Interview: Richard Colman

Richard Colman: Super Fortress,

Can you tell me about the stories and figures in your pictures. Where do you find inspiration to create that language?

It’s like any other language, it sort of develops over time, you know.

Because to me the pictures are composed in a different way. But is it a Los Angeles thing or…

No, the pictures are strange there to… Probably stranger there…

There is something going on in the pictures. What is that?

Well, when I make pictures, I have all my different reasons for why I use certain images; how I put the image together, what’s going on, but then, you know, ones the pictures are finished, it’s not mine anymore, do you know what I mean. People seem to find their own stories in them. I like to compose pictures that are sort of open for interpretation.

So you don’t have any specifics…

I do, I do have specifics for them. By making them I get what I need from the paintings and now other people can get what they need or want from them.

Is this your first solo show in Europe?

Yes, I’ve done a few group exhibits and fairs and I’ve been in London, France and Germany. But this is the first time anyone has been nice enough to ask me to come and make an exhibition by myself.

How did this exhibition happen?

Well, I meet Mikkel who works with the gallery maybe six years ago in Germany and we have mutual friends. He contacted me maybe two years ago just for a few little drawings and paintings for different things. People seemed to like them and a while ago they asked me to come and do a lot of them.

I got really nervous because I didn’t know how big this was, I had never been here before and didn’t know what I should be doing, so I did a lot of work.

Richard Colman: Snakes, 25x15 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood Richard Colman: 2 men speaking, 25,5x17,5 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood Richard Colman: They are Beacons, 35,5x25,5 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood

It looks really good. The big one over there is very nice…

Yes, you’d think that I did it for a living... he he… But it doesn’t feel like it, though…

It’s a new kind of pictures for me… I saw a show by Clare Rojas here in Copenhagen…

Year, she’s a great painter…

...and I recognize some similar language between you two… here it’s really elaborated…

That’s the great thing about art, when you meet those common languages that develops. Even between people who don’t know each other. It’s funny to see, you look at somebody’s stuff and you almost recognize it.

Do you collect things?

On a very small scale. Your are way over the top for me...

I don’t own any of my paintings… I don’t have one…he he...

Richard Colman: The Grey Tower, 50x38 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper Richard Colman: Black Blood, Pink Cloud, 88,5x69 cm. Acrylics and ink on paper Richard Colman: In Human Hands, 53x34 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood

So there is a difference between European and American art?

I don’t know. It might be, but I’m so busy working all day, I don’t get the chance to se as much American art as I should. The exhibitions are nice because I get the chance to talk to people about other things in stead of being in my studio by myself.

It’s great just to meet people who are really passionate about looking and collecting art. It’s almost the same, my attitude towards making it is their attitude towards collecting it and talking about it. It’s totally opposite but at the same time the same passion.

I’m a very shy person so it’s great to communicate with my pictures. I really like people, but I’m just not good with people, so it’s a good way to talk to people. I can just sort of watch and not say anything, they do al the work.

The figure that represents the lady with the black dress, is she a symbol of something in all the pictures?

It depends… The way I work it will start that way, I will do very simple drawings of people or experiences from my life, especially with the larger pictures. As I work on them, they just start taking on their own life, which is something I really like. When I first started painting, all of my paintings were very autobiographical, very much about exact things in my life, which was great and I did a lot of those paintings. In the past one or two years I’ve had a lot of fun with letting go of that and letting the paintings lead their own existence and tell their own stories.

The big painting here, the paint is dripping down, it’s loosening up…

Year, It would be so boring to do the same paintings everyday, like factory work. It’s a different way of saying the same thing.

I see some kind of Mexican style in your work…

Stylistically I like the old Mexican art and I also like a lot of the old Byzantine art, the old European religious paintings and that sort of thing. And that is something I enjoy stylistically and I have always enjoyed in the old paintings how, there is so much stuff going on. I’ve always loved that, and that’s something that a lot of the European and Mexicans painters did very well. I wish, I could do it that well, but I like that. And I like their secrets…

There is always something mischievous or devious about the paintings. You can tell that this particular artist was paid to do this exact picture. They would sneak their own things into it. You don’t know what they are up to and that’s nice.

Actually you create that feeling in your paintings…

That’s perfect, that’s what I want. If I told you want this painting meant it would be like: “Oh, okay…I’m gonna go home to make dinner”. But when you don’t know, it’s fun. I like the ambiguousness of it.

Richard Colman: A Collection of Gentlemen, 36x23 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood Richard Colman: Lion Keepers, 22x15,5 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood Richard Colman: The Missing Head, 35,5x25,5 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood

It triggers something in the viewers…

It draws you in and then you stay there. I think it does the same for me…he he…

It’s funny, because sometimes it tends to be very hard for me to speak about what they are actually about. Often I’ll be talking with someone and they start talking about what it means to them. I don’t have to say anything, their view maybe be something completely different than what I’m going for. That’s great, but a lot of times they are getting the exact same thing as I am which is strange, but amazing.

You work with some universal themes. There is a lot, I can recognize from Tibetan images, all these rainbows, figures buried in the ground and so…

That especially in traditional old art work from various places, they all speak a very simple language that everyone can connect with and I like all the elements from all of them, Arabic paintings and so…

All these old pictures are connected to some kind of religious or spiritual tradition. Are you a religious man?

No, I’m not religious. I grew up a little bit that way, but personally I think that we’re all connected in some universal way. That's like when you talk about the similarity of my paintings with other peoples paintings. That’s another thing, there’s sort of an unconscious language that everyone can speak. I was talking to Jesper Elg about how you can be painting something and you see someone from a hole other country who’ll be doing something similar or sometimes I’ve been painting and something that was painted hundreds of years ago that I haven’t seen has a lot of the same things in it. It’s that sort of unconscious collective thought.

Do you like it here?

I really like it here. I’m going to take some days after the exhibit to look around and enjoy the city. It has been a lot of work and I haven’t really had time to look around. It’s great to come over here to meet people I have never met before •

Richard Colman: Untitled, 68,8x54 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood

Richard Colman: Visitors, 30,5x22 cm. Watercolour and ink on paper on wood