ORIGINS with Jamie Liam Humphrey
MADE IN BED Magazine’s Lorna Tiller is delighted to announce the beginning of a new series titled ORIGINS. Despite somewhat more traditional or avant-garde routes into the art world every artist’s story is unique and I want to give them the opportunity to explore and reflect on their own practise at such a critical stage in their career.
Jamie Liam Humphrey is an outstanding artist and individual. His journey may seem conventional on paper but his story is far from it. Jamie and I got together to discuss where his passion for painting originated and what has guided his practise over the years.
Art never seemed important to me at the beginning of my life, I was always into football or skateboarding and thought art was a cop out! I gave it no attention at school and wasn’t the least little bit interested in pursuing it further. It eventually got to that time in life, when I was about 16-17 years old and finishing high school, that I had to ask the same question we have all asked ourselves — what can I do and what am I going to do? I joined Harrogate college under the impression I would study photography, because that is what every skateboarder was doing at the time in order to have another creative outlook on life, but I soon realised 1. I didn’t know how to work a camera and 2. I was shit at taking photos.
The turning point in my life came during an art foundation trip to Barcelona where I met a guy on my course who became one of the most influential people to ever walk into my life, Robbie Fife (who is also a practicing artist). He invited me to the Antoni Tapies (1923-2012) Foundation ‘fundaciotapies’ and it changed my life. Until that point I believed painting only existed within the realms of still life compositions on dining tables at school and I had no idea of the mysterious world of abstract expressionism.
Upon returning from that trip I felt as though my eyes had been opened to a whole new world of art. And this is when I started paint.
Jamie and I discussed a number of influential artists that resonate through his work. From British post-war abstraction pioneer Roger Hilton (1911-1975) to contemporary Phoebe Unwin (b.1979) I was blown away by the diversity and scope of the different notions underpinning his work. Jamie emphasised an intuitive approach to his practise which is evident throughout his oeuvre.
Palatable, but rarely sweet, colours make indefinite forms that move and converge in uncomfortable and surprising ways – sometimes forms are found under one another, obscured from the surface plane, sometimes covered or entirely obliterated, and at other times nudging gentling into one another. I work from nostalgic memories and try to recreate these journeys through colour and configuration in my work, paying respect to the forgotten things in my life. Im a painter’s painter and there is not always an apparent ‘subject matter’ per se to my work, or it may go unnoticed, but what is wrong with just making something beautiful?
I remember being a kid and walking past these allotments on the way to school in the morning and the intensity of the summertime — the smells and the imagery are, I guess, where a lot of the colours, forms and emotions with in my work stem from.
It was Leonardo da Vinci that stated ‘art is never finished, only abandoned’ and Jamie and I agree that art cannot be static. Artworks significance evolves as the world around us changes, albeit through new academia or evolved societal thought, alongside the inevitable ageing of the applied materials, it is the artists will, and arguably their audiences desire, that pushes the work out the studio and into the gallery.
The biggest battle I have with painting is knowing when to stop or coming to terms with when something might be done. Sometimes I’d have painted something for like 10 minutes and I’ll look at it and think, I love it! But can it be finished because it literally has taken me only ten minutes? But, why can’t it be finished?
Thank you Jamie Liam Humphrey.
Lorna Tiller,
Editor-in-Chief, MADE IN BED