\u2018I work in metaphors\u2019, says Philip Sutton surrounded by his colourful, vibrant work in his West Bay home. He is eager to tell the story. \u2018I saw something the other day, which I thought was a perfect metaphor for creativity\u2019, he continues, \u2018I often go for a walk around the harbour and on a busy, sunny Saturday a few weeks ago the whole place was filled with families, flags, sunshine, ice cream and chips, but amongst the chaos a small girl of about two years old was riding a bike with no pedals. She was flying, weaving between adult giants and completely lost in the activity, mastering the skill. No one noticed her, but I noticed her. Her bike wasn\u2019t real, it was a toy, but she rode it as if it was real. She was totally absorbed in her task and her belief in what she was doing. For her, it was completely credible and engrossing and this, for me, is similar to the creative process. We are children of what we do\u2019.<\/p>\n
Philip Sutton is about to celebrate his 90th birthday and is as energetic and engaged in his work as a man half his age. His long career, spanning nearly seven decades, has seen many changes in the art world. He started working in the 1950s and paints large, lively, joyful works based on nature and portraiture. \u2018My work hasn\u2019t always been fashionable\u2019, he concedes. As Abstract, Pop Art and installation grew in popularity, Philip continued to work from observation.<\/p>\n
The sense of being an outsider has informed his working practice from very early on \u2018I was a London child, so spent a large part of the war as an evacuee\u2019, he says. Although he remembers only kindness from the people he stayed with, he was moved on frequently and developed an acute sense of loneliness. He has carried this feeling with him throughout his life and it is part of the reason he continues to paint.<\/p>\n
\u2018Making work has always been about compensating for that sense of loneliness\u2019 he says, \u2018being completely captivated by the task in hand\u2019. Despite being married for sixty-four years (his wife Heather died in 2017) with four children and an assortment of grandchildren, the sense of being an outsider is apparent. He found recognition very early on in his career, being accepted into the London Group in 1956 and elected as an Associate Royal Academician in 1977, he felt out of step with the art world. So much so, that in 1963 he decamped the whole family and went to live and work in Fiji for three years. \u2018It was a particularly happy time for our family\u2019, he recalls. It took six weeks by boat to reach Fiji in those days and cost \u00a34000\u2014a huge sum of money (a quick Google revealed it to have the spending power equivalent \u00a379,000 today!). \u2018I had a successful exhibition the year before\u2019, he recalls, \u2018many people advised me to pay off the mortgage, but we went on an adventure instead. It was money well spent\u2019.<\/p>\n
Time to paint in the way he wanted, free from the vagaries of the fashionable London art scene, was time to immerse himself in the business of painting, of training his eye. \u2018Ultimately, it all comes down to trusting the eye\u2019, he says.\u00a0 \u2018It is about taking the brain out of the equation and letting the eye do its job\u2019. He describes trusting the eye as being like a child holding its mother\u2019s hand\u2014complete in the knowledge of being cared for\u2014or treating the eye as like a camera with no one behind it. \u2018I never know what is going to take my eye\u2019, he says. \u2018If I go for a walk around the harbour, I don\u2019t go searching for an interesting piece of rope; however that is exactly what catches my eye that day, and I just need to be open to it\u2019.<\/p>\n
His lifelong journey has been about learning to trust the eye and the hand. The book Zen and the Art of Archery by the German philosopher Eugan Herrigel, has been a significant influence on him. The book, published in 1948, explores the concept of cultivating effortless physical skill through years of practice and letting go of conscious control of the mind. It is something to do with getting out of the way of the self (ego) and allowing the body to become at one with achieving a physical prowess. Philip concedes that, even at ninety, he is still in training. \u2018There is no destination\u2019, he says, \u2018It is all about the journey\u2019.<\/p>\n
He believes it is a fatal mistake for an artist to succumb to the idea of talent. \u2018Painting is all about listening to the heart\u2019, he says. \u2018Talent is something unquantifiable, like the taste of an apple. We all know what an apple tastes like, but it is impossible to describe\u2019. Subscribing to the idea of being a talented artist takes away from the goal of allowing the hand and the eye to do their work. The concept of talent is all about ego and can only obstruct the artistic process in his view.<\/p>\n
Philip studied at the Slade and went on to teach there for almost a decade. He describes the experience as overly academic. \u00a0\u2018I couldn\u2019t relate to the Great Masters\u2019, he says. Art school, in his opinion, can derail young artists. \u2018It is human nature to want to belong to a group\u2019, he thinks, \u2018and that can disrupt the creative process. Wanting to be part of something that everyone else thinks is a good idea is only natural, but the eye doesn\u2019t understand what contemporary means\u2019. If he were to offer any advice to a young artist, he says this\u2014\u2018Find your language\u2014a language you are comfortable with and practise it. All art forms have a language\u2019, he says, \u2018try and invent your own\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2018I work in metaphors\u2019, says Philip Sutton surrounded by his colourful, vibrant work in his West Bay home. He is eager to tell the story. \u2018I saw something the other day, which I thought was a perfect metaphor for creativity\u2019, he continues, \u2018I often go for a walk around the harbour and on a busy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-3811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts","tag-katherine-locke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}