Colin Davidson

In episode 1 internationally renowned artist Colin Davidson talks candidly about a challenge in his own back story that has shaped his deep passion to give voice to victims and survivors of the Troubles.  In this conversation Colin articulates rage about the British Government's recent legacy announcement - which they contend will facilitate reconciliation, but which he argues crosses a line.  Ulster University's new Chancellor also gives us a sneak peak into his studio and who he's recently been painting.  He takes us back in time to powerful encounters he had with people he painted during the creation of his powerful Silent Testimony exhibition.  Colin Davidson speaks thoughtfully from the heart - and so this is a listen full of insight about this current moment we're in, as well as the spirited hope he retains for us as a society.

/Show notes/

*Silent Testimony - an exhibition of portrait paintings by Colin Davidson, which captures the stories of 18 people who lost loved ones during the Troubles. The collection of powerful pieces of art is a powerful response to the conflict and the profound impact it continues to have on thousands of people.  (http://www.colindavidson.com/)

*The British Government’s legacy plan - released on July 14th 2021.  The command paper sets out a direction of travel for proposed legislation that would introduced a statute of limitations to end Troubles-related prosecutions, establish a new information body and set up an oral history initiative.  

*Operation Kenova - an investigation being headed up by former Chief Constable Jon Boutcher into a range of activities linked to an alleged state agent codenamed Stakeknife.

Transcript

Jude: You're listening to Peace by Piece. I’m Jude Hill, and this is a space for us all to get curious together about those who are pushing on against all the odds to build peace. What sparks them? What keeps them going? What have they personally lost along the way? But what have they salvaged and discovered? What's working and not working when it comes to reconciliation? And are we ready yet to put words to some of our most difficult stories? In each episode we get to hear from someone who is actively pursuing peace. We listen in as they share honestly about complex journeys, and we'll try to reflect, piece by piece, story by story, on how peace is really doing.

So, today's podcast is with the brilliant and humble Colin Davidson. He's an artist of international renown and has recently been appointed as Ulster University's new chancellor. You'll know his lifelike portraits can literally stop you in your tracks, and while he has painted many high-profile people from Brad Pitt to the Queen, with a whole gambit of musicians and politicians in between, his whole ethos is to capture the truth and humanity of those who sit for him. In recent years, Colin has become a real advocate for victims and survivors here. That's after he created the incredibly emotive exhibition Silent Testimony. If you haven't seen it, it's a powerful collection of portraits of people who lost loved ones during the Troubles. In this episode, Colin speaks from the heart about the recent foray over the British government stance on legacy. He believes a line has been crossed. He also shares candidly about a personal challenge that shapes him and his art. Our chat lasts for just over half an hour and then I'll wrap it at the end with a few reflections. So thank you so much for choosing to listen in to Peace by Piece, here is my conversation with Colin Davidson. Well, after a quick game of ‘guess who’ over a new portrait of his that was just off camera when I spoke to him.

I'm enjoying the tantalising portrait behind you, I can only see the eye of the individual behind you and I'm trying to work out whether that's some exciting new- or is it Liam Neeson?

Colin: It's new? No. How can you tell? It's Tim Wheeler from Ash.

Jude: Yes, that's unbelievable. I'm just staring at him now, it’s brilliant. 

So, Colin Davison, thank you so much for taking time out of studio life to chat to me today. How is life with you and your world?

Colin: I’m great, thanks. I'm in my studio in County Down and it's a warm day, a cloudless day, and I'm just enjoying the fabulous light and being able to paint in the natural light as well. So I'm very well, thank you.

Jude: And give us a sneak peek into your studio world there. Are there any global icons currently under wraps that you're working on?

Colin: Well, there currently probably are but because they're under wraps I can't divulge at this stage, but October this year hopefully I'll be able to launch a few of the paintings that I'm working on now. The one that is sitting behind me at the minute is a completed painting of the Ash musician, Tim Wheeler, and he came to see it a few weeks ago, and yeah, the response was good to it and it's still here waiting to be hung so that people can see it.

Jude: I very much feel that Tim Wheeler is now part of this interview because he's just looking over your shoulder there at me.

Colin: He very much is.

Jude: Colin it is a well-rehearsed list of well-known people that you have painted over the years: obviously everyone from Seamus Heaney to the Queen and Glen Hansard, who I'm particularly jealous of. In terms of the most standout portraits for you, like who were you most nervous about meeting and trying to connect with and paint?

Colin: Yeah, I mean, you've probably mentioned- it's probably the queen. You know, we're so used with seeing her face, we're so used with what her face looks like: on coins, on our banknotes, on stamps, and I suppose I was being privileged to spend a couple of hours in the presence of the Queen. But the nervousness, as in every case, tends to quickly go whenever you realise- and this isn't anything- this isn't in any way demeaning, or in any way taking away from the stature with which I hold the Queen and what she's done, and certainly what she's done to aid Anglo-Irish relations, but there gets a point where it's two human beings in the same room, and as an artist you need to get to that point. You know, I have a job of work to do when I'm there and I need to fairly quickly get into that mode.

Jude: Is there a sense of keeping a conversation flowing? Like, what did you talk about? Or do you go in with topics in mind? Or just let the moment do its thing?

Colin: It's very much letting the sitter conduct the few hours in whatever way he or she is comfortable with and I suppose sometimes with portraits there are long periods where we don't say a thing. Sometimes it's constant chat, sometimes there's questions, sometimes there's digging and probing. Sometimes the sitter will divulge information which I hadn't heard before, and those are the privileges which I get and which I- I suppose I choose not to talk about, because what that does is- I factor and filter all of that information through to the painting.

Jude: And is it really essential that you do connect with someone in order for the portrait to be as powerful as possible? 

Colin: I think it helps. It's not necessary, because there are people who I've painted who I wouldn't naturally have jelled with quite as much. There are people who didn't want to use the opportunity to talk particularly, most people do I have to say. But no- as I say, I'm an artist. It's really down to the practicalities of spending the few hours that I get trying to unearth as much information as I can, from an aesthetic point of view. So, connection’s good. Connection’s important, but it's not critically important to make a painting.

Jude: And out of all the encounters you've had, who did you most come away wanting to be friends with? 

Colin: Oh goodness, most of them have to say. I mean I- although I've got to say, I think being a portrait painter is certainly not necessarily the best way to make friends. I'm not sure that any sitter is ever 100% happy or contented looking at the face in their portrait if I'm doing my job right, you know, because there is an unearthing, there is a stripping away the facade, there is a looking under the surface, there is a- you know, I'm trying to dig and people- we all, every single human being, we all have a self-imposed facade to deal with the aspects of ourselves that we're uncomfortable with. I'm not sure it's the best way to make friends, but that being said, thankfully, I've been privileged to make many friends through it. And you mentioned Glen, I mean, Glen’s a close friend, and I'm in touch with Glen and he's a kindred spirit as far as I'm concerned.

Jude: Yeah, I guess, is it fair to say what you're doing is almost the opposite of the Instagram world where filters are applied, and you're almost stripping back and saying here is this person?

Colin: It is and I think that's a good way to look at it. Over the years, I've made a small number of self portraits, which tended to be commissioned things. I wouldn't ever naturally, particularly, choose to paint myself because if I'm doing that same unearthing, that same probing, that same stripping the layers away, it’s all the more uncomfortable when I'm doing it with my self. What I'm trying to do is expose something, I suppose- not expose something dark or expose something that isn't good, but to expose the good that often is uncovered by facade and to be as truthful and as honest as I can, without resorting to being unkind.

Jude: Now that we've got those maybe more obvious questions out of the way, Colin, can you tell us about a space or place that you feel right at home in? And can you capture for us what that feeling is like for you?

Colin: I mean, it's the cliche that home is really home. I travel, or did travel for this last 17 months or so, and I always- I always yearn to get back home. I've made here my home. And I suppose my studio is my place, my studio is the space whenever I can make my own mess without it impacting on anybody else. It’s- it's the space where I can experiment where I can edit my own work without having to let everybody in the world see the stuff that doesn't actually work. And I- I've been in this studio for 20 years now, and I’ve- I just grow closer with the space as time goes on.

Jude: We’ve talked about the reach of your work, but also in recent years you've obviously become so associated with Silent Testimony, which was that remarkable capture of 18 people who lost their people during the troubles. How did that really powerful body of work come about?

Colin: Well I suppose Jude, going back to 1998, on reading the Good Friday Agreement at the time I realised that there was nothing in it for people who suffered loss through those dark years. There was actually probably plenty in it, as I read it at the time, somewhat naively, for the people who carried the events out which led to the people's loss. But as time went on and I think we all hoped as a society that we would address what we did to each other in this place, and ultimately failed to, I came to a conclusion that this massive section of our community was, in a sense, paying for everybody else's peace. They had to forego answers, justice, that they so dearly required in their lives for a greater good, and a greater good that society could heal, if they weren't going to be able to heal. And I realised that this- that the victims and survivors who live in our midst and we pass on the street every day, although we don't know, are the people who we really need to hold up in this society. They are the heroes in the true sense of the word. And whenever I started to make my portrait paintings in 2010, I realised that I might have found a vehicle through which to express how I felt as an artist. By simply painting people who suffered loss, and who are daily living with that grief, that plight in their lives, hearing the rhetoric of us as a society needing to move on, and realising themselves that they can't move on in themselves as a result of where where we are. And I suppose just the aim was to draw attention to this forgotten, but huge section of our community, which crosses all boundaries, you know, crosses peace walls, crosses any badge that we happen to put on ourselves. And what I wanted to do was rip those badges away: rip Protestant away, Catholic away, UVF, IRA, RUC, SAS, whatever it happened to be, and look at raw human loss.

Jude: Colin can you take us back into some of those rooms that you sat in with the people that you painted and the power of the moment where you were listening and just really empathising with people's pain as you painted? What was that like?

Colin: In every case, it quickly came down to talking about that person's loss: how it came about, how it’s impacted their lives, what that person was like, you know. I'm thinking about Paul Reilly, whose daughter Joanne was killed in a no warning bomb blast. She was working in a shop beside an RUC station. Paul brought me up to Joanne's bedroom and the sitting took place there. And there was an old cassette player there that I would have had when I was Joanne's age, in the 80s. The cassettes were all still there. The remnants of her childhood, although she was a young, sort of an adult, were still there. Dolls, the wall clock, a little pink girls wall clock hanging on the wall stopped at two minutes to ten which was when the bomb went off. So I mean, that’s- that's a very graphic reminder. That's a very graphic illustration of Paul and Anne’s life now: stood still since Joanne was taken away from them, and so what I- and in some ways, every other sitting for Silent Testimony was poignant, in different ways. But what I hoped to do was to use the trauma which I heard about, and to be honest the trauma which I felt, to use it- to use my painting to deal with that, to therapeutically use it, in a sense that I could pour the trauma into the work, and that the paint itself would hold something of the encounter. 

Jude: And how did encounters like that change you as a person Colin?

Colin: It changes you as a human being, and I would challenge anybody to be sitting with Paul in his room, or in Joanne's room, or sitting talking to Virtue Dixon while she made me a cup of tea talking about her daughter, Ruth, or other people who 40 years after the event were inconsolable with tears at their loss. I challenge anybody not to be changed by that. The fact is, it is the reality of where we live now. If you're not acknowledging the pain, the suffering ongoing, the grief, you have blinkers on. You're choosing not to see it. And one of the things that I think- one of the ways that it changed me Jude was very much in my view as to what the future might hold here and what the possible answers or way forward in order for us to have a future in this place might be. And I realised through meeting these remarkable human beings, that the future is wrapped up in how we deal with the people who suffered loss. How do we deal, how do we work with, how do we acknowledge, how do we celebrate the work of and the sacrifice of these people who suffered loss? And until we get to the point where we realise what was really done to each other, what we really did to each other in this place, and come to the point of nearly societal brokenness about what happened in this place, we can't hope to scratch the surface of moving on. It ends up being a series of tick boxes. It ends up being sticking plaster on top of sticking plaster, and we need we need to deal with the wound. We need to allow the wound to form a scar which will always be there, but until we allow the wound to start to heal and to start to form a scar, we are just piling - we’re piling trauma onto trauma.

Jude: Colin where does that belief and insight then sit with the seismic British Government announcement of intent in recent days over wanting to halt Troubles prosecutions? We've obviously had so many words spoken and so much emotion and pain shared around that. What's your sense of what impact that will have if it plays out?

Colin: Well, my sense, Jude, is that this is, this is the first time since the Good Friday Agreement that a line has been crossed. And the British government, I have to say, and I'll spell it out, have crossed that line. They have said to people like Paul, who we've talked about, they've said to Paul, that if we've got any compassion, or empathy for anybody who lived through the dark days here, our compassion and empathy is directed towards the people who killed. Our compassion and empathy is directed towards those who snuffed life out. Who took loved ones away, who blew sons and daughters apart. The British government are showing compassion and empathy to them, and are showing contempt and are showing the inhumanity towards the people who need the most compassion and empathy in this place. And that's the simplest way and the starkest way that I can put this. The government's suggestion and proposal that this will aid reconciliation in this place is absurd. I mean, it is mind bogglingly absurd. And as I said, is obscene, twisted, and inhumane, and having spent years working with people who suffered loss, getting to know and love them, making many friends, being a patron of Wave, I can say that after that announcement, I know that many of them were in tears. Many of them were literally broken again. And many of them, if not all of them, were re-traumatised, right back to those feelings that they felt at the very instant they heard that their loved one’s life had been taken. And I'm disgusted as a human being to my core that any other human being, let alone the pinnacle of power, should treat these vulnerable individuals, who we should be holding up as heroes, in this way.

Jude: The British government have said in response, Colin, that the current system is not working for anyone, and as you mentioned, they have said that reconciliation and information recovery is going to be the focus of the next phase. Is there any sense at all in what you're hearing, if prosecutions are taken out of the equation, that there is the possibility, no matter what people may say about the motivations of the British government, is there any opportunity to explore legacy, therefore, in a new way, in a creative way based on anything you're seeing in this plan?

Colin: There are ways, Jude, to explore the future, through dealing with the past in many creative ways. I would love to think that there are avenues for doing this which are opening up and that artists can have a role and that any individual in society can have a role in that, but to think that telling our victims and survivors that their loved ones count for nothing, and that their killers count for everything, is not the way to go about this. I'm hearing, Jude, I'm hearing amongst people who know, and people whose ear is much more to the ground at the cold face of this than mine is, that this cannot possibly lead to the uncovering of more truth and that, in fact, the possibility of justice and prosecutions no matter how slim, and let's be honest, it was always at this stage a sliver of hope. But you look at what Jon Boutcher’s doing in particular with Operation Kenova: there is the threat of prosecution in the background there, there's no question of doubt. But look at the answers. We probably can't look look at them all, because the families in many cases have been given answers in a very private and confidential way, but families have got answers as a result of what Jon Boutcher and his team has been doing. That to me is the model way forward to get answers. I mean, the horrible fact about the dark days in this place was that often the killers of an individual were people who lived in the same street. People who lived in the next street. People who knew somebody who worked for their dad. So the communities are small, and victims and survivors are daily- this is fact- passing people on the street, the very people who killed their loved one. And often those people give a snide wink or a sarcastic smirk in their direction. Through taking away the possibility of prosecution, is that person going to suddenly change heart and go, ‘actually, you know what, I'm deciding I'm going to want to expose exactly what I did here?’ Not a chance. You know, I think we all know- I mean, I don't need to spell it out- what the main motivation for the government’s stance is and I think, in my view, somebody who has unjustly and unlawfully taken a life, no matter from what section of the community they come, needs to face justice for their crime.

Jude: Colin you’re talking there about victims in tears, re-traumatised. What at this stage would restore some honour for victims? What's your message to our political leaders in terms of maybe what you've gleaned from Silent Testimony and how people felt that listening ear and felt that sense of honour, what can we glean from that that would restore dignity to victims at this incredibly difficult time for them?

Colin: I’m not sure. I think the problem with messages to politicians at this time, even though they are all seeming to say the same thing, even though they are all against what the government proposals are, they're singing from very different hymn sheets. There is a huge political dimension to how various parties deal with the victims in their own communities. I think, from my point of view and what I was trying to do with Silent Testimony, my message would be victims are human beings before they're Protestants. Victims are human beings before they're Catholics. A Catholic mother who is grieving her son is the same as a Protestant mother who's grieving her son. And until we politically get to that stage, until we politically acknowledge that great wrong was done on all sides, we can't hope that this will have any sort of an answer, we can't hope that the past will be resolved, or will get to a point where we can live with it. How can we possibly live with a past when we're still living in a blame game? It's about looking at the raw human loss and saying, this is what we did to each other across the board in this place. It was dark. It was bad. It was an evil time. But we need to get through it, and we can't possibly do it when we're still in our same entrenched positions, albeit without the gun.

Jude: Colin you continue to be such a strong voice for victims and survivors. Speaking from a personal point of view, is there anything that you have mined from your own backstory that gives you the energy to keep speaking out for people, I guess a story of challenge or pain that you've recycled in order to be the voice that you now are?

Colin: Well I suppose I have the ongoing challenge in my own life of the stammer that I carry with me whenever I speak. It used to be much worse whenever I was a kid, and I suppose I found solace in my art whenever I was a kid, whenever I wasn't comfortable to talk or whenever I was bullied when I talked or whenever I was laughed at when I talked. My art was a way for me to silently express myself and silently communicate, and silently do something whereby I could gain confidence in my own right. I carry that with me now, and, you know, it's part of the impetus to get me into the studio each day, not as overt as that, but way deep down, you know, that is what- that is the reason why I did it at the start and that’s- you know, I keep on doing it. And I suppose looking at injustices in society, looking at people who are hurting, and who have had great injustices and great things imposed on their lives, I am attracted to those areas of plight to want to comment on using my own way of communication, if that makes sense.

Jude: And given that whole journey, then, does it feel surreal for you that you've actually become a voice for other people and that you have a very public voice?

Colin: Completely. I mean, the thing about it is is that the painting always comes first, the painting needs to be there first. But certainly- look, even 10/15 years ago, if someone had said to me, ‘You're going to be standing in the UN talking about your Silent Testimony work which is hiding behind you’, you know, I just would not have believed that. I wouldn't have had the wherewithal to publicly speak at all, and now I'm finding myself, you know- and again, I can look back in retrospect and personally connect the dots. I can personally look at it and go isn't it amazing that that particular body of work which was geared towards me dealing with something in myself as well has allowed me the confidence to stand up and talk about the subjects and talk about the- and give voice, give further voice to the voiceless. And I think that's the other parallel in the whole thing as well, that, you know, I literally kind of felt that I was voiceless as a kid and into my teens and certainly into my 20s as well. And what I've, what I suppose is I've ended up giving voice to people who have been voiceless and haven't been heard as well. So, you know, in some ways, I uniquely have known what that's about, albeit in a slightly different way.

Jude: Colin, you began by chatting about the studio as your safe space and the place where you can make mistakes and be yourself, and in terms of the vision you have for home for other people, and the victims and survivors that you speak up for, it's not been a safe time, it's not felt safe for them. But what do you hope, I guess at this really quite fraught time, what's the society that you're you're hoping for for them, even now?

Colin: At times like now, it can be hard to find the hope. It can be hard to unearth hope whenever hope has been deliberately removed. It can be hard to invent hope and magic hope up out of the air, whenever any sliver of hope has been removed. But I still have a great sense of hope in this place. We are good people in this place. We are warm. We are outgoing. At the heart of it, I believe that we are more ‘glass half full’, and what we need to do is reflect that on how we run this place, that actually, the best is yet to come. Good things are ahead, but we need to acknowledge the past in the right way, and in the most humane way, and in the most compassionate and empathetic way that we can, to use that warmth and then to be able to use the energy of that to build a new society here on that.

Jude: Colin Davidson, thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and the zeal you carry for victims and survivors, and just for sharing all of your insights and gold with us today. Thank you so much. 

Colin: It's good to chat to you, Jude.

Jude: Just so much depth and insight there. So, thank you again to Colin for taking the time to share so thoughtfully with us. 

So, at the end of each podcast, I'm going to take a bit of space just to try and reflect on what we've heard, and to help me do that I'm going to put words together each time in the form of a poem. So, here's what I've come up with for Colin:

When words don't get worded,
And stories don't get storied,
Silences descend and can feel so deep.
But your voice was always worth listening to. 
As you cleared your throat and felt a lack, 
The paintbrush became like voice chords, 
The canvas your self expression. 
You spoke and you sang and you storied there on that blank page, 
Until the blankness was overcome with beauty, 
While inside your voice was being honed. 
Your tone is stronger now and many hang on many of your words. 
You lobby and harry those in power on behalf of those who still feel their own silence. 
You speak as you paint: 
Richly and with humanity. 
You long to spark a listening sort of silence now, 
Where toxic debates die, 
And those who lost the most get listened to with grace -
- As we all hush. 

This podcast has been made possible through funding by the Social Change Initiative, and our gorgeous soundtrack was composed and performed by the brilliant local artist Ferna. Last word to you just to say thanks for listening to Peace by Piece. Hopefully it sparks some new conversations. I’ll chat to you soon.