It is interesting how chains are linked and connections made. Jack Knox, a Scottish painter and teacher died this week. He trained and taught at the Glasgow School of Art. He openly ‘borrowed’ from other artists. His work is not what attracted me. What did were the names of his former students, Jenny Saville, whose stunning and challenging work I saw at the Ashmolean in Oxford, and Alison Watt, who I hadn’t heard of.
Detail from Seafood Stall (1980s) by John Knox. Photograph: Gerber Fine Art & Compass Gallery
Watt’s work is sumptuous, sensual and unforgettable, suggesting the life form by its absence. Watching her at work as the seventh Associate Artist at the National Gallery is illuminating. She works painfully slowly on her huge canvases, up to 10 x 14 feet, a brush stroke at a time, up and down her ladder. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/w/artist/alison-watt/object/sabine-gma-4353
Sabine – https://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/w/artist/alison-watt/object/sabine-gma-4353
She talks softly and eloquently about her work and her inspiration, referencing the white knotted cravat in the portrait by Jacques-Louis David of Jacobus Blauw, for Pulse and Echo.
Pulse – http://www.inglebygallery.com/artists/alison-watt/
Watt says that ‘painting is a way of being’ and it is her way of ‘creating order our of chaos’.
I have spent the morning reflecting upon the emotional effect her work has had on me. Unexpectedly moved to tears, I watched Watt outline the folds then painstakingly build the gradation. a brush stroke at a time, just like I define petals.
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