Based on an interview conducted on 23 January 2013 in the artist’s London studio.
On considering the work of John Carter, it is a career that defines exactitude and precision, grounded in theory and practice without feeling the weight of ideology or expectation. He is frequently aligned with Constructivism, which is not inaccurate, but neither is it a complete description. The strict geometric forms of his work conceal a gentle sense of play and experimentation. Grounded by order, the objects created are free to explore the vagrancies of appearance and human perception; within the seemingly predictable shapes, we are confronted by unpredictable consequences. We are drawn into a dialogue with the object, while our eyes debate what we think we see: has that fine line been delicately painted on the surface, or thinly sliced out of the wood?
The effect is carefully calculated, from conception to creation to presentation. Each angle and line is studied and measured. Even the surface of the wall objects – seemingly soft, invitingly tactile in appearance – is a cultivated construction: the repeated application and sanding down of acrylic and marble powder to achieve the precise tone for each piece.
The pieces are suited to the subtle shifts and changes of daylights and resist the usual sharp spotlights of the gallery or museum. His biographer, Chris Yetton, describes the work as an experience of ‘the beautiful, untouched, alive, now.’ [1] It is the creation of ideas to exist in the world, to engage the viewer with visual play, to make us aware of how we perceive our surroundings and the objects we encounter. The process of painting and of sculpting are intertwined; the layers of paint are built up sculpturally, yet the finished piece confronts us as a painting – but in three dimensions.
Is it painting? Is it sculpture? It is a constant question asked of Carter’s art.
The terminology frequently applied is disappointing: relief is inaccurate, but wall-object feels sterile. This ambiguity, however, is crucial to our understanding of Carter’s art and his process.
Clik here to view.
John Carter’s studio, work in progress, 2013.
JC
You’re thinking about process, aren’t you? I suppose I could say that for the most part when I start to make a work, I have a fairly clear thought about what it will be. To a certain extent, it’s simply manufacturing the object. But because there are times when I don’t know what will happen, process becomes very very key. I start with a drawing and I have quite a lot of sketchbooks, not a tremendous number, I probably have about thirty of them upstairs.
From the sketchbook, I will probably go on to a measured drawing, to test the geometry. These are drawn out on my architect’s table upstairs. If it’s an absolutely clear idea, then I might draw it straight onto the plywood; I can start to do it for real without any drawing stage. Not all the time, but when I start to think, ‘why am I drawing this on paper when I could be doing it on plywood?’ I can cut out an unnecessary stage.
But then other ideas I need to explore. I’ve made a tremendous lot of paper work for a piece I’m working on at the moment; it’s been going on for about a year. These are things that don’t exist in the world; I don’t know what will happen when it becomes real; I don’t know how it will behave in light. Sometimes I’m not clear how thick the work should be. I have been known to cut two centimetres off the back. Or add two centimetres on, I’ve done that too. So there are objects that do evolve, but mainly they don’t. Mainly they evolve earlier, it’s all happening before I start, in the drawings, in the gouaches.
There are some ideas that I have real problems making, like this one in white and grey, I’ve been really struggling with it. [2] It comes from a little drawing, not in a sketchbook, just on an odd bit of paper, and I know that there’s something of interest and importance in it, but I can’t quite identify which aspect that it is. I ended up just enlarging what was on the page and then I sort of doubled the image – so it started off as just white and I’ve added the grey since – and since then I’ve been struggling with the nature of it. I think it’s almost there, but not quite. I’m living with it.
At the moment, I’m just working on two things; the other is the orange and brown, which I’m calling Left to Right Transition. [3] I thought about calling it just ‘In Transition’ but that sounds like transit, but I thought it absolutely helps to call it ‘Left to Right,’ because you have that transition.
That brown one and the others, hardly any of them are actually finished; they need a bit more work. [4] I want to change that blue, for instance, it’s too pretty. It’s the right tone I think, but I need to find a better colour. And the one up above, it’s a one off. It’s an unusual process; it was an off-cut from a drawing and I just thought I might as well make it. At the top, the overlap indicates that one blue slides underneath the other and I’m not sure about this effect. It’s too thick. It needs to be paper thin but because of the history of it, it isn’t. I think it’s certainly acceptable but I might do it again.
Clik here to view.
Corner – Equal Ares and Spaces (1985)
The drawings and the objects are mathematical in that they deal with measures, but there is quite a variety of approaches: they are all geometric but some pieces are derived directly from a concept. I was asked to take part in a show called ‘The Echo’ and this is what I came up with for the theme. [5] These shapes – the whole thing – are verticals, a rectangle. If you put a rectangle on a corner, it wraps around the angle. What I have cut out becomes the inner surfaces; if you could fold the inside back, you could see what is missing there makes up the side.
Some of the work is very much based on a concept, whereas others… I don’t know if you’d call it mathematical or not. The red piece that’s hanging on the wall up there is constructed entirely on a mathematical basis: areas and equivalencies of areas. The human being doesn’t actually assess areas. We assess in linear measurement for some reason. The eye is well able to compare length and breadth, and to assess any comparative linear measurements with some accuracy, but that it seemed to be unable to make accurate comparisons between relative area sizes. So these areas are very unexpected.
Clik here to view.
Six Identical Shapes (Meander) (2008)
This theme – Identical Shapes – I don’t know what you’d say about it. [6] It looks very mathematical and clear, measured out angles, but actually there are two issues at work here, both very superficial: one, it’s necessary to join them so you have a link and it stays together; my dream is to make a meander that runs through, to consistently meander. Since I’ve been doing these works mounted on a background, I’ve been able to make the space wander through. I’d like to be able to do them all like that. I find it’s more interesting when there are fewer. In the new version – the brown and brown on the wall – there are just the two shapes. [7] The supports are also the same shape, and what’s more, they are twice the size of the smaller ones, so it extends back to the previous theme.
Clik here to view.
John Carter’s studio, work in progress, 2013.
I pick up old sketchbooks and I find ideas that I might have used in the past if I think I can see fresh perspectives in them. A drawing might be done recently, but actually it comes from a book in the 1980s. My sketchbooks will confuse future archivists, should they be interested! Themes come back, when I want to explore ideas.
I did study architecture, in a sense, at my first art school, Twickenham Art School. It had a very classical kind of training. We didn’t do history of art for the first year, we only did history of architecture. We had to work our way through a book called Masters of Architecture. Every week, depending on where we were in the book, we’d be drawing something like the ground plan of the Parthenon, and I don’t think our tutors had any idea how long that took. When you just see it on the page, you don’t think about it! You have to get out your compass for every single corner. All the columns have to be in the right line, the right proportions, and the notes! It’s a tremendous lot of work. We started off with the Stone Age and we were working our way through until the 19th century I suppose: Macedonia, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Gothic, Early English, Tudor. I hated it! I was in the middle of my Romantic period and I wanted to be like Graham Sutherland. Expressive, you know. We did a lot of lettering on this course, which for a romantic youth is very distasteful in a way, not what a human being should be doing. In retrospect, however, I liked it. The study of those letterforms was very interesting. It’s a very pure study of shape and the sophistication that goes into these drawings is really tremendous. But I never considered a career in architecture at all; I left school at age 16 with only two GCEs and I was not remotely interested in architecture!
The wonderful thing about art is that it has no practical purpose. An artist is free to explore their ideas in a very pure way. An architect has to worry about local planning, lead levels and so much that has no visual art in it; artists have the most wonderful possibility to explore problems in a very pure way. It’s a delight.
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Notes:
[1] Chris Yetton. John Carter. London: Royal Academy Publishing (2010).
[2] [3] [4] Work in progress, studio shot 1 (Photograph: the author)
[5] Corner – Equal Areas and Spaces (1985) oil on plywood with hinge, 60 x 50 x 60 cm (Photograph: Peter Abrahams)
[6] Six Identical Shapes (Meander) (2008) acrylic with marble powder on plywood, 100 x 101 x 6 cm (Photograph: Peter Abrahams)
[7] Work in progress, studio shot 2 (Photograph: the author)
Other references:
John Carter, Ideas and Intentions (Alentours series). Gerpinnes, Belgium: Editions Tandem (1995).
The New Generation: 1966, exhibition catalogue. London: Whitechapel Gallery (1966).