Roger Mortimer Interview
Forum > Rantsby dollyhaze 18 Nov 2005 7:25 pm
4 Comments
Article of the Month November 2005
I met Roger at his show "Supercover" at Brooke Gifford's in Christchurch about a month ago. We went to the Dux for a couple of beers and spoke a little about his work. The conversation culminated a month later in a phone interview from Auckland.
Speaking to Roger about his work was intensely illuminating. Throughout the interview, it came across very clearly that he had chosen his passion as his work and the two were inexorably intertwined. Not very many of us have the courage to follow our passions in our work but with Roger, it is clear that we reap the benefits when we do follow our hearts. There is a reverberating aspect of familial history in Roger's work that speaks of terra ancestral as much as the commercial text shows us a way to situate ourselves within the old historical discourse. All of his work blends contemporaneity and antiquity in such a way as to confront the past significantly. All my articulations fall short of the artist and his work. Roger reminded me of why it is necessary to follow our exaltations because every other choice remains inadequate.
Roger Mortimer Interview 3/11/05
interview conducted by Melissa Lam
Roger Mortimer is currently building a carport out of a telephone poles and a tarp. He traded some guys a case of beer for two telephone poles they were uprooting and bringing to the dump. He is using the poles as a structural foundation for his new carport. It's been a very busy weekend.How would you describe your painting?
I guess the first thing that comes to my head is that they are exorcisms. The first painting was a Sickness Benefit Application form that I chose to illuminate. My second show was based on the legal correspondence with the Department of Social Welfare- they wanted my money at the time. And underneath it all was all guilt about not being there when my daughter was growing up. So it was intensely personal. . .
Do you believe your personal relationships are mediated by the state? Is that why you turn such items as your power bills into medieval manuscripts into a time where all life was mediated by the state explicitly? "Maintenance" seems to reflect this.
That was a surfboard that was written on. I did another surfboard
recently about my son and surfing. These were two things that were separate in my life that were significant to me. One thing was that I was very into surfing-so is my son- and we were making up
This made me wonder if Bill hammonds work is considered by many if any to be decorative ?
Hi Liz,
I would be interested in knowing your opinion on why Bill Hammond's work might be considered decorative art. Personally, I feel as if we need to at least make a distinction between his early work, his bird paintings and the latest bird portraiture stuff that was just shown at Judy's.
Please refer to Roger [Mortimer]'s comments on Bill Hammond about the essence of something happening and "the sign of someone really getting it." I think he's dead right.
Anyway, would be interested to see your in depth opinion on the subject.
glad you enjoyed the interview.
Dolly
What made me think that was Rogers comment "Yes. I'm just astonished at how much decorative art makes"
He paints birds, he has always painted birds, and I'm starting to think it's the same birds ! when I see Hammonds work, and I admit to not seeing the last show, I see beautiful painting and use of design, colour etc, but not a lot more. I think of that as decorative. Just like some landscape painters who paint the same scenes over and over again, the likes seen at Fishers gallery in Riccarton. In my mind Bill Hammond is on the gravy train, and that's not a bad or good thing as far as I'm concerned, it's just that I cant see his work as being artisticly important in any way.
liz,
bill hammond may be on the gravy train. but he is on there for a reason. the birds are fucking beautiful. they just are. maybe they have become too beautiful...especially with his latest show at judy's but his main body of work is truly alien and strange. this isn't mainstream it's making mainstream gorgeous and different. I think that's what he does, and that's the feeling I get when I see it.
ROger's right when he says he is really getting it. Its; that negative capability feeling we all want and that you get in really good paintings...
Definitely not Fishers.
