Review: A Century of the Artist’s Studio
Although integral to the production of the artworks we know and love, and conducive to the very processes that make up an artist’s practice, the artist’s studio is something seldom seen in a gallery context. This might contribute to why the current exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery feels intimate and rare as if we’re looking in on something that has previously been kept a secret.
A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920 – 2020 showcases an impressive number of artworks by over 80 artists from around the world. The exhibition is divided into subsections that explore the studio as performance, workshop, laboratory, refuge, home, a part of the everyday and more. It boasts a range of celebrated names within modern and contemporary art, including Louis Bourgeois, Egon Schiele, Cy Twombly, Michael Armitage and more. Of these artists, the works of three renowned Canadian talents are showcased, each representing aspects of culture in Canada that hint at how our unique identity is cultivated within a studio setting.
The three Canadian artists are Maud Lewis, Rodney Graham and Lisa Milroy, all of whom represent distinct practices and various time periods in Canadian history. Their stories shift from that of bold resilience to the relatable every day and together they provide a snapshot of the variety in circumstances under which Canadian arts and culture are developed.
Installation view of Studio Corner: Maud Lewis at Whitechapel Gallery, London
Maud Lewis
Many artists, myself included, are familiar with the necessity and the conveniences of a home studio, but Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis took it a step further. Her shack in Nova Scotia, and all the surfaces within it, became a work of art as she painted whimsical images of nature and colourful motifs of flora and fauna with boat paint. She suffered from arthritis and lived in poverty, so she made do with what she could, using cheaper materials than canvas to paint on and selling her small works for $2 per piece.
For this exhibition, an entire studio corner is dedicated to Lewis, with original artefacts from her home in Nova Scotia set against a dusty blue wall and a large-scale photo of a replica of her home. Her small writing desk stands in the corner, worn and loved, painted with ornate flowers, foliage and birds. A few of her small paintings are on display, along with a dustpan, a round tin and other small knick-knacks that are characteristically decorated with her signature style of patternation. Produced in the 1930s, these works tell a tale of a time when resourcefulness and resilience in the face of personal hardship led to beautiful things. Overlooked in her time, today Maud Lewis is regarded as one of the foremost figures of Canadian folk art.
Installation shot of Rodney Graham’s The Gifted Amateur, Nov. 10th, 1962, 2007, at Whitechapel Gallery.
Rodney Graham
Rodney Graham, a multi-talented and multidisciplinary artist hailing from Abbotsford in British Columbia, is known for creating and embodying characters. These characters often play out a role as a way to explore themes pertinent to the culture of the time, including self-reflexively the figure of the artist within the Western tradition. He is associated with the Vancouver School, whose loose boundaries see a practice of conceptual and post-conceptual photography which led them to critical acclaim as a movement that directly responded to both the tradition of conceptual art and the proliferation of mass media. Other major Canadian names associated with this movement include Jeff Wall and Stan Douglas.
In a larger-than-life three-panel lightbox photo, this self-portrait of Graham as a painter in what he calls the "playboy mansion of studios" depicts a suave interior, a spacious living room with hints of 1960s opulence. The floor is covered in newspaper prints, with stacks of art books littered on various surfaces of the room. In the centre panel, and surrounded by bowls and containers of paint, is a man standing in his pyjamas, casually pouring yellow paint onto a large canvas with one hand and a cigarette protruding from his mouth. Graham here embodies the ideal of the masculine figure of the 1960s art world, mechanistically creating a pour painting, empty of passion but keeping the cool composure of someone self-assured and in the know. The Gifted Amateur, Nov. 10th, 1962 is confusingly the title of this work produced in 2007, and at once examines Graham’s immense curiosity with and ironically make a jab at the hyper-macho environment of the arts during the time that this image was set.
Installation shot of Lisa Milroy’s A Day in the Studio, 2000, at Whitechapel Gallery.
Lisa Milroy
Lisa Milroy was born in Vancouver but studied in the UK at both St. Martin’s School of Art and Goldsmiths College of Art in the 70s and 80s. Since then, she has been producing paintings that take on many styles and subject matter, evolving through her many years of practice. What we find throughout are objects in repetition, often on a single canvas. Some of her works are more photorealistic, whereas others opt for a looser, almost cartoon-like aesthetic. In more recent years, her paintings have extended beyond the canvas, to works of performance and installation.
For her piece in this exhibition, her painting on large-scale canvas goes a narrative route. Divided into 42 (six by seven) individual boxes, a tale unfolds like a storyboard. Aptly named A Day in the Life, each box depicts a moment in the artist’s day, from getting up and doing her daily morning routine to cycling to her studio, to finally opening up a tube of paint, to then leaving, and presumably cycling home. The sketchy monochrome style of this painting nods at the mechanisms of memory, not entirely perfect and always with a fuzzy edge, but rendering the atmosphere of moments more faithfully than the forms. Created in 2000, its ever-relatable sceneries with the familiar events of the day relfect that of our own, regardless of whether we spend time in the studio or not.