Lachlan Goudie is a painter from Glasgow, Scotland. His work is an ongoing project to document the extraordinary locations and landscape of Industrial Britain, working in shipyards, steel works, and satellite manufacturing laboratories. He has received numerous awards and exhibits in London, Edinburgh, and New York. He is an elected member of the Royal Institute of Oil painters. In addition to painting Lachlan Goudie has written and presented several documentaries for the BBC. His landmark series ‘The Story of Scottish Art’ was critically acclaimed and Lachlan received a nomination from the Royal Television Society Scotland for the ‘Onscreen personality of the year’ award. He studied English at Christ’s College, Cambridge and Fine Art at Camberwell College of Art in London. His works are in collections of Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Glasgow; The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth; and The Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine.
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“Art, whatever it takes” – The RomeArtProgram has made a series of interviews with people involved in art, living in Italy, the USA and the UK, to know their feelings and orientation during these times of emergency.
-Interview with Lachlan Goudie.
RomeArtProgram: What is your definition of “art” today?
Lachlan: Art, for me, is very personal. It’s what I do every day at my studio and my easel. It’s perhaps, a very traditional concept of pigment, on canvas, applied with brushes. There are many varied ways to make art but that’s what I do every day. I’m simply trying to represent the world around me as I see it.
RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?
Lachlan: I take more of my inspiration from art history than I do the contemporary art world. I’m trying to regenerate what I’ve admired in the work of my creative ancestors. I don’t think I can improve on what they’ve done but I’m trying to give myself a challenge of learning from them and creating works that are honest and demanding of myself as they can be.
RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?
Lachlan: My father was a portrait painter and he started painting my portrait when I was a few weeks old. I was always a subject of his paintings. In childhood I realized that art was something that mattered a great deal in my life. When I was in my early 20s I realized I wanted to do is for my career.
RAP: What role does art play today? What are the “great figures” who have recently changed it? Do you feel close to any of these figures?
Lachlan: I think that art, during this hard year, is important to a lot of people in terms of generating an opportunity for them to escape, to be creative, and to find a kind of therapy in that way. I take great inspiration from an artist called Peter Doig, a Scottish painter who grew up in the Caribbean and Canada, and whose use of color harks back to art history but is very dynamic and exciting. He’s probably the figure today that I look to with the most interest.
RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate, and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?
Lachlan: I believe there are, and I do benefit from my art being bought and collected by specific patrons of mine. They’re people who have taken an interest in what I do. They have been hugely important in supporting my development because, as an artist, I believe this is a trade. As much as today we approach art as a conceptual way of enlightening us cerebrally, I think that, for an artist to be able to support themselves and sell a painting, cash a check, buy some bread…yes, those people help me a great deal.
RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?
Lachlan: Technology doesn’t play a huge role in the art I create but it plays an important role in the way I promote my work and that has facilitated my career. But I also think that using digital forms to share painting can be deceptive—it can do some types of painting a great favor and others, not at all. It’s been advantageous to me commercially, but I’m not sure I’m happy with the fact that I sell a lot of paintings online now. I’d rather have people stand in front of the painting. A challenge is finding time to do it all—Instagram, Twitter…it takes time and frankly, I’d rather be at the easel. It’s hard enough to find time to pick up the brushes.
RAP: Art as a mirror of man, in this moment of emergency seems to be shattered …what do these fragments reflect now? Shadow or light of the moment?
Lachlan: I think light. I think that art has run the risk of the contemporary artworld of becoming ever more exclusive. This horrendous year has been an opportunity to popularize the processes of creativity and to reveal that, whether you have a gift for painting, it doesn’t matter. You can still enrich yourself from pushing color around on paper. And that’s exciting.
RAP: Understanding, interpreting, and then possibly judging the work of art; which is the right path when we are in front of a piece of art?
Lachlan: None of them—observing. Just looking. Look hard, it’s not easy.
RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions?
Lachlan: I think the role of an art academy is to equip young students with skills. It’s important to teach people how to think and interpret art, and how to express themselves. But it’s vital that young people are given the opportunity to learn simple, practical methods in a variety of media. Once equipped, they can do whatever they like for the rest of their lives.
RAP: Art too has undergone a complex process of globalization; can having an authentic and genuine style be an advantage or a drag for an artist?
Lachlan: I think an authentic, genuine style is essential. But the risk of that phrase is that people are always looking to artists to express themselves in a single way and that is constrained. It’s important for an artist to find their way of working and maybe find a style, but I think it’s wrong to be expected—and unfortunately this is the way the art world works—to reproduce. Artists need to push beyond that.
RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?
Lachlan: Art galleries and museums are there to bring a wide an audience to the wonders of art and art history. I probably disagree that the art galleries should be overly proactive in shaping what’s happening in the contemporary art world. It’s a fine line between sharing and celebrating creativity– today and historically–and becoming the gatekeepers of ‘what is good art’ today.
RAP: “Figurative” or “Abstract”? Which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?
Lachlan: I think we’re definitely abstract because we’re all over the place. We will never lose the hunger to see the figurative world us, interpreted by our fellow human beings. Paintings that represent the way the world looks but through the eyes of an artist, will always be valid in spite of the fact that they always get a hard press.
RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?
Lachlan: Be resilient. Don’t give up. In your life, you will find a way of accommodating doing the thing you love. Don’t get knocked down by the disappointments.
RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?
Lachlan: The world without art would be a dismal place. I don’t think it will save us, but art will make life worth living.
www.lachlangoudie.com – @lachlangoudieart
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