‘Wizardry of Space – The Merseyside Line’ by Derek Culley
-an interview for Art and Museum Magazine 2021
Introduction.
Arthur was born into a Liverpool working-class family in 1966. He studied Fine Art at Liverpool Polytechnic (Liverpool School of Art) where he continued developing ideas surrounding geometric abstraction. This subject has been a source of endless fascination and he investigates these concepts to this day. His chosen medium is paint alongside graphite artworks which explore a contemporary interpretation of both the mathematics of nature and the digital world.
Question Art & Museum (A&M)
Geometry is not a word used much by artists these days. Why, and how, did you become interested in this subject?
Answer AR
At the age of 16 when I was studying Life Drawing I started to question the need to imitate the visual world around us. I began to realise that shapes could be art in themselves. In fact they could be used to express deep emotional feelings. I came to this realisation from a vacuum. I had never been to an art gallery or read any art history books up to this point. Once I started reading art books I discovered that Kandinsky and Malevich had got there before me, nearly one hundred years earlier! I was genuinely amazed, and immersed myself in the concepts of my comrades who had already travelled this pioneering path. I could easily relate to their use of geometric style as I was already bringing these notions into my work.
Question. A&M
After completing your Fine Art degree how did you develop your career as an artist?
Answer AR
I continued making abstract art; paintings, drawings, 3d work, always searching for ways to convey my ideas through colour, shape, form and composition. My art education had helped me gain the confidence I needed to exhibit my work. For example, I have exhibited in the Jerwood Drawing Prize exhibition and have had numerous solo shows such as “Space and Time” at Liverpool Hope University. I became independent enough to actually organise and curate many exhibitions of my own work as well as group shows which included other abstract artists. In 2004 I created an independent art gallery, Loop Gallery, which culminated in nationally recognised exhibitions, involving fellow abstract painters such as John Hoyland, Maurice Cockrill, and John McLean.
Question A&M
Which artists do you feel have had the greatest influence on your work?
Answer AR
The list of influential artists is extensive, from those early pattern making cavemen, Russian Constructivists, Dutch De Stijl, German Bauhaus, British abstraction and American modernists. From El Lissitzky through to Ellsworth Kelly each artist who inspires me has their own particular insight into geometry; their unique approach, ideas and theory. I feel that my practice today is informed by their revolutionary concepts.
Question A&M
How is your work relevant in this Digital world?
Answer AR
In some ways the appearance of my work mimics the digital world and yet the processes I use are the polar opposite to computerised methods of production. For example, my drawings are broken down to the most basic and accessible of artist materials, graphite on paper. They take months to execute, progress is slow, and time is a crucial ingredient, in stark contrast to digital processes. They mimic the computer but have as much in common with an ancient time. My paintings are built like architecture; preliminary sketching, then draft drawings which in turn transform into paintings. The paint edges are sharp and precise, imitating the digital. The colour is flat and pure.
More than ever, painting and drawing are relevant today within our high-speed society. We crave a need for stillness, to wonder, to dream and drift in our universe of imagination.
Your latest work seems to engender feelings of objects floating in space. What inspired this series?
Answer AR
For me, there is a magical element when drawing and painting within a geometric dimension. Space and shapes within a given picture plane play with alignment and grids. Gravity and weight become suggested illusions that can translate to dynamic compositions. Our tiny speck of light, which we live on, is surrounded by unimaginable space, and my paintings naturally respond to this.
There was a gradual progression in my work towards geometric shapes floating in an indeterminate space. In my mind they became suggestive of the fall of Icarus or Cassini’s “death dive” into Saturn. I feel that this idea of falling has universal connections in that we are all subject to this fundamental law of nature- gravity.
CV
Education:
University of Liverpool, Multi-Media Technology, 2000-01
Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, Arts in the Community, 1998
Liverpool Polytechnic, B.A (Hons) Fine Art, 1988-91
Liverpool Polytechnic, Foundation Art & Design, 1987-88
Mabel Fletcher Technical College, Liverpool, Graphic Design, Drawing, 1982-83
Selected Group exhibitions:
World of Glass St Helens – one + one – Arthur Roberts and Barbara Jones
Bankley Gallery – Manchester – This is Painting – 2018
PS Mirabel Manchester – Twice as Nice – 2018
World of Glass St. Helens – Size Matters – 2018
Bankley Open – Manchester – 2017
Magical Geometry 2017 – Chapel Gallery Ormskirk
Chapel Gallery Ormskirk – West Lancashire Open 2015 – winner
Warrington Contemporary Art Open 2015 – second prize
Bankley Open Call Manchester 2015
PS Mirabel Manchester – Shelf Life 2015
World of Glass St Helens- Big Draw 2015
Combines 4 – Model Liverpool 2014
Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal, Open Up North, 2014
Castlefield Gallery Manchester, group show 2012
Jerwood Space, UK touring – Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011
Cornerstone Gallery – Quartered, Drawn and Hung 2010/2011
Chapel Gallery Ormskirk – Line & Form 2010
Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool Hope University – Pre-Paid 2008
Independents Biennial Liverpool 08 – In An Ideal World, St Brides Church 2008
Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool Hope University – ‘loop OVERVIEW 07’, curated, survey of abstract art on Merseyside 2007
Loop Gallery Liverpool – RAW – curator, multi-discipline exhibition, 2005
Loop Gallery Liverpool – Untitled– curator, painting exhibition, 2005
Loop Gallery Liverpool – TEN – curator & exhibited, 10 leading abstract painters, Liverpool Biennial, 2004
5athegallery, St Helens, – group exhibition, 2002
Manchester City Art Gallery, – Manchester Academy Open, 1996
Foster Goldstrom, – New York City, group exhibition, 1995
Fresh Art London – group show representing Liverpool, 1990
Tate Gallery Liverpool – Minimalism, assistant to Sol LeWitt, 1990
Solo Exhibitions /Projects:
All My Colours, review International Biennial ‘Touched’ 2010, allmycolours.wordpress.com
Independents Biennial Liverpool 08, board member/project manager, 2007 / 8
Cornerstone Gallery, Space and Time – recent paintings, 2005 / 06
Loop Gallery Liverpool – Retro – retrospective of ten years paintings, 2005
Merseyside Maritime Museum, – Wave installation, Liverpool Biennial, 2002
DfES, Artist in Residence, CH4 Learning – Grid Club 2002
Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, – one person show, 1993
Hanover Galleries, Liverpool, – one person show, 1993
Arthur Roberts 