Exclusive interview with Nick Rolph . Brought to you by Antipoda  
Latest Artwork by © Nick Rolph 2005. Watch › one · two · three · four

Of late, painter and illustrator Nick Rolph is burning the midnight oil with a series of works on the subject of anesthesia. The rest of the time, he’s quite busy, thanks, with days of full-time work, housesitting in the country, and the management of what he terms “domestic wildlife.” We spoke by email.
Interviewed by Andrei Thompson Aug 25, 2005
Q · I’ve been looking at some of your earlier work, on the Antipoda website. Your range is very human, albeit broken up a bit by animals at portrait scale. How would you describe your preoccupations in terms of subject?

A · For me, painting and drawing are a means of understanding and reconstructing experiences or moments, whether of my life or of others. I am still a long way from understanding how to properly and intelligently represent my preoccupations and interests, but the human figure will do for now.
    In terms of the animal figure that runs in and out of my work: I think when you’re looking at nature in terms of the primal stuff, it’s innocence and violence. It’s nice to show those sides of the animal within us. Animal features can be a fantastic metaphor for commenting on human nature. We are still very much the animal, we just choose to ignore its presence inside us, in modern times I guess.
Q · Its hard to tell much about your materials from here. What are you working in?
A · I mostly work in acrylics and oil paint on board sometimes enamel. Lately I have been re-exploring inks and watercolors on paper a lot more as well.
Q · Do you have representation? What can you tell me about your exhibitions?

A · I have representation on an Illustration level through a Melbourne agency and in terms of my art over the last few years I have exhibited in galleries around Melbourne, mainly group shows. Currently I am about to have a small exhibition of ink drawings and paintings at St Vincent’s Hospital in Fitzroy, Melbourne, where I am an Artist in Residence. This is a program run by arts curator Julie Lewis over the last few years. It has been quite a new and unusual experience for me.
   I have been working with Professor Michael Davies, director of Department of Anesthesia, where I’ve been asked to document the role of anesthesia in the hospital process – it’s their fiftieth anniversary – through a series of drawings and paintings. It’s been an eye opener, to take my work out of my head and relate it to the very real and severe conditions of the hospital, and especially the surgery environment.
   I try to document and interpret the work of the anesthesia team: the people, the tools, and at times the quite graphic nature of the scenes as accurately as possible. I honestly thought it would be hard to capture this, say, picturesquely – but I’m very pleased with what has come out of it.
Q · What’s some art or culture or whatever that inspires you?
A · I’ve been inspired over the years by different artists both contemporary and past. I’ve always been interested in expressionist art, and work that moves between abstraction and realism. I guess there are a few artists I always seem to go back to for answers, at times anyway.
   I think, in the postwar, Francis Bacon is one of these. The first works of his I saw were “Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion” (1944), which were shocking to me at first with their monstrous features. Later I got hold of his complete works and became less shocked and more inspired – by his uniqueness – as I still am today. His style is very different: he occupies a comfortable ground between the abstract and the figurative. But there is a kind of uncomfortable friction in his work, balanced in quiet, negative space.
   There is always a human figure in mid-movement, which gives his painting energy. He creates a slight intimacy between the viewer and the character within the painting, which is always set awkwardly at the edge of an empty room or stark background. I think this kind of sums up the human condition for me at times. So I suppose his work has mildly inspired more my later work, such as my own studies or paintings of figures in movement, where I try to break the figure up between what is tangible – what you can see, or make out – and what is broken up, abstracted by the effects of movement on the eye.
   I am not really worthy of tying the man’s shoelaces, but I think my own works where I’ve dealt with human movement, such as the “Whatever” series from 2004 and the “Street Scenes” series from 2005, would suggest to me Bacon’s influence on me.
   I would also say I’m inspired by Australian artists such as the Antipodeans or Sydney Nolan for their sheer simplicity, intensity and ability to capture form and figure with the slightest effort.
Q · Well, okay. If I had to take a stab at saying what’s abstract about the figurative paintings from 2004, like “Falling” or “Tattooed man” or “Sitting girl,” I’d say it’s the color. I mean, these are plainly figurative paintings, but when you see denim, it’s just a field of blue. By 2005 the abstraction you mention is more obviously in evidence: some of the street scenes are far removed from their pictoral beginnings. So how are you making these 2005 street scenes, and what do you see as going on?
A · These works are taken from a series that I painted about the street as the name suggests. I just wanted to produce a series of works that where kind of observations of life, like sitting on a bench watching the park life or walking around, dazed or hung over and thinking about the various things you might see around you that catch your eye. They can stand alone but also sit together like selected frames from a film. They are in a way removed from there pictorial beginnings, I find placing the main image, the thing that I am most interested in portraying, within the negative space of a picture plane, which allows me to get strait to the point to isolate what’s important.
Q · In the Bacons, one sees what are often interpreted as Furies: mythological creatures expressing the overmastering emotions of humanity, which are, in this case, agonies of grief. In the “Whatever” series, which are yours, one sees recognizable humans who appear to be overcome by a sort of hipster coolness-posturing. What’s the connection here? Is it simply formal? Is it the abstraction of their space? Is it color?
A · I guess they could be seen that way; I have always taken interesting images from whereever I can, from print media, magazines newspaper etc. To me those paintings are kind of ironic. “Whatever no. 1” was taken from a magazine photo of a model pretending to shoot herself, which seemed apt as well as a little sad, and I thought would be an interesting photo to use because it seemed to show how inane and empty popular culture is at times. To me, its not so much a scene of cool posturing in the painting, but a kind of beautiful lostness, or sad delinquent restlessness: what’s the point, whatever? It seems to me the body in contemporary advertising and media seems so falsely assured, polished and confident all the time, used to promote and sell so many disposable items. Why I related a small sense of influence to Bacon, is not so much the angst of existence that is definitely there in his work. It is more likely the distortion or energy of the figure that I’ve tried to play into the work, using paint and color to create a sense of movement and restlessness: that’s the inspiration in that particular work. I think with Bacon it is not always the intellectual or spiritual meaning of his work I find attractive, or the agonies of grief he was trying to communicate that we should look at, but the amazing control and balance over form and content in his work.
Q · What does “Street scene no. 1,” which reads like a sort of highly stylized animated topo map, have to do with number two, a man with pigeons, or three, people’s legs and feet? Are these four paintings – of which four is once again highly abstracted except that it’s situated under a realistic street lamp – intended to be displayed as a series? Would you view them side-by-side, like a cinema storyboard?

A · They where taken from a series for an exhibition, I do see them as a kind of picture frames or visual segments that are almost diaristic, like distorted shots from memory. “Street scene no. 4” was inspired by walking at night and seeing a garden bed underneath a street lamp, the light of the street lamp illuminated solely this small area of garden, a kind of day dreaming moment when you are pointed towards seeing something small that you would normally miss or ignore.
Q · In the ink paintings you expend a lot of effort on lips. Generally they’re drawn quite full; often they’re painted with makeup, and often you then also portray the lips themselves as segmented and even cracked; and often they give the faces that are not sexualized an either vicious or stupid aspect. Is the mouth a sort of shorthand for character?
A · I’ve never thought about that, but if you think about it it’s an excellent vehicle for character. I do like clumsiness and awkwardness, which is I think what attracted me to the shots, along with their strong sense of emotion. In a couple of the works, ‘Ink painting no. 4, Broadmeadows.’ and ‘Ink painting no. 1, S11’, which were taken from newspaper photos, some from the September 11th terrorist attacks. The woman and men are justifiably terrified or even stupefied by what they see above them. They are also, I guess, unaware someone had taken their photos. When I start working on an image I generally find there is an area that I can’t wait to start painting or drawing, the lips especially in that series were an attraction. Ink has an amazing energy: it allows you to create amazing depth and translucency through layering, which creates richness of color, and does give the lips a certain mood.
Q · Did you like school or did you hate it?
A · There are expectations in institutions to keep constantly inspired, and moving regimented towards a higher goal, at the risk of spontaneity. I do admire this notion of being prolific and can be that at times, but I think for me the creativity comes in individual spurts, not so much short semesters or terms. It’s a little more personal, I guess, but that is art school, they do try their best to get you through a lot of stuff in a relatively small amount of time.
Q · How do you cope with projects that don’t work out?
A · If I feel wrong about the work, which is sometimes straight away or even time after time, I just throw the work in the bin where it belongs. My philosophy is you shouldn’t get too tied up with trying to perfect things: it leads to over-worked art most of the time. It takes many different works, most of the time, to properly articulate the desired outcome.
Q · What’s your relationship with music? Do you listen while you work? What to?
A · Lately I’ve taken to playing videos in the background. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 is beautiful because it is slow moving, with fantastic visuals, but it also interesting just to listen to. I don’t like to rely too much on music alone, so it is also interesting if you can find other sources of sensory inspiration.