JENNY MCBAIN examines the collaboration between poet and painter

20TH CENTURY culture was profoundly influenced by bohemian, artistic gatherings in cafes on the Parisian Left Bank. Right now certain Highland venues are similarly conducive to creative collaboration. And Ullapool’s Ceilidh Place is one of them. That is where artist Peter White and poet Jon Miller incubated ideas for their current exhibition, Echo, which is about to finish at An Talla Solais, and will go on to Stornoway, North Uist and Kilmorack.

Over a few drams, specific concrete objects such as bowls or books were discussed. From these more ephemeral themes grew. Miller says: “Our conversations went all over the place. Ideas grew and images emerged. I’d go away and at some point a poem would announce itself and I’d start writing and see what happened.”

White’s large, atmospheric paintings are richly textural. They are created using a mixture of acrylic paint, chalk, wax and oils, using a subdued palette of neutral colours; colours which are somewhat redolent of a Highland landscape. Smaller charcoal drawings are also displayed. White’s chosen subject matter is archetypal and the level of skill employed makes the work somewhat reminiscent of that of the Old Masters.

One of the key themes throughout the exhibition is this idea of presence and absence; the idea of something being there but not being there. So the bowls and garments are all empty.

In some cases words are etched onto the paintings, drawings or their mountings. But entire poems are presented in illuminated boxes, set in a dark area of the gallery. There are some magnificent lines. In ‘Sunlight’, Miller talks about “the way water backs onto itself in tidal rivers and streams. The way memory dilutes in the telling, swells the present, leaks the future in hints.”

We tend to think of artists as rather solitary individuals. So what induced White to team up with a poet? He says: “I read a lot, so words are really important to me. And for a while I have been thinking of using words within the work. I’ve known Jon for quite a long time and I like his poems, so it’s kind of from that the idea for collaboration came about. Although paintings are visual things, ideas for them come from things that I hear or read rather than visual sources.”

There are distinct character differences between the two men. Miller acknowledges that he is quite pessimistic. A line in his poem about a Stonemason confirms this it states: “His inscriptions are our only after life.”

Miller does not see his work as a route to immortality. He says: “I don’t necessarily have any idea of anything living on beyond me. I fully expect these poems to have been forgotten within six months.”

So how does White hope to be remembered? He puts it this way: “We are so multi-layered in terms of what we want from things. I don’t really care what I’m thought of or how I’m remembered but I think a piece of art has the capacity – if it works – to actually communicate something into the world and into the future.”

One thing on which the pair do agree is the mystical nature of creativity. They both see art as a journey without a stated destination. Miller says: “You have an impulse to create something, you have a curiosity. I don’t think you pick the subjects. In some sense the subjects pick you. When you realise something is going to happen in terms of a poem it is a kind of physical feeling. You gather a set of responses, you then write the poems and then realise afterwards what they’re about.”

White has a similar approach. He says: “I see the whole art process as an exploration. I’m not sitting there with this thing that I want to express. I’m kind of thinking how does this kind of thing actually work, how does it function? The actual process of discovery is the kind of thing which leads me. The paintings are kind of the by product.”

The exhibition has been somewhat determined by the spaces within An Talla Solais. It will have changed shape by the time it moves on to Stornoway and beyond. Picasso and Beckett belong to another era, though ghosts of their ideas live on.

In Scotland, we specialise in celebrating our great artists and writers when they are six feet under. Perhaps it’s time to pay attention to those who live and breathe within our midst. Seeing this exhibition would be a step on that path.

Echo will tour to An Lanntair, Stornoway, in November 2010, and then to Taigh Chearsabhagh, North Uist, and The Kilmorack Gallery, Beauly in March/April 2011. Don't miss it.

© Jenny McBain, 2010

Links

• An Talla Solais