Many of us are now working from home, self-isolating, and generally limiting the scope of our social lives. Undeniably, our worlds and the movements we make in them have gotten much, much smaller. But can the same also be said for artists, and the works they produce? We consulted some of the artists at NewBloodArt to see whether this was true, and used their experience as an opportunity to muse on the concept of ‘working small’ in an art historical context.
In the history of Western art, bigger has often meant better. For example, in the European academic traditions of late 18th century France, painting on a large-scale reflected cultural influence and power – particularly for the kings that featured in grand portraits. Still life scenes of objects were ranked the least important, whilst biblical scenes and historic portraits were valued as ‘real’ art. The academically trained artists even had to reach a certain level of technical skill, and then they were allowed to try a large-scale work.
Fast forward to 1947, and the architect Mies van der Rohe is famously coining the motto “less is more”. Although he applied the term directly to abundance rather than size, it still problematized the idea that bigger is better and more powerful. For NewBloodArt’s Emerson Pullman, this has been something he discovered by accident, leading to a whole new artistic approach for his graduate work. He told us, “When Leeds Art University closed its studios due to the lockdown, I was working on a series of paintings just under 6ft”, he told us, emailing from his new spare bedroom ‘studio’ and exhibition space. He found himself working on a much smaller scale, where “brush strokes became more delicate and controlled”, and the subject of his paintings went from formerly confrontational, to figures “depicted either turned away or introspectively averting the viewer’s gaze”.
Chris Grisley also came to find that “work doesn’t have to be massive to create a visual impact”, even going so far as telling us “Covid I believe has made me a better artist!”. This is a big change from the sort of large, loud, and attention-grabbing works that filled booths in international art fairs during the 1990s. Art critic Peter Schjeldahl coined the term “festival art” to describe the way work seemed to take on very similar qualities in the ways they vied for press and patron attention. But now with the lack of social gatherings, fairs, and exhibitions, can something be said for artists ‘going small’ under lockdown? For David Iain Brown, suppliers closing means making smaller pieces out of repurposed material. He’s found it has actually connected people even more, as close-up photographs on online forums pick out detail better, and smaller work is much easier to send out.
Perhaps we could think about the ‘smallness of art’ acting like a talisman or balm in these uncertain times. This isn’t so far-fetched; throughout the 16th century in England and France, miniature art was a highly popular trend, usually commissioned by soldiers and sailors who wanted to give their loved ones a small image of themselves to cherish in their absence. Queen Victoria even had her very own palace miniaturist, whose painstaking watercolour portraits on ivory could be kept close at hand.
For Jo Hummel, she’s learnt the value in viewing art as “a tool to ground oneself”. Danbin Cao has similarly felt that as her art’s gotten smaller, it’s naturally become more ‘dreamlike’ in order to offer viewers a source of comfort in beauty. Interestingly, this has also been somewhat accidental. In order to get perspective on her works, she stuck them on her bedroom window. This then inspired a new way of working as “light came through the translucent material and created totally different effects.” Since then she’s hung her works in parks, created temporary exhibitions, and filmed her work ethereally blowing in nature. You might say the possibilities grew, as the circumstances shrank.
Overall, conditions have definitely changed; many studios have closed, resources are newly unavailable, and artists have relied on everything from kitchen tables to bedrooms in order to make. But as ever, artists adapt and continue, proving to us the limitless possibilities of creativity.
We asked for comments from our artists about how their work was evolving during the pandemic, here are some of their responses:
“I’ve been lucky as my work is really small already (my largest paintings measure 40 x 30 cm), so I haven’t been forced to scale down due to the pandemic. It’s shown me the validity of small work, as particularly in painting, it’s easy to feel overshadowed when the vast majority of work is much larger.However, I’m currently working from reference photos taken during lockdown, which makes a big change from my degree work depicting nighttime social scenes with multiple figures. Despite not physically changing a lot in size, my work definitely feels smaller now, and more introspective. All the paintings I’ve produced after my degree work show only one figure, my housemate, who I lived with during lockdown. For me, this new work is really quiet, dark, inward facing, and represents everyone’s truth throughout the past five months of the boredom and repetition of being shut indoors. For many it will also represent a test of relationships, with another person’s constant presence demanding greater intimacy and clarity of communication to manage exaggerated emotions. My degree work shows the camera’s view of fast-paced and ever-changing social environments, yet the new work is far slower, with many of the pieces showing the same room. They are still cherry-picked moments, however following a single subject over a much less eventful duration. I hope to make the viewer much more conscious of the passing of time – similar but never the same moments, with subtle changes in light, atmosphere, and hair gradually getting longer. I’ve also been producing a few quicker studies on very small board offcuts I had from before the pandemic, which definitely feel less outwardly focussed than my usual highly rendered work. They have a looser, more impulsive style, which makes the image feel more alive, and have made me more sensitive to colour, which I know will have a significant benefit to my work in the long run.” – Alice Miller
“When Leeds Arts University closed its studios due to the lockdown, I was working on a series of paintings just under 6ft, however as I lived in North Wales, I couldn’t bring them home with me. As I moved my studio into a spare bedroom without the facilities of a university, I scaled down my work massively and worked on a series of smaller and more restrained paintings. The subject of my work also changed as the situation of lockdown led me to consider the nature of distance and interaction – instead being large and confrontational, the figures in this new body of work were depicted either turned away or introspectively averting the viewers gaze. The way in which I handled the paint also changed as I translated my practise to a much smaller scale. In my larger work I was more interested in gestural and expressive brush strokes, however in this scaled down approach the brush strokes became more delicate and controlled. I also curated my degree show in the spare bedroom and hung the paintings as if they were to be viewed by the public. I have attached some images below of my degree show as well as a couple of images of the paintings themselves.” – Emerson Pullman
“I would say that my work didn’t change in size so much but it was greatly altered by the fact that there was a period at the start of lockdown where I found it impossible to gather my thoughts or think introspectively because of the strangeness of what was going on and so spent a good few weeks making many small studies of different paintings by Piero Della Francesca, the painting “Landscape with a Calm” by Nicolas Poussin and some paintings by Winifred Knights, Francisco Goya as well as several screenshots and found images I had saved to my laptop. I made about a hundred of these between March and June. I suppose looking at so much of Della Francesca’s paintings made me interested in perspective balance and having corresponding diagonals within painting and so this changed the way I made paintings in that I started to think about planning my paintings more, drawing out many prior studies and then using a grid system, which I began to map out on the canvas prior to painting. Before this I would have been reluctant to using rulers and measured lines within painting and would have worked in a much more impulsive way but now I realise that some paintings benefit from a balance of straight lines and free hand, particularly when placing figures within a built environment. The source material of my paintings also changed in that, while I was in the studio in Glasgow School of Art, I was painting scenes from life and memory, either painting friends of mine in the studio or things that I had seen on my way into college, usually on the bus. This kind of experience became impossible during lockdown and so the media I was consuming from the internet and art books I had became my source material. There is something less personal about this but maybe more of a reflection of our shared experience of being so reliant on the internet for our education and entertainment at this time. In this way, the paintings I presented for my virtual degree show are greatly influenced by art historical painting as well as popular entertainment and news media, whilst being centred around imagined scenes of the everyday lives of young people and older people.” – Alanna Blake
“Thought you might also like to read the perspective of someone fortunate enough to be living somewhere with possibly the least amount of Covid cases in the world, and hasn’t had to scale down very much. Covid has brought with it both physical and mental isolation for many, and this obviously includes artists. As you know, I take portraits of women mostly in cities. They are always single portraits, and one of the reasons for this is to reflect the isolation that comes with living in a city. Covid seems to me to be another part of the ongoing atomisation of urban society. (I think this is also reflected in the anger and divisiveness found in many reports and comments on social media, which instead of the original intention of connecting us, is doing the opposite.) I’ve been living and working in Taiwan since January, which managed to contain Covid early on. Ironically I also feel a sense of isolation and of living in a weird bubble because it feels cut off from the rest of the world, which is having all sorts of problems controlling it. Also with many countries closing their borders and flights being grounded or cancelled, it’s still very difficult for me to leave, and I don’t know when I’m going to be able to see my family and friends in the UK or other parts of the world again. In some ways, I’m as isolated as the subjects of my work. Even before this strange era of Covid it seemed to me that in some respects visually, Taiwan is a kind of surrealistic realm out of a science fiction film, like the island in Solaris. And politically it inhabits no man’s land, with China claiming it as part of its territory, while Taiwan exists as a de facto country. Now it feels even more so. While I may not be scaling down, Covid is affecting my work in other ways.” – James Bolen
James H Bollen
“I’m lucky in that my studio is at home, so during lockdown I didn’t have to deal with not being able to work normally, so my work didn’t get any smaller… but the pandemic certainly affected my work in other ways. At the beginning of lockdown, I experienced panic and worry as we all did which then turned into a focus on my painting; the world had gone quiet, turned inward on itself, everyone looking at each other to find themselves and I felt for a moment we were all united (for a moment). Somehow this opened a channel and I could work with more abandon and clarity, maybe also because there wasn’t the usual constant thought of what comes next, priority and to-do lists, the work was solely about making art and nothing else. I dived in and made a body of work (now in Thailand with Goldie’s Aurum Gallery) and with all the changes, twists and turns in the world since then and the sheer volume of the news alone I have found an even greater motivation to make paintings that really pull our inner and outer lives together, that create a space and a pause for people to find themselves in; a safe space to find our own voice and presence. COVID has had / is having such an impact on people’s lives, their every day, every-thought and this has naturally fed so much of the art you see when you look around. From political and government reactions to the tender, everyday family connections. I felt the artistic community come together, realising we need each other.. and even more so that Art is needed in the world, and it’s been encouraging and inspiring seeing other artists’ journeys and viewpoints.” – Toni Cogdell
“Think my work has changed through lockdown. Firstly, kitchen table painting of small pieces for the artist support pledge like many other people! Later though, as I wasn’t able to gather my usual source material, I have started using some found imagery for the first time. Also, imagery that sparks joy seemed so much more important to me than it ever has before.” – Katharine Le Hardy
“The main thing I’ve noticed about my practice is that I’ve had more time to finish the paintings. Oil paint is much quicker to dry with strong sunlight and heat, but living in Dundee, the weather can be quite damp and dark. Therefore a wet, dark day will slow down the drying process. As I work in lots of thin layers, drying times really play an important role in my work. After spending 5 winters here, I have learned to avoid yellows and oranges in winter as they take weeks – sometimes over a month – to fully dry here in Dundee (the warm, earthy colours seem to be much slower). With exhibitions often planned monthly, I have to really think ahead and stop painting well before the deadline. In winter or bad weather, it can sometimes take weeks for a painting to reach the place I want it to be, so I try to minimise the experimentation and playfulness to ensure I don’t have to hand a wet painting to the exhibitions team – which I’ve unfortunately done on a few occasions. Reaching deadlines becomes much easier in summer, with layers often drying overnight – although it’s only as predictable as the Scottish weather. Not only have we had a gorgeous summer where I’ve been able to make the most of yellows, oranges and every other colour, but I’ve also had no deadlines at all. Not one art fair or exhibition to ensure my work is dry for. As a result, I’ve found myself spending much more time on the final layer of the painting. When a work is finished, I continue working subtly into the final surface – rubbing thin washes of paint into the surface to make the colour more dynamic than usual. This means I can take a photo of the painting after this extra time has been invested. Whilst the painting is drying, it can even appear in an online exhibition. There is no need to account for packing the work, sending it to the gallery and making it safe enough to be handled by the hanging team. The final difference of the painting is small, but one I feel is really worthwhile. Just one extra sitting on each painting has really lifted my work to a better place. I’ve also been revisiting old work, which has been a fantastic way to learn where I’ve come from and where I want to go. There’s something surprising and reassuring about unwrapping an old painting and experiencing it as if for the first time. The process has made me quite nostalgic and reminds me of themes I didn’t quite finish exploring.” – Nicola Wiltshire
“I definitely have had to change up the scale of my work due to the virus/ suppliers being closed etc. Repurposing old materials/ works to make new pieces. The small 15cm X 19cm collage pieces I have been posting on my Instagram the past few months. I have seen a lot of artists scaling down over the past few months like myself. It makes it easier for people to purchase original but smaller pieces as well as the cost of those pieces. Sending the works are a lot easier and cost efficient for me to ship as well.” David Iain Brown
“I’ve just graduated from the Royal College of Art, as you know, our uni had been closed from the end of March. Due to the lack of print press and studio, I had to work in my small bedroom (because I rent the house with my classmate in London and we don’t have much space for creating works). This special situation directly affected the medium of my creating works as well as the scale. Consequently, I changed my large scale of paintings into a series of works which included various small pieces of works, and also I changed the materials from semi-transparent Japanese paper to non-woven textile which is much more flexible for working. Besides, Like most artists would do, during the process of drawing I need to look at my works from distance, yet due to limited space I couldn’t have a full look at my works. Someday I found that I can stick my works on the windows so that I could step back to look at my work from enough distance in the corridor. I had to admit that this special way of viewing inspired me! Because the nature light came through the translucent material and created totally different effects. From that I decided to hang my works in parks, the natural world became my exhibition-like area. The sunshine, the wind and the nature noise became parts of my whole works. Although our degree show turned to be online, it pushed me to find new approaches of creating. I learned to edit moving-image which recorded my paintings blowing in the wind which convey the sense of dreamlike reality to viewers on the hard times.” – Danbin Cao
“My work pre pandemic was supposed to be this monument to the toxicity of masculinity, I was producing a painting the size of 140×190 a week for the end of year degree show I wanted the presence of my work to reflect institutes like the national gallery, where the viewer is overwhelmed by a massive painting that invelopes your peripheral vision. Lockdown made me rethink how I perceived my work, with this notion of monumentalism, it made me realise that toning down the size of the work doesn’t decrease the value of this matter but can reflect a different side which creates work which is more personal as it makes the artist consider the work more vigorously rather than going for it. Covid has actually made me realise that work doesn’t have to be massive to create a visual impact. Covid I believe has made me a better artist!” – Chris Grisley
“My work has got smaller in scale as well. I’ve resulted in working on maquettes for when I can make larger scale work again, mocking up small scale gallery spaces and making sculptures within that space. It’s actually turned out to be quite an interesting project.” – Sarah Larby
“.. For me Covid altered my practice this year in two ways. Firstly, because I could not go to my studio anymore and had to downsize to smaller works. Works that had been sitting around in my studio for a long time that I didn’t know what to do with. Like many artists I decided to use the series of watercolour grounds I brought home to turn into portraits about Covid-19 and submit them on Instagram for the artist support pledge. The interesting thing about the portraits is that somehow the watercolour grounds wound up being a perfect fit for the subject matter I chose of people wearing masks around the world, which at the time I found rather serendipitous after not knowing what to do with them for so long. The other interesting thing that changed for me is that because of the pandemic many studios became vacant at a nearby creative hub called LX Factory here in Lisbon (https://lxfactory.com/en/lx-factory). A place where I had been trying to rent a studio in for three years since moving here. A space I could afford finally became available and I have since moved there in August. My income has been affected by the Pandemic, but it has also opened-up this amazing opportunity to finally have my own studio space in such an inspiring place! To summarize the effects for me, I’d say they were serendipitous to say the least…perhaps that could be a hook of some kind? Serendipitous gifts of creativity during uncertain times. It altered my scale and working routine at home and the nit gifted me a new studio to grow and expand…” Samantha Wilson
“..The corona have mad an influence – in a good way It now seems to me. Almost all my exhibitions this year have been cancelled – whist was awful and an Economic challenge BUT this has given me a lot of time to experiment and I am now in the middle of a series of paintings, that I probably not would have created with less time 🙂
I have been hiking a lot this year and this has caused the new paintings, Danish Paintings, that I still develop :-)” Birgitte Lykke Madsen
“Traditionally I’ve done painting, and large ones at that. It’s very freeing to work large and I’ve always thought it gave a painting much more gravitas. But since the pandemic, I’ve been living with more people and consequently space has been tight. So instead of painting, I’ve been drawing and working much smaller and I’ve found it’s really opened up my practise. Necessity is the mother of invention, and although I’ve not invented something new, having to take up less space has meant that my art practise has broadened. Photos that I wouldn’t necessarily paint, and consequently haven’t, have been given new light as drawings. I’m finding I don’t have to remain in the ‘box’ of painter, but rather that I can and should explore a little further afield.” – Phoebe Hardwick
“My work definitely changed during lockdown. I got stuck in Lisbon during lockdown, so didn’t just have to scale the size of my work down, but also had to work in a way that wouldn’t make a massive mess in my airbnb flat. Quite apart from the mess aspect, working in the same way as before just ‘smaller & cleaner’ didn’t feel right anyways, as the entire world was different. I felt the need to respond to it in my working method as well. The fact that all my interactions with the outside world were mediated by technology and screens made me want to use a digital element in the work itself. I became interested in the sense of self-othering that occurs when you’re always confronted with your own image in every interaction with others ( the image of yourself you see in the bottom of the screen during facetime conversations or zoom calls etc). I was completely on my own for the 2 months, so started working with my domestic setting and the tools I had access to – my phone, my laptop, some basic inks and brushes and a home printer/scanner. I started with self portrait photography using mirrors and the camera on my phone and began to revisit a print technique I had been working on in 2016 which involves a rotating cycle of painting, photography, and scanning. The image is slightly altered and removed from its original self in each stage of the process. It goes from physical to digital and back and forth again several times and to me reflected a sense of this self-othering and removal from reality. The individual inkjet dots and pixels, the ink bleeds, paper rips etc become features that are then transported onto beautiful hahnemuhle paper when printed as limited-edition prints. Here’s a link to some of the work on my site for you to see. I continued working with this process during my residency amongst other things.” Rebecca Fontaine-Wolf
“I think this question is very interesting. I also noticed how people were working smaller during lockdown, but what excited me was the new shift into material art as a digital experience. It became quite obvious how self publishing and broadcasting artists were suddenly of great interest to the mass populous. I’ve been looking at my practice and pulling out documentation of material work which was created really as an online viewing experience to support the work, (see attached). I’m taking it one step further and planing a photoshoot using landscape and the figure.
I realised during lockdown how valuable art is to people purely as a form of escapism, or a tool to ground oneself from the domestic comfort of the palm of their hand. I don’t want to depart from material work but I think thisnew surge in audience participation opens a new doorway to explore and question how we interpret and present material art.” – Jo Hummel