Time Travelling with Ronald Forbes

An Essay by Dr.Peter Hill from the (mind)games catalogue

“I can take images made with state of the art 21st century technology and have them back in the 15th century in about ten minutes. It is a strangely comfortable relationship I have with the computer and the hog hair brush.”
Ronald Forbes, May 2005

Ronald Forbes is one of Scotland’s leading figurative painters. This is a high accolade since his peers include some of the best, and most dedicated, painters in the world: Joyce Cairns, Steven Campbell, Ian Howard, Adrian Wiszniewski, Ken Currie, Peter Howson, Gwen Hardie, John Bellany…the list is long.

Many disparate things distinguish the work of Ronnie Forbes. There is his obsessive use of cameras and binoculars, which appear like props in a tightly scripted movie. There is his punning use of shadows within secondary picture planes, and these become in effect silhouettes – part of an on-going system of “doubling”. There are the great landscape vistas that he borrows from art history or visits as a tourist, such as the idealised vistas created by Claude Lorrain or the too-big-to-capture, too-wide-to-see, Grand Canyon. Then there are the technical devices, foremost amongst these his use of collage. Sometimes the collage is “real”, often it is a clever trompe l’oeil. I have always been intrigued by this process and asked him more about it. “Much of my painting uses the illusion of collage, including faux torn edges. In these new works I have developed a kind of 3D collage where I intermix "real" figures and images. It has taken me nearly two years to iron the wrinkles out of a process that, as I now describe it, sounds very simple. It is, but it is very hard to do. There is the same trial and error as you get with more haptic creative processes. What I do is prepare images ranging from photographs of landscapes to collage elements and project these on to posed models, using a digital projector.” Ronnie explains how he uses his family and friends as models, mostly for convenience, but I suspect there is more to it than that. “I then re-photograph this tableau,” he says, “and after much processing, sorting out, and a myriad of difficulties I have a basic image to paint from.” It is during this process that a lot of the “doubling” occurs – the doubling of ideas as well as shapes. In one painting Socrates is depicted as a youth at the very point in time he is being punished for corrupting the ideas of youths.

Yet Ronnie Forbes takes us beyond content, illusion and metaphor. His paintings also work on another level as geometric abstractions. In part, they remind me of early analytical cubist experiments where the picture plane breaks up in to facets. At other times there are hints of the great Czech painter Frantisek Kupka, who was also skilled at switching between abstraction and figuration. And at a third, almost Medieval reference point, there have been times in his long and intense career where the geometry of his construction processes become a scaffolding for his imagery, similar to the way that lead tracery in a stained glass window holds the whole together and freeze-frames the surrounding rainbow.

The fascination he has for the physics of light and the myriad ways that images - and illusions - can be reproduced, stretches from the flickering shadows in Plato’s Cave through to the present magic of digital imaging. Somewhere in between these two extremes is his love for 19th century technology, as if he is an intrepid explorer in a pith helmet, recording foreign lands for the very first time. The tourists who people the later paintings look as if they have just stepped off the Orient Express, lead characters in an Agatha Christie who-dunnit. In their hands they hold various forms of “viewing/capturing devices” such as old-fashioned binoculars or cameras. As well as serving both as visual props and metaphors, the presence of these objects also raises philosophical questions for the artist and, by extension, us the spectators. “Think of the millions of people who travel the world and only see it through the viewfinder of a camera or video,” he says. “Do they intend to watch all their life perceptions on TV later? And when is later? Do they not realize that what they will be viewing is not the same as the original experience would have been if they had not used a camera?

”Forbes also has a fascination with process. Often it has to do with the way the visual world is constructed upside down at the back of the eyeball and the camera, and then is reinvented on the canvas. At other times it becomes even more elemental and potentially dangerous. He tells the story of how one day he turned away from his easel on a very sunny day in summer and looked towards the window where his magnifying glass sat upright in its stand and the binoculars sat on a table. “There was a long wisp of smoke coming from my binoculars. My instrument for seeing things made bigger had set fire to my instrument for seeing things far away.”

All of these later works stand on the shoulders of earlier paintings which are obviously by the same hand but which are like younger siblings with different curiosities. There is the series from the late 1970s exhibited under the general title “Roadworks” at the Project Art Centre, Dublin. In these he used road signs as punning signifiers of themselves. “The ostensible subject matter from this series,” he explains, “was street life from the landscape of road surfaces and the man-made graphics of road markings, to the moving traffic of pedestrians and cars.” Around this time he started to copy images from slides by projecting them and re-photographing the image – a practice that informs these current works.

Not surprisingly, film-making has played an important part in Ronnie Forbes’s research investigations at different points in his career, notably around twenty-five years ago and in the present. He has also interfered in the film-making process – with the same curiosity that Gerhard Richter sometimes interferes with the colour separation process of magazine printing - allowing chance to have its place on his otherwise rigorously planned visual construction sites. “I stopped making films about twenty years ago. I didn’t give up. I simply stopped. The costs were astronomical. My current return to film work is therefore very important to me,” he says, with the excitement of a man scenting a return to unfinished business.

He describes his first venture back to this medium, quite poetically, as being “the creation of a moving painting. ” And if it sounds like a cross between a Peter Greenaway film and a Douglas Gordon slow motion video it is both more sinister and more self-contained in a landscape drained of narrative. We are back in the realm of “Art and its Double” and this ground-breaking work might easily have escaped from Dan Cameron’s paradigm shifting survey show of that name which opened in Madrid in 1986. “The film is about 4 minutes in length and is looped for gallery viewing. In the exhibition it is shown on a flat-screen television alongside my paintings. The film set is black. Three yellow pots and three red balls sit on a table that is covered with a white cloth. I come on dressed as a clown and perform the magic trick known as the ‘cup and ball’ trick. I walk off screen and then come back to repeat the sequence, but this time the first performance is projected on to the set and the clown has to repeat the performance with exactly the same timing.”

By the time we get to the third sequence - where doubling becomes tripling and everything becomes fractured - we are reminded of Glenn Baxter’s great cartoon The Twins Introduce the Imposter. Nothing is ever quite as it seems. Trompe l’oeil gives way to sleight of hand.

This exhibition is an astonishing testimony to a long life dedicated to visual art research, and the exciting aspect of it is that new beginnings are still very much in the offing. I commend it to you wholeheartedly.

Peter Hill
Melbourne2005

Peter Hill is a Glasgow born artist and writer and Senior Lecturer at the School of Creative Arts, University of Melbourne. His Book Stargazing: memoirs of a young lighthouse keeper won a Saltire Award for best First Book of the Year in 2005.
C Peter Hill 2005

 

RONALD FORBES

Curriculum Vitae

Born in Scotland
Edinburgh College of Art, 1964-69
Awarded SED Post Graduate Scholarship, 1968-69
Jordanhill College of Education 1971-72
Lecturer, Bell College, Hamilton 1972-73
Founder Chairman of Glasgow League of Artists, 1971
Elected member of Society of Scottish Artists, 1972
Leverhulme Senior Art Fellow, University of Strathclyde, 1973-74
Head of Painting, Crawford School of Art, Cork, 1974-78
Artist in Residence, Livingston, 1978-80
Scottish Arts Council Studio Award, Amsterdam, 1980
Lecturer at Glasgow School of Art, 1979-83
MFA Programme Director, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, University of Dundee, 1983-1995
Head of Drawing and Painting, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, University of Dundee,
1995-2001
Artist in Residence, Hobart Centre for the Arts, University of Tasmania, 1995
Elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy, 1996
Appointed Visiting Professor of Fine Art, University of Abertay Dundee 2003
Elected Royal Scottish Academician 2005

Prizes and Awards
1964-69 Numerous awards and prizes at Edinburgh College of Art
1967 1st prize in first Scottish Young Contemporaries Exhibition
1968 Prize in Scottish Young Contemporaries Exhibition
1975 Prize for film, “Between Dreams” in BBC “Scope” Film Competition
1979 R.S.A. Guthrie Award, Royal Scottish Academy
1979 Scottish Arts Council Award for Film-making
1980 S.A.C. Amsterdam Studio Award
1994 Commendation, Aberdeen Artists Exhibition
1996 Highland Society of London Award, Royal Scottish Academy
1999 Sir William Gillies Bequest Award, Royal Scottish Academy
2002 Publication Award, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland

Work in Public Collections
Arts Council of Northern Ireland
Cork Municipal Art Gallery, Ireland
Dundee Museums and Art Galleries
Edinburgh College of Art
Hunterian Gallery, Glasgow
Museum Narodowego, Gdansk, Poland
Perth Museum and Art Galleries
Ross Harper and Murphy Collection, Glasgow
Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling,(Scottish Arts Council Bequest)
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (Scottish Arts Council Bequest)
Strathclyde University, Glasgow
University of Abertay Dundee
Rare Books Collection State Library of Queensland, Australia

Films
(All 16mm except ”TV 74” super-8 and “The Illusionist” DV)

‘Between Dreams’ 1974
‘She’ 1974
‘TV 74’, 1974 (S8)
‘Portfolio’, 1975
‘Behaviour Patterns’, 1976
‘Signs’, 1976-77
‘Incident’, 1978
‘Two Painters’, 1978
‘Happy Day’, 1979
‘Three Artists’, 1982
“The Illusionist” 2005

 

Solo Exhibitions
1973 Compass Gallery, Glasgow
1974 Goethe Institute, Glasgow
1974 Collins Gallery, Glasgow
1975 Drian Galleries, London
1976 Cork Art Society Gallery
1976 Project Arts Centre, Dublin
1978 Cork Art Society Gallery
1980 The Lanthorn, Livingston
1980 Forebank Gallery, Dundee
1980 Third Eye Centre, Glasgow
1983 Compass Gallery, Glasgow
1984 Drian Galleries, London
1986 Babbity Bowster, Glasgow
1990 Seagate Gallery, Dundee
1991 Perth Museum and Art Gallery
1991 Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr
1995 An Lanntair Gallery, Stornoway
1995 Seagate Gallery, Dundee
1995 Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
1996 NS Gallery, Glasgow
1997 De Keerder Kunstkamer, Cadier en Keer, Netherlands
1999 Sonia Zaks Gallery, Chicago, USA
1999 Southern Illinois University Museum, Carbondale, USA
2000 Royal Over-Seas League Gallery, London
2001 Fine Art Gallery, University of Tasmania, Australia
2001 Royal Over-Seas League Gallery, Edinburgh
2001 Vardy Gallery, Sunderland
2003 Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews
2005 Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
2005 Hannah Maclure Centre, University of Abertay, Dundee

Curated Exhibitions
Scottish Arts Council Touring Exhibition
Forbes/Robb
1978 Arts Council Gallery, Belfast
1978 Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh
1978 Collins Gallery, Glasgow
1979 Aberdeen Art Gallery

Netherlands Touring Exhibition
Forbes/Nelson/Shaw
1983 Hoensbruck, Roermond, Maastricht and Liege

Nature: Only an Idea
With Nicole Hardy and Jannel

2002 Galerie Trace, Maastricht, Netherlands

Selected Group Exhibitions

1967-71 'Scottish Young Contemporaries'
1971 '20 x 57' Edinburgh Festival Exhibition
1973 and 1984 Glasgow Group Exhibition, Mclellan Galleries, Glasgow
1973 and 1974 'Original Print', Edinburgh
1974 STV Gateway Exhibition, Edinburgh Festival
1975 “Fact and Fantasy”, Scottish Arts Council Tour
1975 “Different Realists”, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
1975 “Living Art Exhibition”, Dublin
1985 “Unique and Original” Glasgow Print Studio, Glasgow
1985 “Exposition International de Peinture”, Paris
1987 “Scotch in the Apple” Contemporary Scottish Art,
Lincoln Centre, New York
1988 “The Garden”, Fine Art Society, Glasgow
1988 “Works on Paper”, Contemporary Scottish Art Touring Netherlands and Belguim
1990 “The Compass Contribution” 21 years of Contemporary Art, Tramway, Glasgow
1990 “RSA Guthrie Award Winners 1920-1990”, The Fine Art Society, Glasgow/Edinburgh
1991 “Man in the Universe”, Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
1991 “International Exhibition”, Central Museum, Ginza, Tokyo
1993 “Alive and Printing”, 21 years of Glasgow Print Studio, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow
1993-94 “Witnesses of Existence”, Kingston University, England; Demarco Foundation, Edinburgh; Obala Gallery, Sarajevo, Bosnia
1994 “Outpost”, Edinburgh Festival
1994 “Beuys in Scotland”, Demarco European Art Foundation, Edinburgh Festival,
1994 “World SHO and European Artists Exhibition”, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Centre, and Kyobun Civic Gallery, Kawasaki, Japan
1994 “Groot in ’T Kleine”, De Keerder Kunstkamer, Limburg, the Netherlands
1994 and 1995 “Celtic Connections Exhibition” The Glasow Royal Concert Hall,
1995 “Contemporary Scottish Art: 15 Years of Collecting”, The McManus Galleries, Dundee
1995 Inaugural Exhibition, New Foyer Gallery, University of Abertay, Dundee
1995 “Uprising”, The Meffan Gallery, Forfar
1996 Dave Thomas project, Expanded Field - 500 Sites, Melbourne, Australia
1996, 1997, 1998, 1999/2000 Nobel Grossart Painting Competition, RSA, Edinburgh and Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow
1996 “Small Works”, Roger Bilcliffe Fine Art, Glasgow
1996 Exhibition of Small Works, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh Festival
1997 “An Alphabet of Artists”, Perth Museum and Art Gallery
1997 “Figure This”, McManus Art Galleries, Dundee
1997 “Reunion” de Keerder Kunstkamer, Cadier en Keer, Netherlands
1997-1998 “Rastava Sodobne Skotskf Grafike” Exhibition of Scottish Prints, touring Slovenia
1998 Recent acquisitions from the Scottish Arts Council Collection,
Smith Stirling Art Gallery, Stirling
1998 Holland Art Fair, The Hague, Netherlands
1998,1999,2000 Glasgow Group Exhibition (invited artist) Kelly Gallery, Glasgow
1998 "Small Paintings” Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow
1998 “New Works by Members” Festival Exhibition, Royal Scottish
Academy, Edinburgh
1998 “Metamorphosis” Seagate Gallery, Dundee
1998 “Absolute Secret” Postcard Exhibition, Royal College of Art, London
1999 “France and Six Nations, L’Art Actuel”,. Tokyo, Japan and touring
1999 “Recent Acquisitions”, Perth Art Galleries and Museum, Perth
1999 “RSA Painter Members”, Albemarle Gallery, London
1999 “Artists 95”, website exhibition organised by Axis
1999 “Small Paintings” Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow
1999 “Connections” Royal Scottish Academy Festival Exhibition, Edinburgh
1999 Morrison Portrait Competition Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2000 “Scottish Painters at the Fosse Gallery”, Stow-on-the-Wold, Cheltenham
2000 “Connections 2000” Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2000 “Expression, Leith, Edinburghs: Scottish Art Since 1945, McManus Galleries, Dundee
2000 “Spool: An Exhibition of Prints by Scottish Artists” Manhattan Graphics Center, New York
2001 “ Four by Four” Artists’ books at Fine Art Gallery University of Tasmania, Hobart
2001 4th Australian Artist Book Fair, Brisbane
2001 “Cabinet Paintings,” Compass Gallery, Glasgow
2002 Nature Exhibition, Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow
2003 Festival of the Sea, Demarco Foundation, Leith, Edinburgh
2005 Glasgow Art Fair with Compass Gallery , Glasgow
2005 Invited Artist, Glasgow Group, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow