44 cm | 14.9 x 17.3 in
Josephine: The blues in Pond Nite Life really sing. How do you get your colours so vibrant?
Louise: I try to hold onto as much ascending light as possible, coming from a bright underpainting and then layering high-key colours on top. The blues in this painting are made from Ultramarine Blue and Magenta; quite straightforward colour mixing. Perhaps the thing that turns up the intensity overall is to play those blues off other complimentary or antagonistic colours – Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Orange, and Venetian Red. I always try to think through colour relationships when I am developing a painting – the colours underneath and the colours that sit together on the surface. It can be tricky. You start the painting already trying to think about the end composition – and yet stay open to other possible avenues as the painting effectively ‘makes itself’.
Gut Weather, 2022
Louise Wallace
Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm | 20.8 x 25.1 in
Josephine: What’s coming up next for you?
Louise: I am working on a new series of works in the studio and hope to make some ceramic sculptures soon. I would like to make some weird, monstrous garden statues with too many eyes and distorted body parts – a wonky Roman mythology via the garden centre. That’s one of the great privileges of working in an art college: access to a variety of workshops and fantastic technicians. There will be an extended review of my last exhibition Midnight Feast at The MAC (Belfast) published in the Journal of Contemporary Painting soon by a brilliant writer/artist Shirley MacWilliam so I am thrilled about that.
Louise Wallace in her studio.
I also have to say that there are so many world-class artists flying under the radar in the north of Ireland because we have fallen between two stools: art production in the south of Ireland and England. We do tend to get overlooked as a community of painters. All it takes is one enterprising curator to make the trip to the north and see what we have all been up to, making our own rules and creating art simply for the love of the thing. There is a lot to be said for flying under the radar! Consider this an open invitation to come and visit us.
Further Reading
Angelina Davis: The Edges of Feeling
Daylight Studio Lighting: Lumi Task Lamp Review
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