David MacWilliam, October 6 – November 27, 1983

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Catalogue Introduction, Greg Bellerby

During the past nine years David MacWilliam has been actively involved with various types of art making. He has produced drawings and paintings as well as a number of installation works. But it is painting that has consistently held his interest over the years. Although his production has not been large, it has been significant and innovative in relation to the concerns of contemporary painting

While studying at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1975, MacWilliam began to think about the possibility of painting paintings in a new, fresh way. Paintings that would somehow be different from the majority of work being done at that time. “I had a real belief in art. I was excited about the possibilities of making art and the greatest challenge was how to make it interesting today.” 1

MacWilliam began to do small drawings executed on scraps of paper, telephone message pads, envelopes and in sketch books. These drawings have become the source of images for most of the paintings. “They were small doodles I suppose, but I thought they were interesting as drawings and powerful as images.”

For MacWilliam then doodle is a kind of universal way of drawing. Everybody doodles and they all have their own particular qualities. It is mostly an absent-minded activity done to idly pass time. By the nature of the activity doodles may contain latent our subjective meaning buried in the subconscious. It is this aspect that intrigues MacWilliam; their potential to carry meaning beyond their unassuming character.

In his own drawings it is their idiosyncrasies and apparent crudeness that he finds interesting. The drawings that are saved and used in his paintings are usually the ones that are the most ambiguous. They have evolved into a private vocabulary of forms and images which he sees as being, “Emblematic, allegorical, and often anthropomorphic metaphors; ciphers for some unspoken reality.”3

The idea that an image can carry associations and contain universal qualities is one of the essential concerns of the paintings. MacWilliam is particularly interested in the viewers perception of the work. His intention is to create evocative images which have the power to resonate and persist in the viewer’s memory.

MacWilliam is conscious about presenting the images in a way that will hopefully provoke the viewer into making certain associations about the image. Although they have specific origins and associations for him, they are at the same time open enough for the viewer to bring his or her own reading tot eh work. By virtue of their ambiguous character the associations can only be implied and therefore, not illicit a literal interpretation. The images can only lead the viewer into certain area and ways of thinking.

The images tend to fall into two categories. There are forms which are made up of curves with soft edges like the vessel and tornado forms. Shapes which imply anthropomorphic associations, and shapes like the Cutter with sharp edges implying mechanomorphic associations. These along with the towers and wedge forms, are used repeatedly throughout the paintings.

Recently, MacWilliam has begun to think more about the images in terms of archetypes. “I began to think that certain forms could be archetypal, like the Vessel, Cooling Tower, or Tornado shapes. And the Ziggurat, an earlier painting is also a power image, which has a history as an archetype, and carries a lot of meaning.”4

Generally only one image is presented in the paintings. But in some of the earlier works such as Untitled, 1976 (cat #1) and Untitled, 1977 (cat #5) more than one image appears. In these paintings the same image is used but varied slightly implying a sense of time and animation. Here MacWilliam is interested in the notion of a narrative, or creating a relationship within the painting. “I always thought that these paintings were very personal, that they could be read like relationships. Some figures being more aggressive, while others were receptive, you could interpret them in that way.”5 MacWilliam seems to have abandoned the use of multiple images in favour of single images, feeling that the complexity had the effect of diminishing the images’ chances of sticking in the viewer’s memory.

When MacWilliam first began to make paintings, his intention was to make paintings that looked and felt different from the work he saw around him. The led him to examine the traditional means by which paintings are made and presented. “I thought that if you didn’t use a traditional support, if you didn’t stretch it and you chose an intimate scale, that would immediately make the work seem different.”6 His first paintings were not done on a traditional stretched support, but were executed on paper. He chose to work with non-high art materials such as model paints and airplane dope. The scale of the works was small and intimate. Presenting the work in this manner gave them a distinctive appearance. The surfaces have a strong sense of physicality and the underplaying of size draws attention to the work.

Over the years MacWilliam has more or less come to accept the traditional methods of working. All of his recent paintings are done with acrylic or oil on stretched canvas. This in part may be a result of his experience and increased confidence with painting techniques. His efforts seem more towards refining the elements within the painting to produce the most succinct statement that the images have the power to draw t he viewer’s attention.

All of the paintings are very controlled and contrived. They are conceptual in that they are executed in such a manner that the intended results are achieved. Every aspect of the painting is carefully thought out; the scale, the colour relationships, the flatness or translucency of the ground, the perspective of the figure are all given equal attention and consideration.

MacWilliam’s treatment of the figural element has evolved within the paintings. In the earlier works the figures are delineated with a simple black outline and painted a flat colour, as in Untitled, 1976 (cat #1). By painting the figure in this manner he preserves the idiosyncrasies of the original drawing. In 1981 he made the Cornucopia (cat #17) painting. It was the first time he had used shading or modelling on a figure. He had already acknowledged the illusion of three dimensions by drawing the figure in simple perspective. By also shading the figure he further acknowledges the illusion. The modelling also further reinforces the figure’s real world implications. Consistent with the drawings element the modelling was done in a fairly crude painterly manner.

Scale also plays an important role in teh paintings. The images appear to have no real scale. They do not refer to any particular object and are generally isolated on teh grounds, adding to their enigmatic quality. “I hope the images are scaleless, that even when you look at them you are thrown into questioning whether that thing might be forty feet tall unreality. Does it seem like a small thing or a large thing? Obviously some are more intimate, while others are more heroic in terms of scale.”7

As with the figure, the grounds have also undergone various changes. Initially MacWilliam was interested in glazing, building up translucent surfaces with successive layers of colour. The Untitled, 1978 (cat #8) painting typifies this approach with its deep, rich blue ground with the translucent red figure. In the Cornucopia (cat#1) painting of 1981 the ground became very active, agitated and atmospheric. The paint has been applied wet into wet giving the surface a wide tonal range. In the more recent paintings he has become interested in staining the ground which gives the surface a flat even colour saturation as seen in the wine red ground of the Green Vessel (cat#22) painting of 1983.

Generally the paintings are made up of only two colours. MacWilliam’s choice of colour comes from a conscious desire not to be predictable. “I always wanted colour to be abrasive and avoided traditional notions of colour theory.”8 Colours are chosen for their associative power. “I’m interested in colour associations. I was very attracted to “flesh” colours. I felt that if you used a “flesh” colour even on a mechanomorphic shape, it would draw in certain human qualities or associations.”9

MacWilliam is also fascinated with colours that have period associations. In the Double Helix, 1982 (cat #18) painting he combined salmon and black, a combination reminiscent of the 1950s.

Throughout all the paintings MacWilliam has endeavoured to give them qualities that would have lasting impact. “One of the things that I hope happens for the viewer is that something of the work, a residue, is left with them to sit and grow in teh subconscious, so when you see the work again you are pleasantly reminded, and you see things you didn’t before, and you make new associations. In this way the work grows, and has its own life.”10

Greg Bellerby, August 1983

Notes: All quotes from MacWilliam, Bellerby interview, June 1983, except #3, which is from an artist’s statement from the Biennale de Paris catalogue, April 1982.