Eternal Expression of an Interal Feeling: An Interview with Ann Christopher

ETERNAL EXPRESSION OF AN INTERNAL FEELING

An Interview with Ann Christopher

It was our privilege to speak with Ann Christopher about her work, and to learn more about her processes and inspirations. Her precise aesthetic vision is remarkable within her vast exploration of media, and whether in bronze or in pencil, her mastery of line, light, and movement is evident. The intense presence that her works have seems to be fostered by careful balance — between exacting lineation and soft textural detail; the contemporary and ancient; and between figurative stimulus and abstract expression.

Rosenberg & Co.

Your sculptures feel so certain and distilled — utterly complete in themselves — that they can give the impression of having always existed. An encounter with your sculpture inspires deep contemplation. How do you know when a work is finished? Between conception to completion, what are key elements of your process?

Conception starts in my head — a sense of shape, a feeling about size. Often mock-ups are made in card to play with scale. There may be a technical stage to work out how something will actually be made, because the larger the sculpture is, the more an inner structure or armature is required. The process from then on can vary from frenzied bouts of work to apparently inactive times of consideration — working out what move to make next. There are also “magic times” when the work itself dictates how it wants to be perceived. That sounds a bit mysterious but it really can happen. The work is finished when it stops looking as if something is missing — when it ceases to look “wrong.”

That’s a wonderful articulation of completing a work. When you begin a work, what instigates your choice of medium — whether it is pastel, pencil, bronze, or steel?

Which metal I chose to cast in depends on what colour I want the final sculpture to be: bronze is much more accepting of different surface treatments than stainless steel. The choice of pastel versus pencil again is to do with colour, but also the type of mark I wish to make — I choose the pencil and crayons when more precise lines are required.

The balance between your precise lines and intuitive surfaces is really masterful. Visual and tactile textures are major elements in both your drawing and sculpture, and you have spoken of your drawings as “three-dimensional works on paper.” How does it feel to move between working with steel and paper? Do your sculpture and drawing practices come from similar drives?

My sculpture and my works on paper/drawings are of equal importance to me. The works on paper are rarely about the sculptures and vice versa — though they may be from similar inspirational sources. I describe some of my drawings as “works on paper” because there are often 3D-collage additions or shaped-and-cut elements. I rarely work on sculpture when I am drawing, and these drawings usually comprise a series which is rarely added to once completed. Quite often these series occur when there is a change about to take place in my sculpture — the drawing series will end and the sculpture will begin.

The range of size in your sculpture is dramatic, and the smaller works feel just as commanding as those that are monumental in scale. What, if anything, changes when you work on a small sculpture versus a large one?

Generally, the smaller sculptures are quicker to make — but having said that, if I cannot resolve a sculpture it is irrelevant as to how big it is. Physical energy and time taken is the difference as I work without studio assistants at the initial stage of creating the sculpture.

Does the physicality of the casting and refining process influence how you initially visualize a new work? And on a very literal level, how are your hands after you have finished a sculpture?

I am very much a hands-on sculptor, and although physically working with metal is hard and heavy I have, at some point, to make final refinements myself. Much of the casting or fabricating process is carried out by other people, but the final exacting demands cannot be easily conveyed or delegated. I know before the casting process has begun that I will be refining some elements once the sculpture is in metal.

Having been involved in the casting world for so long, I know how a sculpture will look once it is in metal. I know what happens during the process, and how it can or will be worked on. It is not my hands that suffer, but my whole body and mind with the mental and physical fatigue that comes on with the completion of each work.

Describing your early work, you once said that you “meant it to be stately but also to have a non-earthly element, to have something apart, just like a god.” This characterization was revelatory to read, as your new sculptures and drawings also feel striking in their unearthliness, or their “apart”-ness—something to do with purity, perhaps, or an elemental certainty. Does this early statement of yours still feel accurate in describing aspects of your work now?

I believe sculptures should have presence: they are an external expression of an internal feeling and should not be lifeless. This is especially interesting when making abstract work and it is, in my opinion, often the reason people find sensing the presence unsettling when confronted with an inanimate and non-figurative sculpture. I cannot consciously add this presence but I feel very gratified when viewers sense it in my work. René Magritte said,

People who look for symbolic meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image. No doubt they sense this mystery but they wish to get rid of it. They are afraid. By asking ‘what does this mean?’ they express a wish that everything be understandable. But if one does not reject the mystery, one has quite a different response. One asks other things.

Which artists are currently most important to your practice? Who was most influential in the past? And are there emerging artists whose work you are excited about?

I primarily respond to non-figurative work and have always had a keen interest in contemporary architecture. The work of artists that I appreciate most is seldom like my own — their works feed my soul rather than influence my work.

As a student, it was the welded works of Bryan Kneale that triggered my early metal sculptures. Rothko was the first artist I recall responding to emotionally, very early in my life. The works of Richard Serra, Christo, Bill Viola, Agnes Martin, Anselm Kiefer, Le Corbusier, and Tadao Ando are all artists and architects whose work I still enjoy.

I am drawn to work that causes me to wonder and reflect, and that is the response I hope my own work will evoke.

Your early work was much more rounded, almost biomorphic at times, while your more recent sculptures and drawings utilize straight lines and edges, working with a kind of sharpness. Was there a specific moment when your forms shifted from rounded to more angular?

I do not recall that specific time — my works have always evolved from one to the next. I do recall some moments though: like my first visit to New York in 1983, after which my sculptures suddenly became tall and thin! The first use of texture was a memorable moment — I recall being quite alarmed at the texture that was demanding to be left on a sculpture, and had to force myself to let it happen; this was triggered by observations of strata and rocks in the late 1980s.

I respond and react to the places I visit: the buildings of Manhattan inspired shape; the colour of the light in India and the pink walls of Venice influenced the patinas on bronzes; the colours of the soil in Menorca and Morocco and the countryside of Southern Ireland influenced the choices of colour for many works on paper. I often get a sense what might be happening next from the numerous photographs I take. They reveal my current preoccupations, be they lines, shadows, or shapes — but never figures. These images are not imitated, but they will all have been absorbed into my mind ready to re-emerge or not within a sculpture or drawing — a private vision of a shared view translated into a personal language.

I wrote this in October 2007 for an exhibition entitled The Power of Place: “The power of a place can make it happen — the place is where and when. The place is where you are and where you are meant to be — the mystery is why it comes out the way it does.”

That’s a beautiful description: “a private vision of a shared view translated into a personal language.” Your work definitely has the feeling of its own language, and the titles of your work operate in a linguistically elemental space, composed of primordial, constituent nouns like “line,” “silence,” “shadow,” “distance,” and “time.” How do you title your work?

I collect and keep lists of potential titles at all times. I will see a phrase or collection of words that will strike a chord and add it to a list. When thinking about selecting a title, I will refer to these lists and select a few titles that seem to be appropriate — this refined list will then be referred to until one title suddenly becomes dominant. A sculpture or drawing never gets its title until it is totally finished. However, I do have titles that are just waiting to be sculptures.