James Naughton (Born: 1971)

Concept for Living - A Different View

A recent exhibition at Lancashire’s most exciting contemporary art gallery, Ascot Studios, showcased the work of Bolton-based artist James Naughton. Concept for Living spoke to him to find out more about his abstract way of working and his fascination with light.

Words: Jennie Musgrove

There’s something universally emotive about the way a break in the clouds can let a few intense rays of sunlight illuminate part of the landscape. A dull and dreary scene turns swiftly into a breathtaking vision of light and colour; an ordinary vista transformed into an extraordinary composition. It’s the ability to capture and reflect these awe-inspiring moments that has secured artist James Naughton’s popularity throughout the UK. The landscapes he creates reveal a deep understanding and love of nature, and never fail to enchant the viewer.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the way James paints is that he doesn’t work from photography, way light can suggest or even from memory. Instead, he experiments with the oil paint until a composition reveals itself within certain emotions” the markings. “I’ve always been more interested in my own sub-conscious reaction to what’s happening as I’m painting,” he said. “So I tend to approach each piece of work with a playful nature, where I’m almost like a little child playing with plastecine or something. What I’m trying to do is be very playful and almost abstract, and at a certain point it’ll just fall into place.”

Despite the apparent realness of his paintings, James never deliberately sets out to paint a pre-envisaged landscape. “It’s all about my experience of what the paint can do and my experience of nature coming together at that point and just having those moments of recognition that dictate where the painting’s going to go.”

In stark contrast to James’s abstract technique, his paintings have an almost photographic likeness to reality. This, he believes, is the most inexplicable aspect of his work. “It’s very mysterious how real they end up looking. Some of them really do look photographic. That’s not my intention; it’s not something that I ever set out to do. Which just makes it even more strange.”

One reason for the realness of James’s paintings is his enchanting use of light. Since studying Graphic Arts at Leeds University, James has been fascinated with light and its emotive potential. “When I was at college I did quite a lot of print making, and they were predominantly black and white,” he said. “There was just something about the simplicity of tone that I really enjoyed. Once I started doing landscapes and bringing elements of colour into them, I just had an inherent knowledge about the way light can suggest certain emotions.”

This romantic element of James’s work stems from growing up in Bolton, where he is still based. “It’s interesting, Bolton, because it’s pretty much an industrial northern town but it’s surrounded by the moors and has pockets of real beauty. I always think about it as being in some way the roots of my work. I’m in this urban setting most of the time and so my ideas about what nature can be and what nature can do are in some way a reaction to my environment. So I’ve got more romantic notions about it and fanciful ideas, which someone who lived with nature all the time perhaps wouldn’t have.”

James’s work is reminiscent of that of JMW Turner, and there are similarities in both artists’ representations of nature. “Turner is one of my big heroes as a painter,” he said. “He lived in London for most of his life, surrounded by a massive city, and yet you can tell that what he sensed from nature was how uncontrollable it is and how much emotive power it has.”

Turner aside, James’s artistic influences span far and wide, from figurative painter Francis Bacon to Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Looking back on his childhood love of science fiction and Star Wars, he’s almost surprised to find himself a painter of such a traditional subject matter. “I was always interested in cartoons and animations as a youngster, and science fiction and fantasy illustration. What’s fascinating for me is that I’ve come from those interests, and although the subject of my work is quite traditional, I think it has got this little twist that makes it ever so slightly removed from reality. It’s almost got more power because it’s more subdued and subtle, but it’s connected to something that we see all the time.”

It’s this familiarity that makes James’s work so accessible, as he explained. “I was on a journey with a friend last week, going through the countryside, and there were points when he’d say, ‘Oh look, that’s a James Naughton.’ There are quite a lot of people who’ll say that to me. I think it’s really nice but, as I said to my friend, my work doesn’t actually look like what you see from the road. It’s a different view, there’s a slight twist on it.”

So what’s next for James? A notion to write and illustrate a children’s storybook has been on his mind for a while, but for now he’s happy to concentrate on defying the difficult times ahead. “Telling stories is something that I’ll set aside some time to do at some point,” he said. “I’d pencilled in a couple of months this year to make a start with it. But with the financial climate it just doesn’t feel like the right time. It’s almost as though I want to rise to the challenge and really concentrate on doing the absolute best work that I can at this time.” And with such a talent for capturing the imagination of the British public, we’re sure James’s much-deserved success will continue for years to come.

James Naughton’s work is currently available to view and buy at Ascot Studios Contemporary Art Gallery in Ribchester.

James Naughton Profile

James Naughton was born in Bolton, Lancashire, on the 6th May 1971, and apart from his three college years in Leeds and a short spell in America, he has never left.
It is from this large provincial northern English industrial town that he began what was to become a most extraordinary career as one of Britain's most accomplished and sought after landscape painters.

In Conversation with John Gilboy:

John Gilboy: How do you go about the business of making a picture?

James Naughton: My studio is in the garden. I often work for long uninterrupted stretches, normally about four hours at a time. I work very intensively without interruption, and like to carry on until I am satisfied with an outcome. I get anxious if I have to leave the studio before I have resolved what I am doing, and I have to get back to see the thing through to its conclusion. Usually the radio is on and I nearly always listen to classical music or programmes about current affairs and politics.

John Gilboy: I am surprised that you don't work out in the field, directly from nature?

James Naughton: Many people say the same. Most are amazed that I do not paint directly from nature. I don't work from sketches or photographs either. It may seem odd but in many ways I consider myself to be an abstract painter. My images are suggested by the paint itself, and I have no clear idea what will come out of a session when I start.

John Gilboy: What do you mean "the paintings come out of the paint itself"?

James Naughton: This is not an easy process to describe, and in some ways I am reluctant to try, but essentially it goes like this. I have my prepared surface, my brushes and my oil paints. I am familiar and comfortable with these materials. I have chosen them because they suit me and I know how they respond. Oil paint has certain characteristics that other paints don't have. Mostly it has a long open time, remains fluid and malleable. You can use it thick or thin, push it around, it is very organic and has a beautiful nature. So I put some paint down, make some marks, break the white surface and view the results. This process continues in a feverish way until the paint itself will suggest directions to me. Eventually clear definable aspects of the composition are revealed, but I am also searching to communicate the very essence of light, how it travels, is absorbed, its' warmth and the powerful emotional feelings it provokes in us. This is where the process slips away from my understanding, it's an elusive challenge, but the depth and freedom of these creative experiences justify all my fears and doubts at various stages during the session.

John Gilboy: You can only work on one image at a time then?

James Naughton: No, not always. With smaller works I sometimes work simultaneously on two or three in a single session. Working successively on a number of paintings creates a fascinating dialogue between each piece. This is something I used to great success with the monoprints, while at college; it was and still is a fantastic way to cultivate a critical awareness in my work. If you set yourself a task and reach one conclusion you can either accept it or discard it. If you produce a number of answers, a simple comparison will reveal the most effective solution, and more importantly what differentiates the quality of a good painting from the less successful work. Working in series also helps me achieve the strange balance of relaxation and concentration needed to produce my paintings.

John Gilboy: We have often talked in the past about this state of freedom and release, a kind of intellectual abandonment, where you give yourself over to the workings of the sub-conscious mind. Poets talk about the muse, and painters and composers often talk about 'divine intervention' where they become a conduit for some external creative influence. Do you think you are any closer now to really understanding how the process works and how your pictures come out of it?

James Naughton: Really difficult, this. A part of me doesn't really want to examine it either. I'm a bit shy about the whole thing in some ways, but I also think that words are cumbersome and open to miss-interpretation. I'm not sure that we always get any closer to understanding by delving or describing.
I know that you believe that all experience and emotion and knowledge is stored in the sub-conscious and that elements from this store are released at the point of creativity, when we attain conditions of heightened concentration. You may be right, but I wonder how you can be so sure of this, I am not so sure and thrive on the uncertainty, it sparks my imagination. Things that appear to be completely lost to the conscious mind may be unearthed and revealed in a painting in this way. But what I produce can still seem completely unfamiliar to me, as if it comes from somewhere else altogether. For me the best art comes when I switch off my yearning for conscious control, allow my sub-conscious to just respond to the surface. There can be absolute purity in this dialogue and that is when I make my most honest work. It's amazing what you can find when you aren't looking.

John Gilboy: I understand now why you describe yourself as an abstract painter, but your paintings are nevertheless always about the landscape. The end result isn't actually abstract in any conventional meaning of the word at all. Isn't there a contradiction here? Why does your response to the marks always lead you in the same direction? One could reasonably assume any number of conclusions given the nature of your working practice?

James Naughton: Again I am not entirely sure I know the answer to this question. Maybe it comes out of insecurity, or maybe it's just that I don't really like, or feel comfortable with, art that is wholly abstract. It will come as no surprise that Turner is one of the painters I admire. There is a wonderful playfulness in his painting, I delight in his economy, figurative elements act as an anchor and give us a reference point for the wonderfully fresh marks. The beauty of this freedom in Turners work is in how it manipulates our imagination and emotions, so much work is left for us to do, he doesn't patronise the viewer with explicit descriptions and detail, instead he invites us to communicate with the work completely.
For myself I have come to realise and accept that I have a passion for nature. Every week I meander through the same valley near my home, the surroundings are unlike the sweeping views in my work but it is the assimilation with nature which returns with me to the studio. The walk is very familiar, but also continually surprising. It is natural for me to draw upon this passion in my work. Nature is my reference point and when the marks present themselves I always seem to interpret them as motifs from the landscape. I follow my instincts and feel comfortable in doing this. There are passages in my work however which are extremely abstract, where you can see really abandoned mark making. Observers often comment on this. They look closely at the surface and see how incredibly loosely and freely the paint is applied, then they stand back and everything somehow seems to slot into place to reveal an extraordinarily realistic landscape. I really enjoy this dichotomy. I still allow myself the possibility that my marks will lead to something quite different in the future, who knows.

John Gilboy: Nearly all of your paintings are characterised by shafts of light breaking through clouds onto an endless landscape. What's this all about….it's almost biblical?

James Naughton: On the one hand it is very simple. I've always been fascinated by light. Even when I was a young student making figurative prints I lit my subjects very strongly. It is not really surprising that it still comes through in my painting now. But it is also true that my landscapes are nearly always epic in theme, even when very small. There is a sense that elemental forces are at work, with huge clouds hanging over endless horizons, sunlight emerging through the darkness. There is no getting away from it because it always comes through, and it obviously echoes what I might describe as my own sense of religion, something I feel most keenly when observing nature. And my paintings do seem to evoke a strong emotional, even spiritual, response in others, as if the landscapes are somehow universal, rather than depictions of place. But the less said about this the better, really. I don't feel comfortable attaching such definitive meaning to my paintings. I prefer to think that the works need little in the way of explanation, and I would not like my opinions to disturb the fresh dialogue which a viewer will hopefully enjoy.

John Gilboy: Where does your painting go from here?

James Naughton: I don't have a conscious plan, but my work does change overtime in a quite natural way. When I look back over just the last three years, for example, I can see that my brush work has become much more vigorous, there is more attack in the work. My palette changes by degrees as well, nothing dramatic, just small shifts over time. I am often working on a much larger scale as well and this in itself influences the way the paint goes down. But change for me is organic. Considering the way I work this almost has to be the case. I am not driven by intellect, I follow the paint and I expect that my work will change as I change, as I mature and move through my life I will respond in new ways. Maybe I will lose my dependence on the landscape motif and move into complete abstraction, maybe I will revert to figurative images. Let's wait and see.