LINSEED 艺术家 | 汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
汤姆·豪斯：悬停的超现实剧场
汤姆·豪斯擅长在大尺幅的画面空间中，构筑童真与怪诞并存的视幻乐园，延续着英国艺术家斯坦利·斯宾塞（Stanley Spencer）把平面性代入进写实领域的传统，他以一种抽离了时间感的平面作为基底，图绘出一个个与超现实主义隔空对话的行动剧场。
当视点嵌套进画面中心的某一处纵深，动作的发生勾连出想象，图像的叙事性便悄然诞生。正如“Beyond Here Lurks The Whispering Existence of Nowhere”和“The Silence of Twilight and The Quiet Nibbling Noises that Ducks Make”两幅汤姆的新作所呈现的那样，我们看到的不止是日常生活的视觉变体，它们犹如两则悬而未决的故事般，让我们感到熟悉之余，又使我们遭遇了困惑。
熟悉感是画作与观众建立深度沟通的链接，也是由透视法塑造出的虚拟空间对观看的召唤。不过汤姆并不希望他的作品仅仅是复刻现实的摹本，成为圈禁观众想象力的安全区。
文/张莹 Ellie
Q2. 观看你的作品，我总会情不自禁思考，你描绘的那些可见和不可见的形象所象征的多重隐喻......是曾经受到过某些经典作品的启发，而形成这种图像表意方式的么？
A：对于我来说，我画画不是单纯的描摹自然，而是把不同的形状和形式按照自己所构思的样子整合起来，尤其是植物和人物，我处理起来特别得心应手。当它们最终出现在我的画面上时，作为半真实半虚构的混合体，就已经不再属于现实世界了。其实“虚构”是所有艺术作品必备的属性，从来没有一条清晰的分界线能表明现实的终点和想象力的起点到底在哪里。
关于“可见”与“不可见”的形象，我想或许看过的电影和卡通片，在潜移默化地影响着我的创作。鬼魂、超自然现象等等在我们的文化生活中真的很常见，包括塑造它们形象的那种诡异的光线和色调。不光是科幻电影和动画，古代绘画作品里也常能发现对异世界的描绘。我热爱人类对神秘的探索，和对未知存在的旺盛好奇心。
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
瓷窗 （一） Porcelain Window 1, 2021
亚麻布面丙烯 Acrylic on flax
170 x 130 cm
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
瓷窗（二）Porcelain Window 2, 2021
亚麻布面丙烯 Acrylic on flax
170 x 130 cm
另一件小点的作品是一幅透过室内的一扇窗户望向窗外风景的画作，室内陈设着复古风格的木椅、家具、植物，还有几只鸭子。这些鸭子占据着画面中心，平静而满足，有的看着窗外，有的互相凝视。不像那件大尺寸作品里的鸽子会和主体人物有互动关系，在这幅作品里，我只想让这个空间自己呆着。生活中，有时我们想社交，有时孤独也挺好。大家看到这几只鸭子能自然放松，感到自在平和，就是我希望达到的状态。不过观众也会察觉到这并不是一个纯模仿自然空间的场景，比如空着的椅子，窗外远处的房子，会释放出一些引发联想的暗示，是有人离开了，还是有人正准备进来？有一种徘徊于安慰和抛弃之间的情感张力。
这两件作品都自带着这种快乐和满足，恐惧和困惑并存的情绪力量。其实人总是会渴望能经历复杂而难以名状的情感体验。我希望我的画能提供这种虚拟的体验，像电脑游戏，或者一个由外力塑造和被观察的世界，一个你置身其中无法分辨内外界限的世界。
我的作品有点像爱德华·霍普（Edward Hopper）和贝丽尔·库克（Beryl Cook）的结合体。霍普一直在创造一种窥探的视角，让观众去感受他笔下人物的私密性。你会感觉就像你成为了他作品的一部分，和主体人物一起融入进了那个高度私人化的情感空间，但是越沉浸其中，你越会感到他们的不真实。对我来说也是一样，我塑造真实的目的是为了让“不真实”显现。贝丽尔则和霍普完全不同，她从来不会展现出消极的一面，她的那种兼容生活美好和荒诞的能力，也深深影响着我的创作。
Tom Howse has shown his abilities at constructing an illusory paradise of innocence and absurdity on a large canvas. Inheriting from the British artist Stanley Spencer who has introduced flatness into realism, Tom Howse bases his practice on a plane disconnected from the sense of time flowing. He has depicted numerous action theatres where conversations with surrealism happen beyond time and space.
When one’s point of view is embedded somewhere deep in the centre of the picture, and the occurrence of action draws imagination, there goes without saying the narrative of images. As shown in Howse’s new works Beyond Here Lurks The Whispering Existence Of Nowhere (2021) and The Silence of Twilight and The Quiet Nibbling Noises that Ducks Make (2021), what we see are not merely visual variations of everyday life; they’re also like two unfinished stories that are both familiar and confusing.
Familiarity is the link of an in-depth conversation between the painting and the audience, as well as the visual appeal of a virtual space created by perspective techniques. In the meantime, Howse doesn’t want his work to be a facsimile of reality or a comfort zone for the audience’s imagination.
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
植物和花盆 Plants and Pots, 2021
亚麻布面丙烯 Acrylic on flax
71 x 56 cm
From an overall look to partial details, you will find that the initial canvas space, which seems dominated by flatness, gradually emerged more and more intriguing details that foreshadow more sophisticated forms and narrative in Tom’s painting. For instance, how he dealt with the trees in Beyond Here Lurks The Whispering Existence Of Nowhere, he chose high-contrast solid colours as the background, on which he interweaves a clear and thin glaze of paint with rough and heavy brush strokes, to depict details of the trees in the centre of the picture. From a distanced view, however, he just shaped some of the trees in mixed colour. The looming outline neither emphasizes the virtuality nor the reality of objects; it reflects the importance of shape in the structure instead. As a result, each tree is given a personalized aesthetic. Because of their anthropomorphic forms, as the viewers, we get more curious about the pigeon feeder in the centre of the image: are these trees, just like us, watching a hovering moment from nowhere?
Looking at the history of art from the rearview mirror, we can see that artists always try to present a supernatural world where human nature meets divinity no matter how artistic practice has changed. It also means that “fiction” is an indispensable feature of an artwork. During the Renaissance, the remarkable artist Fra Angelico would paint floating heads and hands out of nowhere to make a mockery of Christianity. In Howse’s work, he tries to capture the ineffable mystery of real-life from a surrealist point of view, with a sense of humour reminiscent of the jovial style of the British artist Beryl Cook, known for her depiction of daily life. Flying close to the ground, they perceive at the same time the beauty and absurdity of life itself.
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
猫和壮丽的黎明 Puss and the Majesty of Dawn, 2021
亚麻布面丙烯 Acrylic on flax
150 x 200 cm
Q & A
Q1. I just wonder about your unique technique for painting; how did you make so many different visual effects by brush?
A. I usually draw out the image in charcoal, to begin with; then, I might continue to re-draw the image again while the paint is building up. I think the drawing qualities are really important to me in the finished image. I usually build up the brushstrokes with multiple layers of paint; some are more opaque, some are really thin tints and glazes, sometimes I’ll paint smooth, sharp areas, then other bits are more scruffy and chaotic. I often like things to be really high contrast and rich colour, but then having some figurative elements subtly hidden and camouflaged in other areas. I like this sort of visual mystery. I like it when you see one colour from a distance, then up close you see that it’s made of all kinds of strange and beautiful colour combinations. Or when you use different colours which are tonally similar and it kind of makes your eyes fizz.
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
壁龛鸭子静 Alcove Still Life with Duck, 2020
亚麻丙烯 Acrylic on flax
120 x 100 cm
Q2. And when looking at your work, I always get involved with multiple layers of metaphor between visible and invisible images. Have any other masterpieces inspired you for forming this structure in your works?
A. A lot of what I paint is an assortment of different shapes and forms; plants and figures are really good for this; they can be manipulated into any composition as you wish. And my figures differ between both real, physical depictions as well as these floating or half present, unreal characters. But the ‘unrealness’ is present throughout all of the work, so there is never a clear boundary of where reality ends and fantasy begins.
I think a lot of the influences of the “visible” and “invisible” aspects to my work can be found in cinema and cartoons. We have quite an accepting cultural view of how ghosts or paranormality manifest visually. Strange lights and colours, “ghostly” transparency etc., all of that stuff is everywhere in sci-fi and fantasy in film and cartoons. But as well, in fine art, we can see how otherworldliness is covered across ancient artforms; I love the ways humans have always sought to explain and document the mystery and curiosity of existence.
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
透过拱窗的风景中一位男⼦头上有一只鸽⼦
Pigeon on a Mans Head in a Landscape Viewed through an Arch, 2021
亚麻布面丙烯 Acrylic on flax
71 x 56 cm
The Renaissance was full of these attempts to explain otherworldly entities. I love Fra Angelico’s mocking of Christ where there are these floating heads and hands; there was not such a defined way to represent multiple actions sequentially or the notion of time in storytelling forms. So, there is this slightly naïve approach that appears more like a collage or a sort of associative collection of painted elements.
I love Stanley Spencer’s work, and for me, what he was doing was the same as classical painters and those of the Renaissance to depict Christianity, but also his scenes of resurrection and of joy and love are almost as bizarre and otherworldly as a modern sci-fi fantasy but situated in this quiet English village in the early 20th century. It feels even more weird and fantastic to me because It’s so embedded in a state of reality
Q3. Besides, I’m also curious about your work for WestBund. What’s the highlight of it?
A. One of the works is a really large painting of a figure in a wooded landscape feeding pigeons. There are some buildings and people and trees and bushes. I wanted to create a rich, textural scene with a joyous feeling, a warm sort of happy summer evening contentedness. But this place doesn’t feel real; there is something conflicting with reality. It’s just a sort of magical nowhere paused in time. I’m very curious about simulacra and hyper-realities, the varying perceptions of our existence and the creative evolution involved each time we step further away from reality and deeper into the meta-narratives we create around our perceptions of existence.
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse
极为可爱的一刻 A Really Lovely Time, 2021
亚麻丙烯 Acrylic on flax
71 x 56 cm
The other work is a smaller interior scene with a window looking out onto an eerie landscape at dusk with a small wooden house. Inside the room are an antique wooden chest, a chair and some plants. The room is also occupied by a group of ducks; they are all calm and content, some engaging with one another, one looking out of the window. Unlike with the pigeons in the larger work who are in the mood for some human interaction, In this piece, I didn’t want a direct human presence in the image; in life, there are times when we want human interaction and times when we don’t. I wanted to think of these ducks being able to relax and be in peace and privacy. The viewer is able to observe them secretively in this way in this unnatural environment. Yet the empty chair and the view of the house through the window gives this suggestion of human presence, whether someone has just left or that there is someone close by. It feels to me a tense feeling as to whether it’s comforting or one of abandonment. In both images, the scenes hold a dualistic mood of happiness and contentedness alongside a sense of doubt or horror, but this is the excitement of the human condition to experience this range of complex emotions. I like my paintings to have an atmosphere of simulation, like a computer game or a world being created and observed by an external force. But one in which you cannot distinguish whether you’re observing externally or from within.
In these works, I had been looking a lot at Edward Hopper’s paintings. He manages to create this tension between the privacy of the characters and the voyeurism of the viewer. You feel like you’re crossing a social boundary and being made a character yourself in these deeply private scenes. But again, as real as the scenes are, they also feel very unreal. And for me, it is this “realism” that actually works to make them more convincingly “unreal”.
Another artist I love is Beryl Cooke; she never captures people negatively, she seems to only ever see the beauty in people and our absurdity, and this is also something I feel is important to my work.
过往展览 | 鸽子草地野鸭宫殿 Pigeon Grass Mallard Palace
汤姆·豪斯 Tom Howse @ LINSEED Projects
2021年5月29日 - 7月11日