A fusion of fantasy and reality

Caroline Saunders talks to Liz Wright about her love of strong colour and mixing fantasy with reality in her CLOSELY OBSERVED, DETAILED PAINTINGS

Caroline Saunders talks to Liz Wright about her love of strong colour and mixing fantasy with reality in her closely observed, detailed paintings

As a reaction against the minimalism of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Liz Wright began painting every leaf and every blade of grass alongside figures set in landscapes. ‘I saw no direction in abstraction. The reverence to artists such as Ad Reinhardt, with his black canvases, with no colour, texture or subject matter did not appeal. I went to the other extreme and looked at early Florentine paintings and the old masters such as Pieter Bruegel, Uccello, Giotto, Botticelli and Piero della Francesca. I enjoyed absorbing the quirkiness of Surrealism from Magritte and the tropical foliage and naïve figures of Henri Rousseau. I love unpretentious paintings, which are from the heart and about life.’

InfluEnCE AnD InspIrAtIon

‘The Combat of Love and Chastity by the Florentine artist Gherardo di Giovanni del Fora, in The National Gallery, started my love of painting. It is of a

woman with a shield rebuffing a man firing arrows at her. I loved the idea.

Set in the most fabulous backdrop of hills and trees, it has been a welcome inspiration for my landscape paintings.

‘Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist is my hero. Having read Jung’s biography Dreams, Memories and Reflections years ago, his thoughts and way of seeing have had a massive impact – his definitions of archetypes have inspired a few paintings.

‘If the story is recognised and shared by the viewer it does help sell the painting. It is a talking point whether contemporary or ancient history.’ To tell a story Liz sometimes includes symbols. Ideas stem from everyday life, travel, world news, controversial issues and unusual occurrences. ‘I have a series of paintings of what was the Soviet

Union after many trips to Moscow when Mikhail Gorbachev was in power. I recorded the poverty, the changes, landscapes and churches – a wedding in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral with a German pilot landing a light plane in Red Square. In the USA I recorded another wedding from the Brooklyn promenade with the twin towers in the background. I saw the largest raven I have ever seen and painted three of them, calling it Ravens Discussing Brexit and added a dingy of refugees, which was the current fear of the nation.’

Generally, Dorset provides Liz with as much inspiration as she needs. She lives on the Isle of Portland and enjoys the constantly changing colours of the sea, sky, pebbles and rocks. Looking inland for inspiration from the Dorset landscape, she loves clumps of trees on hill tops and individual trees that look as if they are dancing.

Working practice

Liz’s style has evolved over the years; sometimes it has been immediate, loose painting from life and sometimes very tight from the imagination being over painted many times. ‘At first glance the realism of a scene makes an impact, look further and it suffuses with a quality of hyper-reality. This imagined reality is slightly sharper than actuality. I seek clear edges whether in painting or photography.’

Painting in oil, acrylic and watercolour, her preference is oil because it flows and can be wiped off and pushed around; small birch ply boards, primed with gesso, provide a stable flat surface. For watercolour and acrylic, watercolour boards are used, which saves stretching watercolour paper with gum strip on a board. Liz uses Italian or French fine linen primed canvases which have a dense fine surface. ‘Stretching my own allows me to have whatever size canvas I want without being restricted to stock sizes.’ She stretches the canvases herself using a good stretching tool and a staple gun. ‘Often I have to re-stretch the canvas when dry as it tends to go a bit baggy.

‘To paint a complicated building or scene, I take snapshots for reference. I make plein-air and compositional sketches, occasionally making a detailed drawing of what I have in mind. Mostly my compositions evolve as I go along, working into them to achieve my vision. To test an idea I may stick pieces of paper to the canvas to position something like seagulls in the sky or men playing cricket.’ Liz has many paintings on the go at once. She puts her paintings aside for a short while, which brings a fresh perspective. The large oils can take months. They all come together at the same time, which she finds very satisfying.

Liz uses Winsor & Newton Professional oils and acrylics. ‘I also like St Petersburg watercolours, which are vibrant in colour. To draw in the composition I use Prussian blue, Vandyke brown or raw umber paint on a hog-hair brush, sizes 2, 4 and 6. For detail I use sable watercolour brushes, which are the finest brushes. They do not last long when using them for oil; the oil paint rots them quite quickly and the hairs fall out.

‘My equipment consists of a homemade mahl stick, which forms a bridge on which to lean, to prevent wet paint smudging. My trusty Balans chair, re-covered many times, tilts the body upright to stop backache when I am painting. I have a studio easel for large canvases, which I stand at, a desk easel for working on paper or small canvases, and a tea trolley to house all my paints.’

Colour

Liz loves strong colour. Her typical palette depends on the subject but for landscapes she uses a range of greens: cadmium green, cadmium green light, cobalt green, sap green and Prussian green. ‘Green used to be my favourite when I was living in Somerset and London, painting cricket matches and London parks. I instinctively put a red glaze with cadmium red, alizarin crimson over the finished painting to bring the greens to life. Green without red does not work in my opinion, but red nearby brings green to life. Bright green and red dance. My favourite colour now is cobalt violet (when I can afford it), which brings all colour to life. I occasionally use purple madder alizarin, which is great for winter landscapes. Skies are usually cerulean blue graded with manganese blue, mixed with titanium white. Cobalt blue is reddish and can be mixed in for sunsets. Payne’s grey with a touch of ultramarine violet is great for cloud formations. For browns I use Vandyke brown, raw umber and burnt umber. Yellows are: cadmium yellow deep and light, yellow ochre, golden ochre and

Naples yellow, which is soft. I use ivory black sparingly when the subject demands a pure black.’

The most important thing Liz has learnt is not to give up. She has progressed more through trial and error. ‘We were not actually taught much at college in the late 1960s early ‘70s, just left to do our own thing, so to speak. There is only one tip I remember from college: when I asked how long does size (hide glue) take to dry, the answer was it depends what size it is! It was very much find out for yourself.’ First earning a living from an American civil engineering company, Liz mainly produced pen-and-ink maps and technical illustrations. When she started painting full time she gave herself five years to earn an income.

To add to her income, Liz’s entire collection of paintings is housed by the Bridgeman Art Library, where she receives copyright fees for usage in London, New York, Paris and Berlin. ‘Being figurative many of my paintings have been reproduced as greetings cards, book covers, CD and magazine illustrations.’

LEFT The Beast from The East, oil on canvas, 30335½in (76391.5cm). It is very rare that any snow settles here and I could not resist painting the view from the sea wall looking back towards the high street and village of Fortuneswell. Portland does not have many trees so I really enjoyed painting them. I photographed the snow and worked on the painting during the hot summer, which kept me cool. I went out sketching to get the architecture accurate without the snow and relied on artist interpretation. I sketched the basics on the blank canvas in Prussian blue and Vandyke brown and built up layers of colour, over painting many times. I enjoyed using titanium white, cadmium red and cadmium yellow deep and light and cobalt green BELOW RIGHT Celebrating the Apple Orchard, oil on canvas, 24330in (61376cm). I painted this to celebrate the overturning of an EU plan to pull up the Somerset apple orchards to regulate the apples. The naked running figure has appeared for many years in my paintings and represents freedom and joy

RIGHT After Rain, oil on canvas, 30324in (76361cm). This is the view from my back window; I have painted it many times and it is constantly changing – there is now a new house where the swings are. It had rained for weeks and when the clouds cleared and the sun came out the colour of the cliffs and foliage were so intense I had an urge to paint it. The decking and yuka trees were new also and the lines of the wood provided interest. For the decking I used Vandyke brown and yellow ochre, and for the cliffs cadmium green light to highlight the greens

Repairing the Chesil Beach, acrylic on paper, 18½324¾in (47362.5cm). This was painted after the storm of 2014 when the sea breached the sea defences and dropped by four to five metres, revealing the lower structure of the sea wall. The pebbles were sucked out to sea behind a ridge and had to be moved back to make it safe. It was an unusual scene and told the story behind the beach. The colour used is predominantly grey, and the sky still threatening. I sketched the scene looking towards the Cove House Inn and finished it in my studio. The beach is a mixture of yellow ochre, ultramarine violet, and burnt umber mixed with a little cadmium red for the shoreline. I put the colour on in a pointillist manner, starting from dark to light

View from my Studio, oil on canvas, 34320in (86.5351cm). This view from my studio, produced from life, never ceases to thrill me. I sketched the scene initially with Prussian blue and Vandyke brown then worked into it, building up the paint and areas of colour. I use sable brushes, which do not last long but give very fine detail. I used cadmium yellow for the marigolds and Prussian blue for the roofs

The Jaguar Hunter, oil on canvas, 30324in (76361cm). I originally painted this image in watercolour as a book cover for The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard, a writer of metaphysical stories. I sold the watercolour and liked my image so much that I painted a larger one in oil. The foliage is homage to Henri Rousseau. The jaguar is the woman and the woman the jaguar, the man is lying in wait to kill them. The foliage was sketched on the canvas and the figures positioned and added. To make the painting moody I used Prussian green and ultramarine violet