AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ANTONY MICALLEF
‘DISTORTED SELF PORTRAIT’
GOLD LIST Award Artist Antony Micallef at the studio. © By Art Market Magazine.
Antony Micallef is a British artist. He was taught by the great landscape painter John Virtue, a student of the last of the post-war painters, the renowned Frank Auerbach himself. Micallef is Widely recognized as one of the finest painters in contemporary art today. His art is exhibited in numerous collections all over the world and was part of group shows held in institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Academy, Tate Britain, and the ICA London.
Known for his visually charged figure paintings, Antony Micallef (b. 1975) has enjoyed international success ever-since he was granted the second-place award of the BP Portrait Awards of 2000, hosted at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Other key exhibitions of his art include a solo exhibition at the Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong Pedder Building space; an exhibition at the National Academy of Fine Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria; the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland; the Royal Academy, London, UK; the ICA, London, UK; Tate Britain, London, UK; and Dallas Contemporary, Texas, USA.
Micallef’s series of works are a complete departure from his earlier artworks. He builds up a relief-like surface with heavy paint to depict a figurative mass in front of a muted background. By using an impasto technique, the material is pushed to its extreme and blurs our reading of painting and sculpture. Confronted with the sheer physicality of the painting as an object, the depicted subject takes on its own life and existence. Furthermore, the use of gestural abstraction resonates with the traditions of action painting from the 1940s and the School of London from the 1970s.
We are most delighted to have this special interview with Antony Micallef, about his artwork, ‘DISTORTED SELF PORTRAIT’.
GOLD LIST Award Artist Antony Micallef. Raw intent no. 1 Oil with beeswax on French linen, 135 x 112 cm (53 1/8 x 44 1/8 in.) 2016 © Art Market Magazine
Art Market: Hello, Antony. Thank you for the interview. You have made a long way from your previous style of creation, that some had referred to as ‘bubblegum pop’ paintings, to your current style, which is very deep. Tell us about this development.
Antony Micallef: Evolving as an artist is a constant process. The more you work, the more ideas grow and develop. You have to be committed, and one’s art is something that has to be nurtured, like any relationship with a person. The more you put into it, the more it offers you. Through this process, you have many conversations with yourself – that is translated into your work. It’s like learning a language and you are trying to refine it all the time and make it more efficient and economical. The Japanese-inspired pop work from my early days was me discovering color. I used to travel to Japan frequently and would use it as a source of gathering, collecting information that I would bring back to the studio at home. I wanted to include social messages, and I loved the idea of something being beautiful but with a darker underbelly once it has your attention. I made work inspired by this essence for a while, but I guess my latest work was me wanting to get back to my roots as a painter.
Art Market: Your art is very complex. The special techniques you use and your style may invoke difficult emotions in the viewer. Tell us, what is the philosophical idea behind your art?
Antony Micallef: I think my main concern with the new body of work was wanting the paint to do all the communication with the viewer through the medium itself. What I mean by that is that I want the paint to physically emote the feeling rather than to illustrate it. The paint has to be the primary vehicle in conveying emotion. It’s a very physical way of painting. You are literally throwing, scraping, swiping the paint on to the canvas at a very fast speed with lots of power until it begins to form something that has a presence. The figure is used as a conduit to convey emotion. You are trying to arrange marks, structure, and color at a very fast pace, and it’s a bit like trying to arrange a very complex puzzle at a fast pace. I am interested in stretching human emotion and to create distorts of the face to its limit before it disintegrates. For me, it’s like testing emotions in a laboratory and seeing how much of it, it can take before it’s destroyed. The essence of the work is to make the painting ‘breathe’ on its own. Essentially, painting is moving around colored bits of earth onto a canvas, but if one can inject life into this process and give it its own energy, then I consider that successful.
GOLD LIST Award Artist Antony Micallef. Raw intent no. 2 2016, Oil with beeswax on French linen, 155 x 132 cm (61 x 52 in.) 2016 © Art Market Magazine
Art Market: What is your ideal workflow? The process behind the art?
Antony Micallef: The backgrounds are made using traditional renaissance techniques of glazing and reglazing. I work on these for weeks until I get the desired effect I need. This method of painting is very slow and methodical. The act of painting the heads and figures are the complete opposite, and require high levels of energy and concentration. I use many different tools to execute the main figure and to give contrasting effects while trying to form the figure. I always feel it’s like trying excavate something from the paint. It’s like trying to unearth something from the ground. It offers you clues and hints of where to go but you have to work for it until these figures start to form. Your aim is to reveal something from the paint and to maneuver it into a place where you can create an accident of chance. These ‘accidents’ are very important as it’s these very random marks that give the painting it’s life and vitality.
Art Market: What are the tensions that you aim to achieve between figure and ground?
Antony Micallef: Most of the paintings’ backgrounds are influenced by looking at Rembrandt’s and Velasquez’s backgrounds. The foreground figure and the background are treated differently to create a contrast that propels the figure forward. It’s also a contrast in texture that helps the painting look more dynamic. The background gives the figure a context and a setting for the figure to inhabit. Its environment helps create a mood and a stage to enhance the emotion I want to project. Their own sense of being is like staging an alter ego, and painting becomes an improvisation, taking on different personas.
GOLD LIST Award Artist Antony Micallef. Self-portrait on grey 2015. 135 x 112 cm (53 1/8 x 44 1/8 in.) Oil on French linen.© Art Market Magazine
Art Market: Can you talk a bit more about the metamorphosis between you, as the subject, and the painting? And where do you draw the line between the depiction of self and the representation of the figure?
Antony Micallef: I think I see a departure from my physical self fairly early on. At the beginning, my essence of energy is used and passed on like a catalyst, like an ignition.
This is like a kick start, trying to start an engine…trying to charge this ‘thing’ full of energy. Like trying to give life to a body—to resuscitate it. The aim of the paintings is to eventually get to a stage where the piece can “breathe” on its own. At that stage, it’s no longer ‘just a painting’ to me.
Art Market: You had mentioned that “The figures are distorted, pushed and pulled until they start to ‘breathe’ on their own”. What is it like when the object depicted on canvas is staring back at you?
Antony Micallef: I think when this moment happens I feel utter joy. I feel a release of tension and I become so excited. It’s quite a difficult sensation to describe because it feels like you had given birth to something that is very still, but has life. It is just a canvas, but there is something very different about it at that present moment. At this point, every mark is working and is functional as if veins are pumping blood around the body in all the right places at the right time. Of course, because of the very nature of the painting, there is panic and a sense of urgency, too, as most of the time when these paintings are created, they need to rest on the floor before parts of them fall off to the ground below. That’s why they all have painterly hand marks around the edges, as I quickly try and make room for them on the
studio floor to preserve them, so they can dry a little to be safe enough to be moved.
It really is the best feeling when you capture that moment.
It makes painting so worthwhile. It’s also a weird feeling because a lot of the painting is done at such speed and at such an unconscious level that you can’t actually remember how you created it. I think this notion adds to the feeling it’s no longer me but a separate entity. I’ve used my hands to help it “breathe”, but now it is independent of me… If that makes sense.
GOLD LIST Award Artist Antony Micallef. Self-portrait at the studio. © Art Market Magazine
Art Market: You are also known for your political artworks; your exhibition in Bethlehem made waves. Tell us about mutual work with Banksy.
Antony Micallef: Exhibiting behind the separation wall was one of the most interesting things I had done. Personally, I learned a lot about the situation of politics on both sides, which was really educational. Banksy set the whole exhibition up and curated it from scratch. He invited artists from all around the world and it was a great thing to be involved in: raising money for a children’s charity.
Art Market: I saw that part of your art is available for sale online, and most of it had been sold already. How do you feel about the online world as a medium for selling art?
Antony Micallef: In principle, I think it’s completely fine. It works better for some artists over others. My work is very sculptural, though, and you really have to be in front of it for it to make any sense. You just can’t get the depth or understand how much paint is actually used from just a JPG, because the work is so physical you have to see it in the flesh to fully appreciate it.
Art Market: What’s integral to the work of an artist?
Antony Micallef: I think honesty and commitment. I think you have to be honest with what you are saying or producing as people can sense when you are trying to make something for money or when your heart’s not in it. Commitment is important as the more you work the more you develop. You have to invest time in the studio in order to develop.
Exclusive Interview with GOLD LIST Award Artist Antony Micallef. © Art Market Magazine.
Art Market: What has been a seminal experience, to you?
Antony Micallef: There have been a few experiences and exhibitions where I think I have been really lucky to have been involved in. I think exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London was one of my highlights. I had four 13ft high Bronze sculptures I had made a few years earlier in LA brought over and placed outside the Building on the Burlington Gardens’ entrance as part of the GSK young contemporaries. I was also invited to 10 Downing Street, which I thought was rather strange but fun. They were inviting artists to discuss how we can raise awareness through art in the Congo. The last one is putting on the exhibition behind the separation wall in Bethlehem that we talked about earlier.
Art Market: How has your practice changed over time?
Antony Micallef: I think I’m probably a little more patient with my art than I used to be.
I can be incredibly impatient sometimes and I always want to see results quickly. This doesn’t always help the creating process as some things just take time.
Art Market: What art do you most identify with?
Antony Micallef: Of course I’m a painter and I love looking at paintings, but I don’t think you can be prejudiced when looking at art. Art is essentially a language and I think the best art always makes you feel human. We all want to feel human when we engage with art.
Art Market: Favorite or most inspirational place (in the world)?
Antony Micallef: Probably Italy for the renaissance and Tokyo because it’s the closest place you can get to Mars on this planet.
Art Market: Professionally, what’s your goal?
Antony Micallef: Just to improve…
Website: www.antonymicallef.com
Instagram: @antonymicallef
Facebook: antonymicallef
