Continuum - Bert Isaacs

CONTINUUM Bert Isaac

CONTINUUM

Bert Isaac

Bert Isaac

by PETER WAKELIN in Modern Painters, Autumn 1998, p. 116 illennial insecurity and the harsh realities of modern urban life have recently found vent in art reflecting death, futility and chaos, self-mockery and the blackest humour. With these post-modernist expressions apparently taking over, one could be forgiven for thinking landscape was irrelevant, a bourgeois art form, putrefying in its own selfsatisfaction.

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Bert Isaac’s work rebuffs such views. He is a painter with a spiritual vision of ‘higher landscape’, which looks beyond millennial doubts for some way forward.

The landscapes which have been his microcosm are universally relevant - abandoned and neglected places, abused by mining, quarrying, disuse or dereliction, found in town and country, industrial conurbation and inner city. Ask any 1990s kids directions to the nearest demolition site, old rail yard, piece of scrub or gravel pit, and they’ll know; for these landscapes overlooked by most are their imaginative worlds. From their return to wilderness Isaac draws a vision of nature’s power to reinvigorate, a parable of resurrection.

Bert Isaac is one of Wales’ most distinguished painters.

Now in his seventies, he is at the height of his powers, painting with the inventiveness and speed of someone half his age, and shown regularly at the Museum of Modern Art Wales and the Martin Tinney Gallery.

Isaac was born in Cardiff in 1923, and brought up with overgrown quarries and mines among his visual surroundings. From 1940 to 1944 he studied at Cardiff College of Art, latterly as a student-teacher alongside

Ceri Richards and Evan Charlton. Richards, already famous as a leading Modernist, was a stimulating presence. Isaac remembers: “He was the epitome of what an artist should be - investigating a way of looking at the world and translating experiences into poetic visual images.” But the overwhelming forces of his college days were the Neo-Romantics, including Sutherland, Nash, Piper, Vaughan and Minton. Their influence can be seen in early works: the spiky drawing style in pen and ink with wash, the contorted foreground forms of trees and rocks transcending any sense of formal view, and figures on the margins of perception.

Something chimed with Isaac’s sensibilities when Nash wrote, in Outline, of every place having an aura which makes it a complete world, and of certain landscapes seeming “strangely beautiful and excitingly unsafe”. One can also see in Nash’s wartime paintings, like the white, graceful plumes of his aerial battles, a parallel fascination with destruction and regeneration. Of Totes Meer, the aircraft graveyard, Peter Fuller wrote, “Nash’s vision was not despairing. He surveyed the charred, injured and god-forsaken landscape and brought about what I would call ‘a redemption through form’.”

Similarly, Isaac found something engaging and uplifting in the return of nature to abandoned places.

After several years teaching at Cardiff College of Art and Swansea University, Isaac became Head of Art at Borough Road College in Middlesex, then at Battersea College of Education. Finally, he joined the Art and Design Department of the Institute of Education at the University of London until the 1980s.

He continued to exhibit regularly throughout this time, at the Portal Gallery, the Whitechapel, the Leicester Galleries and the Royal Academy among others.

Major retrospectives have been held at the Bloomsbury Gallery of the University of London, Oriel Mostyn and the Royal West of England Academy, and a substantial book and print portfolio, The Landscape Within, was brought out by The Old Stile Press in 1992.

Isaac quotes Thomas Mann that, “Art has made a science of ambiguity,” and aims for his works to be ‘specifically ambiguous’. They should be subtle and interpretable objects, stimulating personal responses from the memory and unconscious. Water, regularly present in his pictures, is suggested by space but not defined too closely: ‘pond-like’, yet not a pond with edges and emphasis. He uses serendipity to unlock originality and feeling. Typically, he makes random marks in monoprint to begin his paintings - deepening the qualities of shadow and recession as well as introducing unexpected forms which combine chance and intention. His work is deeply gestural.

Everywhere are slashes, flecks, stabbed lines and textures, suggestive of plant growth, wind and movement, or underlying structure. Watercolour, charcoal, pastel and acrylic allow him to work fast, without interrupting the immediacy of reaction, helping him to “chase it before it escapes”.

The restless forces of nature are ever present. Storms are passing, the moon rises, even the line of a horizon reverberates with the energy of hills colliding, torn and twisted by tectonic movements. Pictures are offkilter, and lines are urgent and dynamic. Derelict structures and detritus rest in static opposition: roofless buildings, broken ladders, rail wagons, rolls of wire.

The visual force of features in the landscape and their relationships to viewers passing through are also visible: the dynamic moment of coming out into a clearing, the magnetic pull of a gate seen in the distance, the enclosure of a hut within a wilderness.

There is a sensation of edges and boundaries and their capacity to modulate the landscape: tumbling walls or fences separate plots, differences are visible between derelict space and open moor, deep-blue quarry pits seem full stops to present realms. Even the sense of invisible form can exert a power, like the mass of water below reflective surfaces.

But it is nature that is most powerful: in the line by Dylan Thomas, ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’ - encouraging comparisons with

artists like the sculptor David Nash as much as nature painters such as Hitchens or Cézanne.

Verdant saplings spring up in absurdly hostile places, amid quarry faces, or on old roofs. Emerald reeds thicken around the margins of the ponds and water birds bring noise and movement. All these are vital parts of Isaac’s sensory response.

Just a few places have pre-occupied Bert Isaac. If they had not existed he would have needed to invent them, so closely did they mirror his desires for expression - as Sutherland found in Pembrokeshire and Berg in Regent’s Park.

When Isaac first visited Dorothea Slate Quarry near Caernarfon in the 1950s it was still working; but by the 1970s the din of the explosions had ended in profound silence. Changes could be seen on every visit over thirty years. The pit began to fill with water, gradually creating an extraordinary, purple pool, 500 feet in depth. Oaks and silver birch began to seed themselves on the slate heaps, cotoneaster and rhododendron spread from the garden of the manager’s house, the walls of buildings cracked.

Isaac’s work evolved in parallel, growing away from the revelation of massive geology towards meditations on intimate and dream-like worlds of vegetation, cliff and water.

His most recent inspiration is around The Whistle Inn, Blaenafon - a deprived and brutal former mining landscape on the high moors. Like his other landscapes it is in a sense abandoned, yet in use grazed by sheep, visited by bikers, home to pigeon lofts, a place for dumping cars.

Bert Isaac has explored age-old relationships of man and nature amid these strangely rich locations. His paintings signify the landscape’s infinite capacity to re-invent itself, ‘redemption through form’ and salvation through re-growth.

After all the angst and self-destruction, this seems profoundly relevant as a vision for the new millennium.

• Dark Red Shadows 2004

Bert Isaac – Continuum y father’s drive and determination to draw and paint has influenced my life in many ways. Holidays were spent in picturesque, somewhat isolated places where he sought inspiration and I discovered plant ecology. His ability to capture the essence of a place on paper fascinates me. The air quality and temperature, time of day and wind direction are encompassed in his landscapes; the images invoke the feeling and even the smell of a place. They thrust me right back to shared experiences of vantage points, quarry workings, old sheds and discarded industrial debris.

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Both of us gained from half-term breaks spent in the art galleries and museums of Central London. We saw many images from the papyrus scrolls of the Ancient Egyptians, the highly detailed Flemish portraits, the landscapes with their

implausible mountains through to shows of current work of living artists including sculpture, printmaking, and photography. Student shows were also regular events. Over many years he has been committed to helping others find their own ways to make images. Many influences have shaped his work.

Visiting his home is always exciting. Current work finds its way on to walls quickly and other works move around. There is always something new. Often I re-discover items that were important when I was young, some pieces completed before I was born. The walls of the house are fluid display areas for him to contemplate what has gone before, but more importantly, what will come next. I am privileged to have witnessed the development of his work throughout my life, accepting as a child but impressed and admiring as an adult.

Susan Pochron (neé Isaac)

• Evening Red 2002

arly in 2003 after a tea and cake visit to Pen-y-Pound, we were saying our “goodbyes” in the hallway. On the wall between the living room and kitchen was an already familiar painting that I had gone back to again and again when it was hanging in the gallery. That particular spot where it now was is one of those artist ‘catch unawares’ positions – a perfect place to see and review work afresh, in this case at the bottom of a staircase. The work under scrutiny was a colour saturated landscape; verdant greens set against burnt mauves, the dominant hill shape cleft in two by the most startling yellow orange light. I made some appreciative comment to Bert and we had a short conversation about what made the painting so satisfying. Shortly afterwards, I noticed it was no longer there.

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I had my sixtieth birthday in August. Already overwhelmed and overcome by all the love and thought that began the day, I was coming downstairs when the doorbell rang. It was Joan with a card and a parcel. “Happy Birthday”… a kiss… “can’t stop” and she was gone.

That painting now hangs in our bedroom. It is there when I open my eyes and it is treasured. As is Bert and Joan’s friendship.

Sarah Bradford 25th May 2005

• Green Valley 2001

A personal view by a collector of Bert Isaac’s paintings.

Lewis and Averil Crabtree ert Isaac’s paintings have given us great pleasure over many years. They are imaginative remembered abstract landscapes and buildings, often just sketchy outlines, but imbued with a mysterious quality. Trees, hills, rocks and glimpses of rickety fences and buildings are amalgamated in a strange and colourful whole. We are amazed that he

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seems to have an infinite well of creative resource and is even now producing vibrant and beautiful work with rock faces, ravines, mountains and paths with strange little trees.

All give a feeling of peace.

Averil Crabtree Crickhowell May 2005

• Hill Workings 1999

o be welcomed into the home of Bert and Joan Isaac is to be welcomed into their lives together; and into Bert’s life as an artist in particular, as his life and his art are inseparable.

Bert’s vision walks through a tangled landscape of quarries and thickets, Holy Mountains and hill farms, passed memories and imagined places. His images grow out of fluid, gestural marks that collide poetically and colourfully with one another.

There seems to be a natural force causing unease, a chaosbut a chaos in order, a rhythm, a “sea tumbling in harness”.

The expressive force of his line and shape become the wind and the weather, blowing through his work, showing signs, for us to follow, of a world within a world. A world, maybe seen by such other artists as Ceri Richards, Graham Sutherland and

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John Piper; expressed in words by Dylan Thomas as ‘the force that through the green fuse drives the flower”.

Bert’s dedication and commitment to both teaching and making art is well recognised and applauded. He still works every day with a new and exciting density, on the surfaces that Joan has lovingly prepared. I feel privileged to know such an artist as a friend and fellow traveller, and member of the Welsh Group.

Keep on painting, Bert- the best is always yet to come!

Tony Goble

• Red Quarry 2003

Chris Griffin

Bert Isaac

In the late seventies I, misguidedly, attended Barry Summer School to learn some watercolour techniques to improve my chances of earning a living from my work. Thankfully the tutor was Bert, who taught me, by example, simply to immerse myself in painting and everything else will surely follow.

Echoes and memories of places so resonant that they bring not only the essence of Bert’s places of memory and imagination but also a glimpse of long – lost or hoped for ones of one’s own.

Thank you Bert!

Daphne Hurn Abergavenny

• Red Rock 1999

Bert Isaac y admiration of Bert Isaac as a superb educator, print maker and painter began in the late 1960s– early 70s. I was a member, one of a fortunate few, of his vibrant and dedicated Art Department. My opinions forged then, plus retrospective knowledge and appreciation, underline my respect for him. He engendered an enthusiasm plus commitment that bound his department with an extraordinary depth and toughness which gave challenge to the status quo.

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All this to open students’ eyes; to give them each an awareness of their potential: everything made or done by

looking, seeing, questioning, discovering – thinking.

All these factors: Bert’s strength of enquiry; his sense of wonder and commitment, these have never wearied, never diminished, always grown.

His transference of an outwardly quiet, highly disciplined energy into the unique visualization is as evident as ever in his latest paintings. It is this inexplicable mind’s eye working with an astute intellectual reasoning and love that makes us become drawn into the real; the un-real; the magical substantiation of himself within his hand; his special places.

Rozanne Hawksley May 2005

• Rejected Land 1999

hese recent paintings [of Bert’s] invite you in to an enjoyment of Landscape in the broadest sense. The viewer is immediately engaged in a personal vision of great profundity, engulfed by the sumptuous colour, dynamic gesture and telling mark that give the works a status far more universal than the mere topographical. They are supremely lyrical while at the same time having a strength, which engulfs the viewer in the energy of the powerful combination of artist, subject and medium.

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‘Continuum’ is a perfect title for this exhibition as the work will be an inspiration to Bert’s contemporaries as well as to future generations of artists (to quote the artist in relation to making a painting….’what keeps you going is the next one….’).

Maggie Lillford

• Scar Rock 2001

Bert Isaac by Robert Macdonald s an incomer who came to live in Wales in the 1980s, I have enjoyed a great many privileges; the greatest privilege is, of course, an intimate relationship with the Welsh landscape which speaks to me in a voice which I can understand and delight in. As important has been the privilege of meeting so many remarkable fellow artists who work with a dedication to which I can only aspire, whose response to the landscape around them has been an education as well as an

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inspiration. Chief among these men and women is Bert Isaac.

Bert is not just an inspiration. He is a source of enormous optimism and encouragement. Like others I have watched in amazement as Bert’s work has got stronger and stronger with the years.

Like Matisse, Bert Isaac has become increasingly entranced by colour. Late in life he has discovered the properties of watersoluble water-colour crayons which have turned his quarry landscapes into symphonies of singing blues and scarlets, reverberating with musical hues.

• Secret Garden 2000

nowing our special interest in the neo-romantic painters of the 1940/50s, Bert has always understood (and accepted) our particular fondness for his very early work. We are not alone in thinking that his work of this period stands very convincingly beside the best painters of that time.

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As the decades have rolled on, however, so has Bert’s discovery of new ways to look at landscape and to express it.

Frances & Nicolas McDowall

• Up Country 2003

Bert Isaac ales is a wondrous place and Bert Isaac in his printmaking, illustrating and painting capture this. His work has a look again at what we take for granted in the world around us, its colours and contours, its changing seasons and ever shifting light as well as its heritage. Old quarries, the pattern of a tree’s bark, a twisting lane, a fallen fence post, and the remains of a once occupied cottage find their way into his work.

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He looks about him with a creative eye for detail but never without insight, a mark of the man, not forgetting his warmth, his generosity and his wit. I know. I am his friend.

Philip H. Taylor Emeritus Professor of Education University of Birmingham

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CONTINUUM Bert Isaac