Frame 61October 16, 2023

Dan MacCarthy

Frame 61October 16, 2023

“…to allow the mysterious process of painting to lead. Allowing for doubt and uncertainty, allowing myself to lose grip of the work whilst retaining faith that it will resolve itself. ”

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Where did you study?

I was born in Oxford and grew up in Herefordshire on the Welsh borders. My father is a painter. He is half French and on the French side there are many generations of artists…

I studied history at the University of Sussex. Then after moving to London I studied at the Royal Drawing School. Later I studied on the Turps Studio Program. I now live in a town near where I grew up in Wales, with my partner and our son.

You mention the importance of 'negative capability' in your painting approach, allowing for mystery and doubt rather than seeking certainty. Can you delve deeper into how this philosophical concept informs your artistic process, particularly in terms of composition and markmaking?

I seem to recall some words of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska in the book Savage Messiah, along the lines of, "Subjects are the frames of pictures" in other words they are secondary in importance to the act of making. I suppose this is where the ideas behind Keats’ Negative Capability come into my process. Trying to allow the mysterious process of painting to lead. Allowing for doubt and uncertainty, allowing myself to lose grip of the work whilst retaining faith that it will resolve itself. My instinct was always not to plan paintings very thoroughly, but I now have learnt to trust the process, which means often beginning with little more than a two minute pencil sketch as a starting point. But in mentioning the idea of negative capability I am also referring to the subjects in my paintings, I like the idea that whatever stories they may contain are not fixed and certain but can drift and shape shift and represent different things to different people. I find I struggle with the bold certainty that characterises much contemporary painting.

Your work seems to explore themes of belonging, loss, anxiety, and hope within a complex, natural world. Could you describe a specific moment or personal experience that deeply influenced your artistic journey and the direction of your creative exploration?

When I was studying History at Sussex, I sometimes noticed that I was more interested in what was going on at the nearby Brighton art college, than on my own campus. But over the years since then, making art, I have come to regard my foray into academia as an extremely valuable moment during which I engaged intellectually with subjects that would later provide fertile territory for paintings. Environmental history, colonial history, politics, economics and ideas around technology, progress, and entropy, all featured in my studies and now inform or in some way are present in the work.
One of my tendencies as a student of history that persists as an artist is a tendency to want to include everything, to find the big all encompassing grand vision. My dissertation course was entitled The environment, human activity and the end of the world, and that kind of sums up my subject matter as an artist. Within that is contained a kind of ambition to make work that addresses all those pressing issues in huge grand masterpieces.

*Parsons x Payne Gallery Photo Damian Griffiths 2023*

Your work beautifully navigates the intersection of contemporary and natural elements, often touching upon themes of ambiguity and discomfort. Could you share a specific piece or series where this interplay is most pronounced, and how you've used it to convey a sense of hope amidst uncertainty?

My painting Something There Badly Not Wrong, was a seminal work for me. It felt like a convergence, a coalescing. A meeting of natural elements and more urban and contemporary sensibilities. It was painted during the lockdowns and expresses a place of anxiety, grief, and hope through humanity and nature.

Someone recently said to me during an open studio event, that they found my work disturbing. I replied that I thought you’d have to be pretty disturbed not to be disturbed these days.

It felt uncomfortable saying that, especially as a father, and yet it's undeniable. We live in very disturbing times. But there is always hope. Particularly in nature, which in its tenacity will always push up green shoots. That's where I get my hope from, hence the recurring motif of the weeds and nettles that populate my paintings. The hope demands to be present even if it points to a hope for a world after the scourge of humanity. The plants in my work are like a kind of longing for neglect, for a lack of human interference. What we now, in our obsession to give everything a catchy title, call re-wilding. Some aspects of modernity can be acceptable in a painting. I am currently working on a series of paintings which stem from a text I read at university entitled the Machine in the Garden (Leo Marx) . The machine then was the train, so I’m painting lorries.

Tell us a bit about how you spend your day / studio routine? What is your studio like?

Having spent many chaotic years in London with very little structure, my life now would be unrecognisable to myself of five years ago. I cycle with my son to nursery, drop him off and head down an old track by a stream over a small red Japanese bridge to the studio. I work until lunchtime when I either collect him or carry on working until six. Gone (for now) are the late nights in the studio I used to love, but in their place are bright and early studio mornings, lunches in the café next door and breaks during which I might go for a walk or a run. Being in Wales has meant I can finally afford a decent sized studio, so my day usually begins with a fried breakfast made on my studio kitchen trolley followed by a long coffee on the sofa in the painting room, during which I try to catch paintings unawares in case they decide to reveal their secrets.

What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?

Seeing a Charles Birchfield watercolour at Modern Art stands out. It was part of the show. The Moth and The Thunderclap named after a Birchfield painting and curated by Simon Grant. I’ve been obsessed with Birchfield since my tutor at Turps introduced me to his work. His way of depicting light and creating mysterious effects with it is very inspiring to me.

A more recent highlight was Agnes Dene as part of the Dear Earth show at the Hayward. It made me stop and marvel at the work of an artist, who in not being a painter I have probably overlooked in the past, but on this occasion setting aside my habitual technical interest, I just enjoyed contemplating her Wheat-field: a confrontation and thinking about how that was a truly amazing thing to have done.

Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?

I’m about to head off on a road trip in my studio van to a residency in Tuscany which is pretty exciting. I also have a solo show next year in Oxford at the Benjamin Parsons X Hannah Payne Gallery. Also next year I'm putting together an exhibition in France with my Father called L’Esprit des Ancêtres. (the spirit of the ancestors) The work is about the sculptures of the apostles carved by my great great Grandfather Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume that ascended the spire of Notre Dame and were miraculously airlifted off the cathedral for restoration just days before the fire.

danielmaccarthy.com

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All images are courtesy of the artist
Date of publication: 16/10/2023

Frame 61