DH: Ben, tell me how you heard about the residency – is this something as an artist you are on the look out for?

BC: I think I first heard about the residency from one of the email lists I’m subscribed to. I was aware of the Art House but didn’t know exactly what they did. The Yorkshire Art Space was being built when I left Sheffield and I knew it was a unique building. When I read the outline for the residency and went and saw the space I thought it would be perfect for the work I wanted to make.This was the first residency I’ve applied for because it seemed to exactly fit my requirements at this point in time. Working in the studio on a daily basis allows a certain amount of dedication to certain ways of working, but opportunities like these mean you can think beyond the everyday aspects of what your work can be. Working in a different environment is bound to change the way you approach things which was what I needed at the time. After seeing the space, I knew it would be a great place to work in due to its scale and location. The outline for the residency was so open that it allowed a great deal of freedom for applicants to experiment with new work without the pressure to produce finished results.

DH: Tell me something about your application – was it straightforward or was it hard work thinking about what you could do?

BC: Writing the application was time consuming but fairly straight forward. I knew from the outset what I wanted to do; to make very large paintings and include documentation in the form of video alongside this. I made quite a thorough application but was concerned that the selection panel might lean towards proposals that worked directly with the space or the local area and/or public. I included some public access into my proposal since this was a public art space and thought it would be beneficial for myself and the organisations involved, whilst also allowing people to see exactly what artists do. I was one of six people short-listed for interview and was very pleased and surprised to be successful.

There were many factors, which led me to decide to combine large-scale painting with video documentation. Ever since I began making 7’ high paintings three years ago I’ve wanted to work bigger. Initially the 7’ paintings were a real challenge both physically and artistically, but I’ve worked around the logistics and relaxed into the scale of the paintings. Having made quite a few at this size, I felt I needed to push the scale in order to bring something new to the work. Seven feet high didn’t seem so big and I wanted to make paintings that were much bigger than the viewer. This had been almost impossible in my current studio, so the public art space at YAS was ideal. I knew that increasing the scale would change the way I would apply the paint, and wanted to push my painting vocabulary.

The documentation came about for many reasons. Being filmed at work by Channel 4 last year had a huge effect on me. It forced me to examine myself, my work and the way the work is seen in a very different, almost unnatural way. Whenever I show my work I’m always asked how it’s made, and the process of making is intrinsic to the way the work looks.

I’ve become increasingly interested in the performance aspect of my painting and was also conscious of things such as the Pollock films and how this recording of his process changed everything for him and the way his work was seen. There seems to be a huge paradox in painting in that you work alone with paintings in a studio and then they’re removed from this environment and placed in a public setting in a gallery. This is one of the reasons I leave the wheels on my large paintings. It means that the work has to be exhibited in a particular way, in a similar way that they exist in the studio. Hanging paintings on walls doesn’t always seem quite right; it seems that once something is placed at eye level on a white wall it takes on the role of Art whereas on the studio floor it’s work.

So the documentation was a way of examining further this relationship between the process and the product. At the end I’m left with some paintings and some video footage of how they’re made; how do these things exist together and in isolation from each other?

Although I made some video work at college, I’ve been painting constantly since leaving and wanted to go back to this media to work with alongside painting. This residency was an ideal way to bring a new way of working into my practice in a safe environment where I could experiment and maybe fail.

DH: I’m interested in how you put the set of ideas together for the residency into practice. What happens, when you arrive on day 1 and realise there are very practical issues needing to be solved - does this make you re-evaluate what you can or want to do? For example in the your own studio there are given practical considerations, scale, time and a very self defined set of rules but perhaps most importantly it’s private. Did this have an effect on you when you were in “public”?

BC: As the scale of my work has increased, so has the amount of preparation that I have to do before beginning. I had technical assistance on the residency for the first week to set things up, and without this would never have been able to undertake the task. My ideas for the pulley system for the canvases and the camera went fairly smoothly in practice with some redesigning necessary as they were installed. The size of the canvases presented other problems but I was surprised at how well the preparation went. I quite enjoy this part of the work. Having to overcome logistical problems gives everything a different approach.

There wasn’t a great deal I had to re-evaluate from the outset, however when I began painting, problems arose which were impossible to predict. Working so large, from the positions I have to take caused problems. It was difficult to constantly step back from what I was doing, which made everything slower, and meant constant correction of the image. The time scale was also a problem in that I wanted to finish the residency with work that had reached some form of resolution, so felt pressured to work quickly. Working in this more public environment was very different to what I’m used to. In my studio it’s very quiet and I need this atmosphere to work efficiently. The constant distractions during my time at YAS were increasingly difficult to deal with.

This said however, I did want to work for a period in a livelier environment and there are benefits to having public access. If I did this again in the future however I would control the time I was open for viewing. I think that people’s constant evaluation of the work, as its being made is not healthy, even though most comments are positive.

DH: Can you say a bit more about your interest in the relationship between painting and video? Both in the process of making that you described and the potential of how they exist beyond the residency.

BC: One reason for using video at this point was a very practical one. Initially I thought that if I painted flat on the floor, having a camera hung overhead connected to a monitor would allow me to see what I was doing from a distance. In practice this didn’t really work very successfully however. I was conscious that documenting the process of painting could be extremely tedious to watch, (like watching paint dry) so I knew I had to be inventive with the filming as I did it. I’m currently in the process of editing it and I think there is enough there for it to potentially exist away from the paintings. At the moment though I find it hard to think of it as separate from the paintings in that the two are so intrinsically linked in my head that I can’t separate them at the moment. My initial idea was that the two would sit alongside each other when shown, but may rethink this when both are finished.

I think there’s a great deal that painting and video share in common. Both require an understanding of composition, subject, colour, etc. to work well and both are forms of recordings of a period of time. Working on still visual images gives you a certain amount of preparation when dealing with video, but there are a whole host of things involved with moving images, which are complicated to do well.

The editing especially is difficult with the documentation I have because there’s no clear narrative, no dialogue and little action. I tried filming some things in relation to the themes in the paintings; I had in mind images from the lunar landing, the overhead shots from the lander especially, and bits from films such as 2001, because the big canvases were very monolith like in the empty space. In terms of working with video and painting together in the future, there are ideas that I have which have come about partly from the residency; however I could work with these two media again on separate projects.

DH: In relation to this I was struck by your choice of subject when I saw the work in progress. You have spoken about the relationship of the process involved, practically and to an extent formally, but can you say something at this point about the images you are interested in exploring through the paintings. The paintings were very “iconic”, black and white and referenced very specific cultural ideas. Was this also in the planning for the residency or a more reflexive choice when you started?

BC: There were a number of reasons for using this image, but the decision of what I was actually going to paint only came shortly before I started. I had a number of images and ideas that I could have worked with. I sometimes get so bogged down focusing on the logistical preparation of the painting, but the choice of image seems to come from a different way of thinking. The reasons for working with this are (in no particular order):

I made a painting called “Whitey on the Moon” prior to this at a smaller scale, so the choice of the lunar buggy was a continuation of this theme. The painting depicts an astronaut with an American flag, and I was drawn to this because of a running interest in images, which relate to ideas of utopia, or distopia. The Superman paintings also came about for this reason. The paradox in the lunar landing is really interesting because on one hand it represents one of mankind’s biggest achievements and is one of the few moments in time where many people across the world were united over a single event. However the primary drive behind this as we all know was political which completely changes what it represents.

The title, “Whitey on the Moon” comes from a poem (then song) by Gil Scott Heron and concerns the man in the street’s reaction to this event; higher taxes and increased poverty to fund economic power. These iconic images, be they space photographs or superman comics are universally understood in the West, so by using them as subjects for paintings they hold a lot of power. The fact that they are made by a 3-foot high disabled person also changes the way they are read as images. Reworking culturally familiar images is something that has interested me because of what the viewer brings to them. The range of reactions and interpretations is wide, some people see them as celebrations and others as critiques, both are true. I do not choose these images as pure critique. The way I work with them maintains an ambiguity.

I am also interested in the theories that these photographs are faked. The evidence for and against this is complex. I was fairly convinced with the conspiracy theories until recently when someone showed me a website which puts forward counter arguments… I still don’t know, but the implications are huge.

This particular image as you say is black and white. Most of my existing work relies heavily on the use of blocks of flat colour and I wanted to eliminate this to see whether the canvasses would still work without the immediate appeal of the pop aesthetic.

The fact that I chose a lunar buggy relates to the wheels on the canvas, and on my chair, but I was attracted to this image because it’s an image, which represents freedom, and yet his suit and his bolted together vehicle confine the astronaut. The fact that he has a cine camera attached in front of him was particularly appropriate to the residency.

Much of my recent work has dealt with bodies within a pictorial space. The Superman paintings often have movement which is painted in a very static way and the source images naturally sit on a blank background which suits they way the paintings are made. The space photographs I was looking at are very similar to comic strips; they are clean simple images with flat backgrounds, which allow a painting, which is representational but inherently abstract. These photographs on their own are fantastic images and were crying out to be painted.

Going back to the ideas about utopia – I first became interested in this when I was studying Architecture. The course was biased towards Modernist ethics and approaches and we learnt much about designs from the early part of the 20th century – especially Le Corbusier. What grabbed me was the belief that existed in architecture at this time, that changing the way society behaved and developed could be done through physical design – the idea that good design, from everyday objects to buildings and cities, would bring about universal change – and how this dream failed to work.

The fact that these methods were badly interpreted in post war redevelopment and lead to the creation of inner city ghettos is so significant to the position we find ourselves in now where universal ideas are generally ignored. This idea of perfection gone wrong exists for me in my genetic makeup. My disability apparently comes from nowhere and the odds are high for its occurrence. I think these ideas about cultural ideology and its failings, find some relationship to me on a personal level. I have only really been aware of this relationship in the last year or so, long after I started working with these types of image, but I think this explains a lot about why these images appeal to me.

DH: For me this seems central to the work I saw, on one hand the cultural currency of the image in the photograph, with its apparent seamless certainty, and on the other the inherent autobiographical fact of the image in the painting.

Can you say something about the dialogue that you feel painting can establish for you that hasn’t already been stated by the photograph? Why not just blow up a big photograph? Is there still a need to state the image “by hand”, and how important are “you” to the understanding of the work?

For a lot of people, myself included, the relationship one has or understanding of the “author of the work” is fundamental to any reading we might have. Painting is autobiographical by nature, but the images you chose are perhaps very significant in these works. Are you concerned about being directly autobiographical in these works?

BC: There are numerous reasons to paint an image rather than reproduce it photographically or digitally, but I still question my reasons for reproducing things by hand. Fundamentally the reworking of an image in paint is a very different thing to a photograph, even if it is true to the image. It is not a matter of wanting to reproduce the image faithfully as it already exists because this seems pointless. Photo realist painting such as Chuck Close’s early portraits are still something very different to the images he worked from despite their accuracy. First off is the kind of ‘wow’ factor you get from seeing these images, but I don’t think we should be overly seduced by technical expertise or labour time. I always want to leave the maker’s mark in the painting and I think the photo realist movement made themselves obsolete by laying to rest the quest for an accurate reproduction of nature – what do you do next?

In working from a photograph there is a great deal of editing, which occurs almost subconsciously. It’s often a case of what you leave out as much as what you put in, and the end result is something entirely different to the original image. Computers play a large role in what I do now and have basically eliminated drawing in terms of preparation. The ability to manipulate an image so rapidly speeds up the process a great deal.

The other important factor in the painting of an image for me is also the physical task. All painting I think relates to the body, be it that of the painter or the viewer. It is for this reason that I have increased the scale of my work. If I were to make small canvasses, I would be able to deal with the surface as anyone else would, but by making the task more difficult, new things arise that are connected to the question of “How do I do that?” Through the resolution of this question the work takes on concerns, which can only come about through a problem-solving angle.

I asked George Shaw recently why he paints when he could be making photographs. He answered, “Why do you paint?” to which I replied, “Because I enjoy it.” This is the other reason not to blow up the photograph. The act of painting, because of its time commitment, allows you to develop the work as its made much more than in other media. It is often during the making of the work that you begin to understand why you are doing it. For me there is also the satisfaction aspect of painting, which I don’t seem to get from other media. The actual painting process can be frustrating and at times boring, but it is often the desire to see the final result that pushes you through to an end product. The romantic image of the painter blissfully creating away in a rustic studio is light years away from my everyday experience, but there is something about painting when it goes well which I don’t get from anything else.

In terms of the autobiographical nature of the work, I have mixed feelings on this. I am in a believer in the idea that every work of art is a self-portrait, but I rarely set out with this in mind. It is usually not until later that this becomes apparent. Even in pieces that I tried to steer away from this, it later becomes clear. I do think though, that the work has to exist in isolation from the maker in order to succeed, and like any piece of work, if the viewer has to obtain information outside of the work in order to make any sense of it, then problems exist within it.

This said however I am a great believer in learning about the maker of the work in order to understand it more fully. I’m a sucker for this and sometimes when you look into the life of an artist, it is more interesting than the work itself. Although autobiographical aspects can be read into my paintings, I don’t necessarily want them to be taken in this way at face value. For example with the Superman paintings, I would hate people to think that I painted these because I see myself as some sort of superhuman. Apart from the Christopher Reeve angle, one of the reasons for choosing these images to work with was because of my situation at the time.

As a disabled person you tend to fit loosely into two categories. Either a useless member of society who has nothing to offer, or, if you do something with you life, your efforts are often elevated to something beyond themselves. In SuperManor for example, which shows the roof of Superman’s house, its owner having just flown from the attic window, there are many autobiographical parts of this image. At the time I felt I was being treated as someone who had exceeded other peoples’ expectations simply by doing the things that for most people are not out of the ordinary. Secondly I was just about to leave Sheffield at the end of my degree. In the painting, the image is cropped so that Superman is outside the frame; at the time I also had an attic room with a skylight. This image was from a Superman cover and I originally chose it because it was an unusual superhero image; superman in a domestic setting. Its use however was intended to be ironic in its reading, after all I was just another fine art graduate leaving college.

So even though I can explain much of my work in an autobiographical sense, it has to stand on its own two feet (or wheels). I don’t set out to drone on about my life through a narrative approach. The same goes for the paintings with the astronauts. As I said earlier, the reasons I wanted to work with these was because of what they represent in a cultural sense, and because they were fantastic images. When I discussed this work with you, you asked whether there was a link between the idea of the moon landing being such a huge scientific endeavour, and the task I undertook in painting 14 feet high canvases. Up until this point I hadn’t seen it that way, but I guess you’re right. I’m attracted to these utopian images, which point, towards our own evolution, and at the same time I’m trying to push my own work beyond my apparent capabilities. There are also all the things to do with the physical aspects of man on the moon in relation to my physical state, the limitations of the space suit, the lunar buggy etc.

DH: Is it possible to say at this point what or if you have been able to move on with your work – you talked about risk, speculation and to an extent uncertainty when I saw you – is this any clearer?

BC: It’s now been about five weeks since finishing and I have some grasp on the successes and failures of the residency but can’t really say whether the paintings and video have worked overall until I complete them in the next few months. Overall I see the project as successful in that I feel I have pushed my work forward and did achieve essentially what I set out to do.

The two paintings that I worked on need a lot more work before they will be near completion. 7 weeks brought me to a point where I can see how they may turn out and the one I began in the last week looks to be the better of the two even though I spent much longer on the first. This is obviously because I learnt from the mistakes in the first one, so began a second painting using the same image.

I had a lot of problems working on this scale and applied the paint in a way quite different to my normal approach. The first painting suffers from an uncertainty, which to me seems obvious in the variety of ways I painted it. Some areas are loose and others much tighter because I made the decision, part way in, to try out various approaches. I will go back to it soon and see if it can be resolved but I think there is a better sense of unity in the second piece which still needs more work.

I encountered a lot of technical hitches with the large canvases but this is a learning process and if I work on this scale again I will know how better to tackle it. The canvasses (which are twice as tall and wide as anything I’d worked on previously) were something I had to try, only if it meant I stopped working big and returned to smaller scale work. The physical and technical challenge really kept my enthusiasm up during the project. I think the choice of image was a good one – the image has a lot of weight, which I wasn’t fully aware of when I began.

The video work succeeded in its intentions because this was a good point at which to re-introduce the media to my practice. Making the documentation gave me a safe environment in which to experiment with video and I’ve learnt a lot fairly quickly through the intensity of the project. Though the footage varies a great deal in quality, I got very interested in working with unusual camera angles, which was something I have worked briefly with in the past. This is something I intend to work with in the future, and I formed quite a few ideas during my time on the residency. My technical skills have improved a great deal as well and I’ve begun a course in digital editing in order to deal with the six hours of footage.

Whether this combination of video and painting is successful, I am still unsure in terms of this project as to whether I will exhibit the paintings and video together. There is definitely potential in this combination for the future, I have begun to think about things such as timed, documented paintings and using video to acquire images to work from. In one sense this project was a vehicle for self-evaluation. I am usually horrified when seeing myself on film, so forcing myself to do this has given me a better idea of how others may see me and how I see myself.

Having the seven weeks to devote to this project was great in that it forced me to focus on one thing, which can be difficult in normal practice. I also re-established contact with many of the people in Sheffield that I started to loose touch with, which is important. Discussing and reflecting on the work with you has also been extremely helpful and has given me valuable input, which I’ve been lacking of late.

I think I did take quite a lot of risks in this work, which I think I usually avoid; perhaps this is something I need to address in the future. Another thing this residency taught me is that I’m often over ambitious in my intentions and maybe I need to be more realistic in future. However, better ambitious and failing than going nowhere nicely…