My studio in Trinidad was
in an old rum factory, the Fernandez Compound, it's called,
it's a big compound with maybe, I don't know,
20 or 30 old warehouse buildings.
It was actually built in,
all the steel work was shipped down from Scotland,
and then all the block work which filled in,
was made in Trinidad.
It was a big space, way too big for my usage, really.
Also allowed me to do my film club in there as well.
These two spaces, probably each about 5,000 square feet,
quite dusty, not too far from what's known as Labas,
which is the the town dump basically where they burn lots
of rubbish and refuse.
And so it, there was a kind of constant sort of
smells and dust
and the noise of the city, traffic coming into the city,
it was close to the highway.
Up on the hills, just outside the windows,
which weren't really windows,
they were just big openings with bars.
And so you had these views outside the windows
of the of the hillside.
Depending on the time of year it was either quite dry
or quite humid,
whether it was in the dry season or the rainy season.
Paint and paint reacted differently there
than it did to here, which I quite liked.
I mean, the other thing was
that the weather would sometimes come in
and paintings would get wet from the rain
and sometimes they would fade, the canvas would fade.
And some of my paintings, I used these interventions.
I loved these interventions and worked with them.
I think that the paintings in Trinidad
were very much influenced by the city of Port of Spain,
the landscape, things I could see
out of the studio window too.
Now that I'm here in London, the references are different,
the references are either memory or photographic.
Whereas when I was there, I could always go and have a look.
I was much more in the atmosphere.
So in some ways, I'm actually going back to the way I worked
prior to moving to Trinidad,
because prior to moving to Trinidad
I worked very much in the way that I'm working now.
I mean, traditionally the way I've worked
is on a lot of paintings at the same time
or at least I'd start a lot of paintings.
And if I found that I couldn't really move forward
for whatever reason, I would leave the painting.
I mean, in some cases I would abandon a painting
or completely paint over it.
I mean, for instance, the painting
of Alice in Boscoe's Yard was actually painted over
the beginnings of another painting.
I mean, none of that painting is visible anymore.
But for the most part, like the Night Bathers painting
for instance, I started a long time ago, 2010 or 2011,
I know I didn't want to abandon it, but I would get stuck
and I'd put it to the side, and then I would just,
maybe if I was using a certain color,
or something I felt that could add to it,
I would go back to it.
But sort of tentatively, other paintings as well,
have taken a lot of time to resolve.
But I would keep them rather than abandon them
because I would think that the elements were worth pursuing.
I don't really like the term magical realism,
the spaces that exist within the painting
really are spaces to do with painting itself,
and what comes about by painting,
and where as a painter you feel you can leave it
and where it's giving off to me what I want,
whatever that is.
And that goes for painting a face or painting a space
that may represent sky.
It's not really a painting of sky or a painting of sea.
I mean, for instance, in the Soca Boat painting,
this sort of kind of sort of fumy type sea at the bottom,
when I painted that
I'd never really intended to leave it like that.
That would've just been part of it,
something that I'd gone back into work
and probably just like left little elements of it.
But when the painting came to London
there'd been this sort of passage of time,
I realized that I was never gonna be able to recreate that.
And it actually had something that
maybe I didn't realize at the time.
Exhibiting at The Courtauld is unique
for a contemporary artist because of I think,
the close proximity to painting from another era.
And I mean, particularly in my case,
an era of painting that I'm very much interested in.
Over this period of time,
I've realized that there's hardly a brushstroke
in that room, The Great Room, that wasn't meant,
there's nothing sort of wanton or flailing or sort of,
I don't know, gratuitous in a way.
And I thought that was,
that to me seems like something that's really important
about the type of painting that I like.
I mean, apart from that,
I think there's probably everything that you need to know
about painting or can learn from painting in that room
as well.
There's so many different uses in the material.
If you look at, I don't know, for instance,
the Renoir painting with a small figure
in the kind of field,
it's kind of like there's sort of abstract qualities
and sort of blurring of paint
that predates artists by 100 years or whatever.
And then there's sort of devices
in the Manet painting, for instance,
that I think are really really important
about how a painting kind of operates
optically for the viewer.
With the two sort of very sharp globes of electric light
and then the softness in other parts.
And I mean, there's so many different things
to learn from.
And you know, Cezanne, of course, with his small brush,
everything that he was doing with that brush
and just the importance of the material
is so evident in his work.
And yet you feel a kind of a warmth for the subject,
you don't feel that it's just a sort of academic exercise
in any way.
It feels like he's connected to what he's painting
but it's not sentimental in a way.
So I think there's a lot to learn,
but also a lot to enjoy really.
And I think paintings need to be enjoyed in some ways.
Enjoyed, not just the making, but also the looking
for the viewer.