ComeUnited

EDWARD B. GORDON

Interview by Marcel Kaffenberger

English translation by Ingrid Steidl

Deutsche Originalfassung

Backstage: The Interview
5 Questions for Edward B. Gordon, Painter
Monday 28 September 2009
 ComeUnited.Com  Mr. Gordon, you are among the most important and successful "Daily Painters". After your studies at drama school in London, you applied yourself to painting. "Twenty years it takes to achieve something if you do it my way, I recommend that to no-one," you say.  What motivated you to paint, although the path to success is so difficult? What makes good art for you and a good painting, and what are for you, the styles of our time?
GORDON: Twenty years it took for me as a self-taught painter to attain a certain maturity as a painter. I cannot say, I can recommend my method or not, but certainly, to get into a good studio of a master to learn, instead of searching around without much guidance as I did is more advisable and preferable.
I need no motivation to paint. It is what I always want to do. Painting for me is a deep need, like breathing, it is not an imposed having-to-do, so it is also irrelevant in the final analysis, if I am successful with it, or not.
A good painting needs to touch the viewer to tell him something, cause any sensation or open a note, the idea of an unknown world. And that an abstract work can do just as well as a realistic one. I do not make a difference there, whatsoever.
In matters of style of our time, we enjoy I think, a relative freedom. A style in itself is most often an expression of love for a form, but does not always necessarily meet the real needs.   ComeUnited.Com  You paint a painting a day and offer it every day exclusively via your own blog www.edwardbgordon.blogspot.com. The highest bidder wins the sale. On average,  you get EUR 450 per painting, but four-digit amounts are also not uncommon. Do you see in this direct form of selling the economic future for artists? How important are exhibitions and galleries for you?   GORDON: No doubt the World Wide Web is a very democratic way to show ones paintings, without being dependent on the art market, art critics, Zeitgeist, etc. The classic gallery that promotes its artists and has a real interest and a passion for art will still continue to exist, hence also the classic show. But the path I've taken is certainly a trend-setting alternative.   ComeUnited.Com  Every day you publish a digital photo of your painting, online, which is deliberately qualitatively inferior to the original. Nevertheless bidders from around the world fight for your pieces. Why is there such a high response? How abstract and technical can art be transmitted?   GORDON: I think that the human viewing habits are by printed images and through television and computer screens already used to a very abstract vision to assess the situation correctly. So it is even more delightful, that the original convinces again more than the online reproduction, that it is alive too, one can feel the colours, can hold the painting in ones hands and apprehend the slight smell of oil paint.   ComeUnited.Com  Art is for you "craft" that can be learned and must be exercised. A painting a day gives you, as you say, a chance to keep on learning, every day.  What additional knowledge do you acquire everyday? How much talent is part of the creative act of painting, and how do you manage it daily to get fresh inspiration for a new piece of art?   GORDON: The learning steps are certainly not as easy to identify, it's a bit like learning to ride a bike, one struggles and toils, and suddenly it works. So, also in painting, there is an immense diversity that needs to be controlled, much is undiscovered and intuitive, so a daily practice can only be beneficial, like in classical music. There is hardly a serious pianist who does not practice every day. Due to the ongoing employment by the daily struggle, the inspiration comes naturally. It's practically impossible not to be inspired.   ComeUnited.Com  It appears that you have a hard, disciplined working day. Finding your subjects, create a daily painting and marketing it. At 43, you are very successful. Money for you comes only second. Now, what is your main point, what are your goals? Do you have not yet fulfilled dreams or visions?   GORDON: Money gives me the economic base to continue working. Paints and brushes, canvas and models, etc. do not come for free through the window of the also not rent-free studio. But the main thing is to keep on learning as a painter, and to further research and possibly achieve one day, a great master ship, which then may be called art.