Introductions

The view point of the Spanish art critic and professor of art history, José Carlos Suárez:

Many are the roads that have been travelled and much has changed in Paul Critchley’s work since these white canvas walking pumps which were the iconographic motif for this painting of 1976. However there is one thing which hasn’t changed since then, and to which he has always been faithful, and that is his devotion to reality. It’s as if those pumps were a manifesto and a declaration of the principles on which his painting was going to be developed. Just as the pumps are in contact with the floor on which they stand, so it is that his concerns and pictorial interest take as a reference and source of inspiration the reality around him.

From this we can deduce that we are in front of a realistic painter but this would, without a doubt, be a mistake; not because he isn’t, but because he is this and so much more. The term realism is applied to literary and artistic work which faithfully imitates nature; the concept of realism as an aesthetic system has acquired a plurality of meanings and many movements or tendencies in art have used this term as a label for their own theories, especially since it reached maturity in 19th Century France with Gustav Courbet at it’s head.

Referring again to his painting we can state, paraphrasing René Magritte -and more specifically his painting ‘The Treason of Images’ (1928), in which the text “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” appears below the pipe - that, in the same way, these are not pumps but a representation of pumps. Thus the essence of the concept of realism incorporates representation and mimicry, to which can also be added objectivity. The invention of photography, which liberated painting from the heavy burden of representation, contributed decisively to a change in direction in the search within art. This was the case with Cubism, the greatest rupture in art of the 20th Century, as much in its analytical phase in which the focus was on reality and its decomposition, as in the later synthetic phase with the incorporation of ‘collage’. In effect, the objective representation of reality was replaced by the presentation of the real object. The consequences of these changes brought about the modification in the use of drawing and was probably the most radical transformation in linguistic terms in the history of art since the development of central perspective during the Renaissance. The consequences of Cubism’s contribution to art flowed into some of the realisms of the following decades and the evolution of this movement gave rise to geometric abstraction.

Here we should point out that since then, and more especially since the late 1950’s, art has been debated between two great trends; the fundamental concerns about form (abstraction) and concerns for content (figurative, in the majority of cases realistic). That dichotomy led to the polarization of art, and artists had to opt for one or the other. This raised contradictions which over time intensified but which, fortunately, in today’s art seems to have been overcome. A lesson well learnt. Today they are perceived as two sides of the same coin and, like yin and yang, both live together in harmony.

At the same time there were movements such as minimalism, which was based on the inefficiency of the ‘object painting’ as a tool to escape the hold of representation. As an alternative it proposed the construction of 3-dimensional objects to be placed in genuine space so that the viewer would be able to have an understanding of the work unhindered by the artistic object. Paul Critchley’s work, although apparently from a very different environment, also demands the breaking of formal tradition imposed by the bi-dimensionality of painting. Something which artists such as Lucio Fontana had already done within spacialism in which, on occasions, the use of pictorial material on a support was avoided in an attempt to transcend its inherent flat character. Paul Critchley makes his own the affirmation by Robert Morris, according to whom, the material chosen imposes its form. Turning this around, he would say that it is in fact the theme selected which dictates the shape. This gives rise to work where the shape comes from the very object represented or, more precisely, where the shape is conditioned by the actual theme of the painting. Thus we are presented with irregular shaped paintings (again we are reminded of Magritte and his painting ‘The Representation’ (1937) in which the frame adapts itself to the silhouette of the female nude portrayed) and three dimensional paintings, where the shapes are adapted to the interpreted space, as is the case with his corner paintings.

As we are discussing space we should bear in mind that ever since the Renaissance, and in the styles prior to the avant-garde of the 20th Century, the concept of space in mural painting consisted of perspective understood as an objective representation of space. This separation of genuine space and represented space created a problem of integration between painting and architecture which prompted the appearance of Trompe l’œil. The eventual consequences of which equate to the suppression of the wall in the viewer’s perception and with it comes a limitless sense of space based on fiction and illusion which is related to theatrical scenography.

In his work elements and methods coexist which bring to mind concepts such as surrealism, hyper realism ... isms etc., etc., labels all of which, after all, merely function as a method of classification and to try to apply one or other to his work would be like trying to put it in a corset and to impose limits on that which doesn’t have any. Because, as I already said right at the start, his work is that and so much more.

It is a work which possesses such magnetism that I was trapped from the first moment I saw it and with each new encounter there is the discovery of new nuances and sensations which leads one to the healthy exercise of reflection (the difference between seeing and looking). In summary it is intelligent work filled with a fine sense of humour, where visual games and conceptual irony remind us, once again, that often in painting just as in life, appearances are deceptive.

Escaping Light

200 x 85 x 128 cm ~ view of the painting in the museum

Casting light on the paintings is Marjan Ruiter, Director of the Dutch museum 'Centre for Artificial Light in Art' :

In the history of Western art both Giotto and Cézanne are frequently quoted as being pivotal figures whose vision and influence have changed the way we see, think and feel about our environment and ourselves. Where would we be today without the emotion of Giotto and the analysis of Cézanne – no Renaissance, no abstraction?

When Paul Cézanne died in 1906 the electric light bulb was still only in its infancy. This single invention has done as much to change art as Joseph Caxton did to illuminate the medieval mind. Without electric light we would still be in the Dark Ages. Nowadays, as with printing, we take electrical light for granted, but prior to Edison’s invention the only sources of light were daylight, moonlight and the light from flames. Yet we overlook the fact that light is such an important part of life; without it we would not exist. Artificial light, though not a necessity, enables us to live more comfortably and makes life more beautiful too. Ever since its invention, electrical light has held a particular fascination for artists because it is constant, and this consistency means that it can be controlled and manipulated. Previous generations of artists never had such a magical tool and either worked, like the Impressionists, with fleeting daytime, or from memory and imagination. The light they painted in their pictures was truly artificial, but the electric light bulb meant that light in art became photoficial; light itself became the subject rather than the objects illuminated by it.

Marcel Duchamp wrote, “There is a difference between the kind of painting that addresses itself exclusively to the retina and the kind of painting that goes beyond the retina, for which the tube of paint is a mere springboard.” Duchamp’s credo required that painting should be more cerebral than retinal, and the invention of electric light helped artists to express ideas and emotions differently.

In the paintings of Paul Critchley, light, either the presence or the absence of it, plays a central and very functional rôle. The light, whether natural or artificial, gives him a means to create an atmosphere, and thus the ingredients for a story; a story which he doesn’t tell you but which you, as the viewer, are tempted into inventing as for example in the paintings ‘The Naked Bed’ and ‘Midnight Visit’. His painting ‘Escaping Light’ also has these atmospheric qualities. For Paul there are no formal boundaries when painting. The light literally escapes from the painting and falls onto the floor. Although it is perfectly clear to the viewer that this is a painting, the three dimensionality of it invites one to either open the door further to see what is going on in the room, or to turn out the light, close the door and go home. That may be how the eye – the retina – sees it, but the brain sees it as an illusion created by coloured shapes, one on the flat, vertical wall and the other on the floor. There is no light other than in the eye of the beholder and in his interpretation of it. As Balthus said “A painter can be a realist of the unreal, and a figurative of the invisible”.


		6 Eyes 3 Points of View: Introductions by Patrick Hughes, Prof. José Carlos Suárez Fernández and Marjan Ruiter From the perspective of the British artist Patrick Hughes: Vladimir Nabokov wrote that ‘Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterise all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity – and splendid insincerity!’ Paul Critchley’s work is original in his shaped canvases which show us what shape things really are when they are isolated. When I started painting in 1960 I could not imagine what the background in a painting was for, and cut out of hardboard with a coping saw my pictures of hearts and shields. Critchley’s inventiveness is irrepressible, he has imagined things we have not dreamed of, but that when we see them we think ‘I wish I had thought of that.’ The conciseness of Paul’s work is there in that he does not show us more than one thing or area, he just paints and makes the window or the corner of the room. Against this conciseness we might also consider his prolixity, even generosity, in showing us details that we take for granted but which he lovingly draws to our attention, details of carving, of plugs, of pattern, the purely visual. Moments that are a joy to him in their quiddity and that become a joy to the viewer because he paints them so well, the glowing elements of an electric fire, the check lining of an average suitcase, a feather boa.
The Mystical Voyage 90 x 114 cm ~ oil on canvas on board
		There is a harmony in these pictures given by the preponderance of perspective. The perspective system grips the regular world like a force of nature, like gravity or light. Everywhere we look rectilinear things, doors, windows, suitcases, houses and so on, set off towards infinity, tables begin to make their way towards their particular vanishing point, depending on where we are standing. From our point of view as a central actor, we are surrounded by things or planes which are hurrying away from us into the distance, obediently obeying at all times the rules of perspective. This gives an overall harmony to our vision: Paul takes this perspective and isolates and stills it, pickles it, and causes us to think a fresh about what surrounds us at every moment of every day. Nabokov’s fifth characteristic, complexity, comes into the Critchley world as a tussle between the dimensions, two and three. Seen in reproduction his pieces are flatter than they are in life, because when we look at them they come to life, as we come to believe the spaces and shapes he represents so well. The windows Paul paints in perspective can also be really hinged and moveable; and the corners that he paints can be in corners or on corners that are real: painted and actual are superbly complicated in his art. When one paints things people often believe you. Samuel Taylor Coleridge referred to the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ that is an aid to the true appreciation of art. Paul Critchley is such a talented and imaginative artist that we readily suspend our disbelief and step into his witty, wondering and mysterious world. His ‘splendid insincerity’, the result of many years of honing his skill and focusing his intelligence on his corner of the world of art, comes from a very rare feeling for the beauty and delight to be got from the overlooked and the ordinary. This is sincere insincerity, not a trick but a triumph, not a dusty corner but a turning point.
Pumps 40 x 50 cm ~ oil on canvas on board
	The view point of the Spanish art critic and professor of art history, José Carlos Suárez: Many are the roads that have been travelled and much has changed in Paul Critchley’s work since these white canvas walking pumps which were the iconographic motif for this painting of 1976. However there is one thing which hasn’t changed since then, and to which he has always been faithful, and that is his devotion to reality. It’s as if those pumps were a manifesto and a declaration of the principles on which his painting was going to be developed. Just as the pumps are in contact with the floor on which they stand, so it is that his concerns and pictorial interest take as a reference and source of inspiration the reality around him. From this we can deduce that we are in front of a realistic painter but this would, without a doubt, be a mistake; not because he isn’t, but because he is this and so much more. The term realism is applied to literary and artistic work which faithfully imitates nature; the concept of realism as an aesthetic system has acquired a plurality of meanings and many movements or tendencies in art have used this term as a label for their own theories, especially since it reached maturity in 19th Century France with Gustav Courbet at it’s head. Referring again to his painting we can state, paraphrasing René Magritte -and more specifically his painting ‘The Treason of Images’ (1928), in which the text “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” appears below the pipe - that, in the same way, these are not pumps but a representation of pumps. Thus the essence of the concept of realism incorporates representation and mimicry, to which can also be added objectivity. The invention of photography, which liberated painting from the heavy burden of representation, contributed decisively to a change in direction in the search within art. This was the case with Cubism, the greatest rupture in art of the 20th Century, as much in its analytical phase in which the focus was on reality and its decomposition, as in the later synthetic phase with the incorporation of ‘collage’. In effect, the objective representation of reality was replaced by the presentation of the real object. The consequences of these changes brought about the modification in the use of drawing and was probably the most radical transformation in linguistic terms in the history of art since the development of central perspective during the Renaissance. The consequences of Cubism’s contribution to art flowed into some of the realisms of the following decades and the evolution of this movement gave rise to geometric abstraction. Here we should point out that since then, and more especially since the late 1950’s, art has been debated between two great trends; the fundamental concerns about form (abstraction) and concerns for content (figurative, in the majority of cases realistic). That dichotomy led to the polarization of art, and artists had to opt for one or the other. This raised contradictions which over time intensified but which, fortunately, in today’s art seems to have been overcome. A lesson well learnt. Today they are perceived as two sides of the same coin and, like yin and yang, both live together in harmony. At the same time there were movements such as minimalism, which was based on the inefficiency of the ‘object painting’ as a tool to escape the hold of representation. As an alternative it proposed the construction of 3-dimensional objects to be placed in genuine space so that the viewer would be able to have an understanding of the work unhindered by the artistic object. Paul Critchley’s work, although apparently from a very different environment, also demands the breaking of formal tradition imposed by the bi-dimensionality of painting. Something which artists such as Lucio Fontana had already done within spacialism in which, on occasions, the use of pictorial material on a support was avoided in an attempt to transcend its inherent flat character. Paul Critchley makes his own the affirmation by Robert Morris, according to whom, the material chosen imposes its form. Turning this around, he would say that it is in fact the theme selected which dictates the shape. This gives rise to work where the shape comes from the very object represented or, more precisely, where the shape is conditioned by the actual theme of the painting. Thus we are presented with irregular shaped paintings (again we are reminded of Magritte and his painting ‘The Representation’ (1937) in which the frame adapts itself to the silhouette of the female nude portrayed) and three dimensional paintings, where the shapes are adapted to the interpreted space, as is the case with his corner paintings. As we are discussing space we should bear in mind that ever since the Renaissance, and in the styles prior to the avant-garde of the 20th Century, the concept of space in mural painting consisted of perspective understood as an objective representation of space. This separation of genuine space and represented space created a problem of integration between painting and architecture which prompted the appearance of Trompe l’œil. The eventual consequences of which equate to the suppression of the wall in the viewer’s perception and with it comes a limitless sense of space based on fiction and illusion which is related to theatrical scenography. In his work elements and methods coexist which bring to mind concepts such as surrealism, hyper realism ... isms etc., etc., labels all of which, after all, merely function as a method of classification and to try to apply one or other to his work would be like trying to put it in a corset and to impose limits on that which doesn’t have any. Because, as I already said right at the start, his work is that and so much more. It is a work which possesses such magnetism that I was trapped from the first moment I saw it and with each new encounter there is the discovery of new nuances and sensations which leads one to the healthy exercise of reflection (the difference between seeing and looking). In summary it is intelligent work filled with a fine sense of humour, where visual games and conceptual irony remind us, once again, that often in painting just as in life, appearances are deceptive. Escaping Light 200 x 85 x 128 cm ~ view of the painting in the museum Casting light on the paintings is Marjan Ruiter, Director of the Dutch museum 'Centre for Artificial Light in Art' : In the history of Western art both Giotto and Cézanne are frequently quoted as being pivotal figures whose vision and influence have changed the way we see, think and feel about our environment and ourselves. Where would we be today without the emotion of Giotto and the analysis of Cézanne – no Renaissance, no abstraction? When Paul Cézanne died in 1906 the electric light bulb was still only in its infancy. This single invention has done as much to change art as Joseph Caxton did to illuminate the medieval mind. Without electric light we would still be in the Dark Ages. Nowadays, as with printing, we take electrical light for granted, but prior to Edison’s invention the only sources of light were daylight, moonlight and the light from flames. Yet we overlook the fact that light is such an important part of life; without it we would not exist. Artificial light, though not a necessity, enables us to live more comfortably and makes life more beautiful too. Ever since its invention, electrical light has held a particular fascination for artists because it is constant, and this consistency means that it can be controlled and manipulated. Previous generations of artists never had such a magical tool and either worked, like the Impressionists, with fleeting daytime, or from memory and imagination. The light they painted in their pictures was truly artificial, but the electric light bulb meant that light in art became photoficial; light itself became the subject rather than the objects illuminated by it. Marcel Duchamp wrote, “There is a difference between the kind of painting that addresses itself exclusively to the retina and the kind of painting that goes beyond the retina, for which the tube of paint is a mere springboard.” Duchamp’s credo required that painting should be more cerebral than retinal, and the invention of electric light helped artists to express ideas and emotions differently. In the paintings of Paul Critchley, light, either the presence or the absence of it, plays a central and very functional rôle. The light, whether natural or artificial, gives him a means to create an atmosphere, and thus the ingredients for a story; a story which he doesn’t tell you but which you, as the viewer, are tempted into inventing as for example in the paintings ‘The Naked Bed’ and ‘Midnight Visit’. His painting ‘Escaping Light’ also has these atmospheric qualities. For Paul there are no formal boundaries when painting. The light literally escapes from the painting and falls onto the floor. Although it is perfectly clear to the viewer that this is a painting, the three dimensionality of it invites one to either open the door further to see what is going on in the room, or to turn out the light, close the door and go home. That may be how the eye – the retina – sees it, but the brain sees it as an illusion created by coloured shapes, one on the flat, vertical wall and the other on the floor. There is no light other than in the eye of the beholder and in his interpretation of it. As Balthus said “A painter can be a realist of the unreal, and a figurative of the invisible”.