the whole of landscape experience is
really spatial it's a spatial experience
we we like space I mean I do have a
space freak really
the Grand Canyon is the world's biggest
hole in a way and when you go there you
it's a thrill to stand at the edge and
look into it you look down you always
look down and there's also it's also not
a perspective place there's no focus
there's no center of focus you when you
on the edge of the Grand Canyon you do
this you're constantly doing this and
looking around well we do that
everywhere actually really everywhere
but at the Grand Canyon everybody does
that consciously because as I say
there's no focal point there's no focus
there's no building there's nothing so
and I always thought it was unfiltered
graphical and the grandeur of it very
difficult to capture and so in 1982 and
I began doing collages I didn't realize
I'll go to the Grand Canyon and see what
I can do with it and I went alone I
drove out there it's about 10 hours
drive from Los Angeles and I
photographed it by it was difficult
because I had only a camera without a
motor you had to do around each time and
I'd go along right now and then go down
and I have to remember where the camera
had been in my head and so keep it in
your head and they took quite a long
time to do an hour and more
photographing that way and I'd piece it
together right now about 1998 we printed
one of these big for the Ludwig museum
in
Cologne and I thought he would work very
good and then I found it didn't when we
put it up you didn't see the space in it
it was flat like wallpaper thing so the
moment I saw that I thought you've got
to paint this it has to be paint pigment
and I painted one and went back to the
Grand Canyon first again but I'd been
been a few times since 1980 so I go a
lot but I went back and then I did I did
two paintings the first one was based on
the elaborate photograph but the second
one which is this one I decided not to
base it on photographs at all and I
would go I went to the Grand Canyon for
a week stay there we I got we pulled a
string or two and got a room in the old
hotel right on the edge of the Grand
Canyon so I could walk to the edge very
from the room not very far mean you know
a few yards actually and I spent a week
there and I would I took a chair and I'd
go and find lovely quiet spots for the
chair there and sit for a long time
sometimes just looking and at other
times drawing and I thought I have
always felt cameras push things away a
bit and I always make things a little
more distance than they are if you look
through cameras often you feel that he
looks further away than it is so I
thought that's why it's called a closer
Grand Canyon and then after about three
days of just looking and moving about I
then began drawing on it and then I did
did quite a lot of drawings
and then drove back to LA and began the
painting straight away in the studio
painting big pictures in fact making any
large things it's - in literature - in
music anything very large there are
technical problems because they're large
vast novel of vast Symphony there's
there's technical problems because of
the length and size and they have to be
overcome and I knew this in the fall I
know I was I found a way to do this to
solve that problem so I still use small
canvases to put it together because that
was like the photographs in a way and I
also knew doing this as well
it made the painting easier to transport
I will point that out I had done I think
the painting of Mulholland Drive is I
think this size but it's one canvas and
it's in the County Museum in LA and they
are reluctant to lend it now or even
take it down a bit because it's one
canvas is difficult to move when we did
move it originally it didn't matter cuz
I still own the painting then it was
rolled up and sent to London but it's an
acrylic that was acrylic but he can't do
that allies not terrific thing to do so
I partly did this because it's then it
is easier to move about it's not that
difficult would go in a Kate crate or
something and they were painted and
first shown at the Pompidou in Paris and
in a big long room one was at one end
and one was it the other but it was in a
part of the Pompidou when they
were redoing it this is 99 I think so
1999 and it was in rooms with quite low
ceilings but I'd planned this show and
when you came into the room I'd said to
them when you look down one end you'll
see one Grand Canyon and then here will
be the other and as you walk well of
course it never worked like that because
there were always quite a few people in
the room when their shows on and you
couldn't raise them any higher so it
didn't you know it was little I I
thought I should have real mind you I
couldn't do anything about if you if
there's 50 people in the room you can't
do much about him but they didn't work
if there was no if no one in the room is
terrific
well I liked them you know sometimes
I've thought two dimensions don't exist
in nature today not really and it's our
concept but I thought often it's all to
do with the scale of us flatness because
all you refer to flat canvas if I was
that big the cameras would look like a
mountain range it wouldn't need to do
with our scale packs I mean I'm rather
fascinated by flatness in a way in fact
when it sometimes when I was sitting at
the Grand Canyon I did sometimes you
think is space and at other times it can
be a whole flap thing that's it it's
amazing if you're thinking about you
know he's sitting there looking hard and
you're thinking the eye is part of the
mind is there and if you go there if
sometimes you can have quite bad days
meaning the camera sees
it's full of the canyons full of mist
and you can't see it and you stood there
and it could be a feel or something so
they have IMAX cinema there and so if
you miss it there you can go in the IMAX
cinema but the IMAX cinema is a screen
that shape whereas of course it will be
better that and but very big camera but
it's only one camera therefore there's
only one perspective in it and it
doesn't get the ground yo the feeling I
I didn't so I mean it's an opport I
thought it was funny that people would
drive off ok to this real Canon and just
in cases misty you go and see it in a
film which you could have seen back in
Chicago London anywhere and people had
painted the Grand Canyon you know to go
back to it I mean Thomas Moran and then
they're not bad but they're not they
don't do it justice now I'm not sure I
do either but I tend to think the whole
of landscape experience is really
spatial it's a spatial experience we we
like space I mean I do have enough space
freak really actually my sister once
said to me she thought space was god I
thought I was rather poetic in the way I
have thought of doing I know I did think
I was very turned on again and I thought
you know if I could if I rented a studio
in Williams or Flagstaff maybe I could
paint almost on the spot big pictures we
couldn't there but I did think of that
and then I and I thought I was a
possibility I said - Gregory look into
it
and then we went up to you cemetery and
I did quite a lot of drawings in you 70
on the iPad but I never thought we'd
make that dear little lane in East
Yorkshire Wolds gate as interesting as
the Grand Canyon which is done doing now
and we've done it I'm doing it in
drawings paintings and using nine
cameras and it's making it a spectacle
as good as the Grand Canyon but most
people if they drove down the lane
wouldn't think anything much of it at
all if you use nine cameras how do you
compose the picture
well you draw for instance if you we
were using three rows of three and if
you they're small now when it opens the
high definition counts but if you just
leave the camera open and put nine
cameras there and on your monitors
you'll have nine same pictures you've
then got to focus in and you've got to
then make a you have to draw the picture
you don't want things appearing twice
how does a tree if you're going past it
will move from one camera to the other
so the cameras are pointing in different
directions and so when you look at them
you have forced to scan them like that
you see and 3d is quite old you know it
was they thought of it a long long time
is always two cameras like two eyes but
it does make an illusion of space but it
isn't how we see space we see space
through time I see the tip of your crew
I see your knee I see this different
times and somehow you make space in your
head and they
so three days I went to see avatar did
you say here's my criticism of avatar
I admit I couldn't hear I didn't expect
to hear the dialogue but I went to see
it visually and but I got a bit tired of
me quickly you never saw a really big
space but say when you're on the planet
I wanted to see what does a leaf look
like what does the bark of the tree look
like you never saw it partly because the
cameras are moving too quickly but I
will point out this if it was real 3d
real 3d I can do this I can look all
around but you can't there they're
always telling you where to look partly
because they're moving the cameras too
quickly I can't stand it anymore I think
it's a visual borer now this is MTV
actually constant constant moving cut
they're always telling you where to look
our nine cameras are not but you have to
scan them you're forced to scan them
because there's nine vanishing point a
minimum of nine vanishing points nine
perspectives and so you are constantly
scanning once you're doing that in your
head you're making a space out of it I
think there well nine cameras 90 is
about three times better than 3d
you