Differences between American and British artists

What differences strike you most between contemporary artists now in American and in Britain?

Rodney:

“I find that the modern British artists I look at most are those using colour combinations not found in nature in the UK... Barbara Rae, Gillian Ayres, Albert Irvin and John Hoyland. But of course he was influenced by the New York Abstractionists. The main difference I see between the US and the UK artists is choice of colour palette.”

Details from "Thames Haven" (left) by Tina Mammoser
and "I am nature" (right) by Rodney Beecher Roberts

Tina:

“Landscape! Just landscape as a subject matter even in urban contemporary painters’ work. I can find seascapes at all levels in all styles, at galleries and fairs. I’m always amazed at shows in the US that I rarely see landscapes, but lots of depictions of people and political work.”

Disconnections from the British art world

What trait of British artists or aspects of British art do you feel disconnected from, not having started as an artist here?

Rodney:

“I am totally disconnected from Britain’s long standing history and reverence for water colour. I can’t get past observing the techniques involved. And for me art is a singular solitary endeavour, so I don’t see the importance of an artist attaching letters to their name through art societies.”

Tina:

“I feel disconnected from the long history of community many artists seem to have. Art in the family, maybe connection with a home town, plus a long cultural history. In a way it’s an almost hereditary grounding they have in their view towards being an artist. My background is one of constant movement so sometimes I envy that element of psychological stability.”

Moving to Britain and art

Detail from "Resound"
Acrylic painting on canvas by Tina Mammoser

How has moving to Britain changed or influenced your work?

Rodney:

“What has changed most is the light. Even though I paint in a studio under artificial light it is still darker and greyer which affects my choice of colour and mood.”

Tina:

“I started working here so am not sure I can answer this regarding painting. I used to draw a lot since high school so I suppose any change in creativity has been a slow movement away from exactitude. Not entirely away from realism but relaxing the need for perfection and capturing ideas and impressions instead.”

American influences on art

Detail from "The 5th Dimension"
Mixed media painting by Rodney Beecher Roberts

How did growing up in American culture most influence your artwork now?

Rodney:

“I think growing up in the states, especially California, left me with the typical American attitude of wanting everything the way I want it, not ‘how it comes’. For me, my expectations are what counts not the status quo or what others may think is proper, which I think shows in my art work.”

Tina:

“I was raised with a very achievement-oriented attitude to life, something that has ebbed since moving to the UK. But it is still there and I think it drives my artwork. I have a need to push more, find something different, for the work to have meaning and my technique to be challenging.  Even within the creative process I do naturally build myself structures.”

From chaos...

Rodney's work was delivered Saturday night, mine on Sunday morning. From 8am we begin... it only took an hour or so to rule out the "pair up" idea of hanging, then the "alternating sections of wall" idea. Our work looks nice together, just not too together!

Rodney ponders his hundreds of paintings... (not quite, but seemed like it!)

I re-ponder framed pieces that I can't arrange as I wanted because the hanging system doesn't hang low enough.

And somehow, after the chaos, some structure begins to emerge...

Show opens TOMORROW! Only 6 days - Don't miss it! 

Share the art

Preview images now for sharing on our PInterest board:
http://pinterest.com/tina_m_art/americanbrits-art-exhibition/

Please do share the images on your boards!

Words and paintings

He said the oceans were rising
Tina Mammoser, acrylic on canvas (from the Dark series)

Rodney

"So I started using words. Sometimes that grew into having an entire stanza of a poem, either written on top of the painting when I finished or scratched through the various layers. It's because I just realised that words are abstracts of themselves. They're an abstract of a meaning. They're not real things unto themselves other than words. They're symbols."

Tina

"Yeah, they're just arrangements of letters. I like your new one "Social Media". Because I saw that in an exhibition and it wasn't until today, looking at the picture, that I saw the equations. I'd seen the symbols and I knew there were letters there or something, but I hadn't looked closely enough. Today I looked at it and went wait a minute there's brackets and equal signs and those are equations! And you've done them backwards, which I like because it takes away a level of meaning."

Rodney

'It takes away, and that's the way it was shown in the movie - it's taken from the movie "Social Media". And in that movie when he's just gotten dumped by his girlfriend and he's going to do this comparison "which girl's prettier", and his mate comes in and he goes up and writes it on the window. We see it from the outside, reversed, and then we see it from the inside. So I chose to do it from the outside because it's a little more abstract. One in my Venice series that I stuck words in there later, because most of my Vencie series have no words in them... they have illusions to words by having doodle or scribble-like lines in them that somehow suggested words but weren't words."

Social Media
Rodney Beecher Roberts, mixed media on canvas

Tina

"I've done a Venice series as well and mine are symbolic, mine are symbolic of kinds of light. Because I've done shadows under the bridges, and the way lamps reflect off the river... that's where a lot of the gold is coming from, because it's night, and I was only looking at the water surfaces."

"With the English coast it's actual place names. With Venice I wanted it to be actual Italian phrases for the kind of light I was painting. In fact the only series where I haven't used a very specific title that was what I put in the paintings was the Dark series. Those are named after song lyrics. So instead of being the place or the light it was the feeling of when I was painting it. There the only ones that aren't specific places as well. So then I couldn't title them with places because I felt I was lying. So each one of those I listened to one song over and over again. So each title is the song I listened to while painting that painting."

Abstraction: conscious vs subconscious

 Excerpt from artist conversation:

 

Tina

"You have this whole thing where you don't sketch because it inhibits your creativity, and the fact that you work with so many materials and you're much freer. I'm so precise with my stuff, and I'm always thinking when I'm actually doing it. I'm always analysing it with each layer of paint."

Rodney

"Unfortunately thought does creep as I'm painting and I hate that! It invariably makes me take the painting in a different direction than it wants to go, as they say. My subscious is trying to do something and my thought process gets in... no! Stop that!"

Tina

"You want your subconscious to take over."

Rodney

"Yeah "

Tina

"And I want my intellect to take over."

Rodney

"Anytime my intellectual gets in the way, I hate the painting 2 weeks after it's finished and I have to paint over it. It misses. If a painter or artist starts with the end in mind and can achieve that end, that's great. But that's not where I work from. I can't do that. And every time my thought process gets in the way it changes the painting and it doesn't work any more."

Tina

"If I am painting and I let my emotion take over, which isn't to say I'm not emotional when I'm painting - I have a sort of joy from it - but because I am so analytical if I start painting for catharsis I end up finishing a painting and looking at it and thinking 'my god that sucks'.  So I start with an idea, then a plan, and I try to stick to the plan, or replan. I like to know there's a balance and a sense of making your eye move around in a specific way."

See the coast paintings tina-m.com

Mark the Date!

Two-man exhibition by Tina Mammoser (that's me!) and Rodney Beecher Roberts...

We're excited about this chance to work together and share our very different takes on abstraction, from the American and British perspectives!

Rodney and I also recorded and transcribed several conversations together, so check back often for sneak peeks of the chats.

AMERICANBRITS

14-19 January 2013
An exhibition of work by American/British artists Tina Mammoser and Rodney Beecher.
Gallery 27, Cork Street
London W1S 3NG
Tina's Art: tina-m.com
Rodney's Art: artbybeecher.com