This is a conversation with the artist Will Teather. Among other things, we discuss his career as a painter, his fascination with the uncanny, the idea of the painted space - a realm that blurs the line between the real and not real, the process of discovering new artistic techniques, and the practical realities of making a living from a fine art practice.
Links
Will’s website willteather.com
Extra stuff about the uncanny
Sigmund Freud Essay
The Uncanny at the Freud Museum
Read about becoming a blood donor blood.co.uk
Music by Simon Rolfe
Thanks to Immersive Studios for letting me record in the office
Thanks to Niky for letting me use his microphones.
Thanks to YOU for listening
This is a conversation with the artist Will Teather. Among other things, we discuss his career as a painter, his fascination with the uncanny, the idea of the painted space - a realm that blurs the line between the real and not real, the process of discovering new artistic techniques, and the practical realities of making a living from a fine art practice.
Links
Will’s website willteather.com
Extra stuff about the uncanny
Sigmund Freud Essay
The Uncanny at the Freud Museum
Read about becoming a blood donor blood.co.uk
Music by Simon Rolfe
Thanks to Immersive Studios for letting me record in the office
Thanks to Niky for letting me use his microphones.
Thanks to YOU for listening
Robin Fuller:
Hi there. My name's Robin Fuller, and this is Hatching Crows, a podcast about the arts, creativity, creative processes, and creative lives. In each episode, I talk to a different person from the arts or the world of creative industry and dig into their processes and what really what makes them tick. So I was trying to get these episodes out every couple of weeks and I missed a couple of so sorry about that. I'll make my excuses for that at the end Suffice to say, I'm back now and hopefully back to a more regular recording schedule. This episode is episode number four in which I talk to the fine art painter Will Teather the conversation covers quite a lot, really, including the uncanny, finding new artistic processes, the realities of making a career from a fine art practice.
The conversation is pretty rambly. It kind of meanders around and loops back on itself in quite satisfying ways. There are some some themes there that I think are really, really interesting. So yeah, I hope you enjoy.
Oh, on there’s one, swear. So if you don't like swears, then I'm sorry about that. If you do like swears, well…. Enjoy!
Robin Fuller:
I like to start by introducing a guest with them live in the room so that they know I’m being
nice about them. And also correct me if I say anything wrong.
So my guest today is a leading UK artist whose mastery of figurative painting draws influences and motifs from a diverse range of historical sources that combine with his own modern day sensibilities, curiosities and interests to create work that feels classically timeless but always vital.
Though I could try to describe the work and the man in great detail and probably get nowhere, I'll sum it up in this pull quote from the BBC, which is simply very clever and beautiful Mr. Will Teather
Will Teather:
Oh, thank you very much..
Robin Fuller:
Yes, so, “Very clever and beautiful”. Is that about the work or the man?
Will Teather:
Well, I like to leave it ambiguous you know, that's why this is on radio, or prerecorded. No one can tell.
Robin Fuller:
You should have that on a business card. Just hand it to people all mysterious like.
Will Teather:
Yeah, that's it. With a with a hood yeah.
Robin Fuller:
Great. So painting. That's alright! That's a good question isn’t it?.
Will Teather:
Colouring things in keep me busy.
Robin Fuller:
Well, there's so many places we could start really, in terms of getting into your work. I know is it's difficult to kind of describe things and sum things up. If you had to give a summary of what your work is about, how would you do that?
Will Teather:
I think kind of the priorities I have in making paintings is…. I've always been a figurative painter and it's got a very long history. And for one reason or another, I'm still drawn to figurative painting, but trying to find a way of making it still relevant and actually making a reasonable contribution to something that's been going on as a conversation since the cave painting. And it is a challenge.
So for me, it's about trying to bring with me everything that's already there and I value about it. So the kind of the craft, and the composition, and the knowledge that's already been kind of gained in that medium and do something different with it. And, when you innovate, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So kind of trying to bring those things along, as I say. I think the work for me needs to be emotional and needs to have a sense of spectacle. And there are things that are sort of more personal within it as well. For some reason, I've always drawn to the uncanny. So there's sort of an uncanny element to a lot of the work and there's sort of an interest in the way we see in a lot of it as well. Just like kind of the nuances of the way that we see compared to a camera, for instance.
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, okay.
Will Teather:
And just then sort of the sort of the distortions of perspective that happen when you're looking at things compared to a camera that has a very static perspective. So the journey of the eye… I mean, I could go on, but, those are some kind of particular preoccupations of mine. Yes.
Robin Fuller:
There's so many things that you touched on. A lot of things that I've kind of pulled out that I wanted to to bring up. So I'm glad. I feel like my understanding of your work is not too far from from your understanding of the truth of your work.
I like that phrase, “the journey of the eye” that's a beautiful phrase. I like that.
Will Teather:
Yeah. I think I might have borrowed that to some extent. I'm not sure exactly, but it's been a preoccupation of mine. Obviously, you end up drawing upon and finding anyone else who's explored it. David Hockney's got an interest in it and the way we see. I think he talks about other things. He talks about the journey of the eye, I think he talks about a searching line, as in the physical act of drawing often is about searching out something.
So there's a sort of process going on in your head. And those lines are sort of a search.
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, especially the way I draw. I draw a chicken scratch!
Will Teather:
I’d try to stop you doing that, although actually, I think to some extent it depends on how you chicken scratch. Yeah. Chicken scratch like you mean it like Frank Auerbach did!
But yeah. There's a journey around the space in a sense.
It's like a sort of considered thing the way the eye moves around the space. There's a lot going on in it. But there's also sort of a narrative to the kind of way that you journey around the space with your eye. You know, the fact that you explore certain things, you get locked on certain points, which kind of relates to composition as well. And the composition isn't just to do with geometry.
If it's a representation of things, or to do with things that have a certain energy to them within it. So you kind of get led to things by the shape and patterns of a painting.
But also sometimes it's just like, “Oh, fuck, look at that thing in the corner!” you know? So I mean, there are different things that sort of helped you in that journey as well, but also it is just a literal journey.
It's like, we have a lot of peripheral vision, a thing called a coefficient, which is the amount you can see at once. I think off the top of my head I believe it's about 60 degrees or something like that. There's a funny shape with two eyes rather than one, so it's nothing like a camera. It’s sort of like two round overlapping spheres, I guess.
But actually in terms of peripheral vision, one of the things that I've noticed from teaching life drawing over the years, which is something I do alongside my practice still, is the the fact that actually when you're really scrutinising something, you have less peripheral vision, but the bit you can really see is tiny.
You look at my eyes, imagine trying to draw my mouth….
Robin Fuller:
I can't!.
Will Teather:
You can't really see anything other than a tiny bit of what you're looking at.
So it's like a pinprick actually among your reality, that you're really honed in on. So actually in terms of your scrutiny, to see anything, that's a journey. Even just a person or any object… Your eye has to move across it. So there is no such thing as a static image really.
Paintings have that, they they record the journey and actually the experience of the journey as well.
Robin Fuller:
You also mentioned that distinction about the difference between the way that the eye sees and the way that a camera sees. And I've long had this preoccupation with how the way that the camera sees is being presented to us constantly. You know, TV, film, Instagram, we're surrounded by photography, by imagery that's captured by cameras.
And like you say, it does see in a different way to to the eye.
Will Teather:
It’s very voyeuristic. That’s what I always think about the camera, because it takes in everything at once. In reality, the only way you would ever see things like that without having to sort of scan up and down, which again, involves a change of perspective, so it is quite different to a static image. The only way you can see everything in the same sort of plane like that would be if you're a very long way away.
So immediately it presents a sort of voyeuristic view of the space to me.
Robin Fuller:
But I in some ways I feel like it almost does something to our perception, like our expectation of what of what we will see and how we will see things. We expect to see things as if they're a photograph.
Will Teather:
Yeah and it causes people problems sometimes in terms of… they can't really understand. Particularly when people are working for observation, they understand when things operate like they expect, but things actually change a lot depending on how close they are to you. Just in terms of the amount of forced perspective in looking at them. If that was photo for example, it doesn't matter how close the camera is, generally it will sort of take the image in the same way.
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. I think that links back in some ways to the expectations of what we expect to see, and the way that we consume images. The way that we absorb and consume images in a modern setting was something I wanted to ask you about because there's a really strong sense of history in your work. I have this nice quote we're from from Professor Neil Powell “his work frequently wrenches us back and forth through time and style.”
I think that's quite plain to see, like you were mentioning that kind of reverence of history, and of the craft and the work that's gone before.
Will Teather:
Absolutely. Sometimes it's more sort of overt than others.
I think it's become more overt in some cases that's like I’ve made works that are deliberately deconstructing or reimagining older paintings and taking elements of that. And it's been embedded in my work for a long time. Like, I mean, I think all of my work was always influenced by historical paintings. Particularly Baroque painting, that sort of things always had a big influence on me.
I think I grew up in quite a sort of religious household. I was always interested in the fact that, like, my mum would have all these sort of Peter Rabbit plates and things on display next to a guy being crucified. And with the guy being crucified because, it was a piece of religious art, it was perfectly fine amongst the Bunnikins items and all the rest of it.
I think there's something that interests me about the way that sort of extreme violence and darkness, it seems, is put it in that sort of frame in Western culture, suddenly it's entirely palatable to a lot of people.
But to see someone being crucified who isn't Jesus, I guess people are up in arms. This is sort of bizarre.
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, it's an interesting point.
Will Teather:
So far, I used to make work that was a lot darker than the work I make now, and my come back to anybody who questioned that was, well, “you know, have you you seen the crucifixion?” You know, it's been part of the history of art forever.
It's part of what makes images sort of engaging in the same was as film or any other art form.
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. It's like we've kind of compartmentalised this little pocket of…. I don't know, something where we just kind of put it in a different category.
Will Teather:
It's become acceptable. People are so used to them.. I mean, the same way about photos, it's like people are so used to them. People grew up with photos, so people's reality is partly shaped by the fact they see a lot of photos, as you say, so that changes people's understanding of everything isn't a photo as well.
It's the same with everything that you grow up with that is a constant. You take it for granted so much that you don't even think about it.
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking back to this historical, this kind of sense of history and historical context and influences. I think there's there's always something is like you said, you're trying to push things, you're trying to innovate, or there's something of you coming through, whatever your kind of current preoccupation is at that time. And I think in more recent work, there's been things that to me at least they look like digital glitches.
00:14:12:14 - 00:14:12:23
Will Teather:
Yeah.
00:14:13:01 - 00:14:29:05
Robin Fuller:
Like pixelation and pixelation and distortion. And things like that. And yeah, I just want to kind of what you what your thoughts are behind that, where that kind of comes from. And, and again, thinking about this relationship between what that says about how we consume images now on screens primarily around.
00:14:29:06 - 00:14:48:05
Will Teather:
Yeah, I think I was sort of interested in you've got to remember that grids and kind of that sort of pixelation is also a process within painting. I think people quite often grid up it. I mean, I don't you do that. But I did at one stage when I was like younger and things of greeting up an image to two larger.
00:14:48:07 - 00:15:17:18
Will Teather:
So you draw squares over it and these bigger squares and then redraw it. So I mean, Pixelation is sort of a part of digital art processes in an analog sense anyway. I mean, I think I was in particular, I was interested in bringing in people to afterwards use technology that day. And I is interested in ways of bringing modern technology into the work to create what I would call a sort of ontological ambiguity, as in you don't really know what you're looking at or how or the processes behind it at all.
00:15:17:18 - 00:15:41:06
Will Teather:
So there's like so with those paintings and they are sort of pixelated, but they're not actually because the patterns are much more complex than I. And the whole point of them is that the pixelation isn't actually normally when something's pixelated and the pattern is totally absent of the image, it's sort of it's not informed by the image underneath at all.
00:15:41:17 - 00:16:00:14
Will Teather:
Whereas the kind of patterns that I'm using emanate from the image. So would be like repeat sort of circles or a series of lines that emanate from certain points of the image that overlap and creates a lattice that you could kind of call and is sort of used as a sort of reference to paint the colors and tones into.
00:16:00:14 - 00:16:09:10
Will Teather:
So it becomes a bit like something pixelated but I mean, it's creating a sense again, I mean, it's about the sense of the uncanny perhaps. And so and so.
00:16:09:17 - 00:16:24:03
Robin Fuller:
I was just thinking that kind of like when you think about digital glitches and pixelation in some way, that kind of destructive of the image, whereas what you're doing is constructive, it's taking apart of the image and repeating it and and constructing something new I.
00:16:24:03 - 00:16:46:00
Will Teather:
Think. Yeah, I mean a lot of glitch out is a bit like that. And I'm quite interested in in digital art, particularly stuff that is that there's a I mean, that glitch is sort of stuck to a sort of fully fledged art form. I sort of. Oh yeah. But it's something I'm really interested in that just sort of I'm there's a lot of, there's a lot of really great artwork.
00:16:46:02 - 00:16:48:16
Will Teather:
Looks a bit like someone's smashed. And I'll tell you something, maybe.
00:16:48:22 - 00:16:49:07
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
00:16:49:07 - 00:16:59:14
Will Teather:
Yes. It sort of got out of the front of the white noise. I mean, my work sort of plays with the idea of the edges of reality. So we don't see really such visual, magical, realist.
00:16:59:14 - 00:17:00:03
Robin Fuller:
And obviously. Yeah.
00:17:00:18 - 00:17:24:18
Will Teather:
And the idea of an augmented reality is obvious sort of step within that. And I've also been I mean, I think painting lends itself to this idea of alternate realities anyway. Because it is obviously an alternate reality. And one of the things that's always interesting about painting is the way that you paint inanimate objects like dolls, they become more real soon as you paint it becomes kind of more lifelike, particularly the portrait of it.
00:17:25:00 - 00:17:43:13
Will Teather:
You do portray the doll, you paint it in the right way or look like a person. And if you put a person next to it, it will look as much like a doll where a person is a doll. So there is sort of this painted reality where things become more in the same sort of a painted space where things have the same level of existence as each other.
00:17:43:13 - 00:17:52:23
Will Teather:
Yeah, and I think that's sort of something that just interested me in general. It's just this idea that there is this sort of like a space where everything is equally real.
00:17:53:04 - 00:18:22:20
Robin Fuller:
And that reminds me of Alan Moore. You familiar with Alan Moore to his family? Comic book writer. You know, he's like ten lots of very famous comic books, Watchmen and a lot of things like that. But he's a really interesting dude and he has a lot of theories on magic and arts being an act of magic. And he talks a lot about this space where the idea of a chair is the same is no more or less real than an actual chair.
00:18:24:11 - 00:18:33:02
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, kind of. Well, you're talking about that idea of like the painted reality, the painted. That's the kind of liminal space where like things can have equal weight and.
00:18:33:03 - 00:19:04:10
Will Teather:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think it's to do with the way you place things within that space as well. And that's something that really interests me and is there are just, again, I mean, something that I thought of as might be my own preoccupation. Actually, since I was quite young, I've been painted a lot of animal objects and that's been a sort of motivation, but I wouldn't necessarily put it into words but I mean, an artist like Paul Reiko does, I'm sure she's an interesting artist because she paints and a lot of she stuffed pillows into clothes.
00:19:04:21 - 00:19:18:18
Will Teather:
I use them alongside large models so she'll have a motor and then something that's just the light of Pillow's done something, but he looks like a person because it's true. It looks like a sort of freakish character next. But the, the act of drawing brings those things together.
00:19:19:03 - 00:19:21:10
Robin Fuller:
You know? Yeah, that's really interesting.
00:19:21:23 - 00:19:25:16
Will Teather:
It's all about kind of bringing it together in the same space. Me, in a sense.
00:19:25:16 - 00:19:46:10
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. I think that that kind of, in a way, looks back to what you're saying about the journey of the eye. And also it links back to the uncanny as well. You know, I know the difference between you and a waxwork of you. Yeah. Like I can tell, like I can tell a difference of and there might be an uneasiness that kind of like the uncanny uneasiness about it, but if you paint both those things.
00:19:46:10 - 00:20:11:20
Will Teather:
You probably can't. Yeah, well, that's it. Yeah, it's an interesting one. Well, I've always been interested with portraits, you know, because of one of the things I've always done is by practices portrait painting. And it was to new faces in the fact that we can, I've, I've, I've recognized people I haven't seen for 25 years, having not seen them since they were children.
00:20:12:01 - 00:20:38:15
Will Teather:
And then an adult walked into the room 25 years later randomly, and I've known who was and then, but equally probably loads of people who live almost like them, I might have met in between. And then it wasn't that despite the fact that the 25 years have gone by, everything's changed, you still sort of recognize the person but again like, yeah, I mean it's just odd that sort of the subtleties of what made you do and don't sort of pick up on who or what something.
00:20:38:15 - 00:20:45:15
Robin Fuller:
It's, yeah, yeah, it is. I think it is. So much of it is. I'm conscious, I think, yeah. You know, in terms of, you know, our understanding of.
00:20:46:04 - 00:21:00:06
Will Teather:
Putting a bit of soul in something. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what makes the person recognizable, but obviously if it's painted, it's partly the person he's painting. He's giving it that sort of humanity rather than necessarily being there. And the object to.
00:21:01:01 - 00:21:17:10
Robin Fuller:
Be so kind of expanding on the idea of the uncanny and kind of like how that applies to your work. Is that something that you kind of consciously are looking for that kind of as to create a sense of the uncanny? Or do you think is it something that sort of arises out of the things you're interested in?
00:21:17:13 - 00:21:39:11
Will Teather:
I think it's a bit both. So I mean, I sort of have to get a fix or something and I'm quite sort of particular about and I've got an idea of what I think works and doesn't work. And I can imagine it's not exactly the same when I'm rifling through related the source material that I've collected together somebody else and probably pick out different things.
00:21:39:11 - 00:21:59:06
Will Teather:
But to me that like the things that I don't pick definitely don't work. And yeah, I mean to some extent it's a kind of conscious decision, but it's also very unconscious. This is what I like. So I mean, it's sort of a bit of both, but then because you know, you're like, yeah, know, you know where to look for it so that it becomes conscious as well.
00:21:59:10 - 00:22:28:11
Will Teather:
Yeah. But it's a bit of both. But I think, I mean I often feel like if there isn't something slightly uncomfortable with something, it's a bit cheesy, I guess so for me it's partly about making I just like a little bit of a little bit of edge on something. And I think often like, yeah, you know, so that concept of beauty and ugliness as well as a need, like some sort of sort of makes you appreciate the kind of good bits of something that there's something that isn't quite right.
00:22:28:20 - 00:22:39:24
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what I think about the uncanny, it is that feeling of something being a little off. Yeah, it is. Sometimes it's difficult to put your pain in. You put your.
00:22:39:24 - 00:22:50:19
Will Teather:
Finger and you can get it wrong. Like, I mean, I've done paintings that people just think I made the hands too small, right? Entirely intended that the perspective had this, so.
00:22:51:00 - 00:22:51:03
Robin Fuller:
I.
00:22:51:03 - 00:23:14:14
Will Teather:
Stick to it. Yeah. Actually, when I look at it, I realize that maybe it's that I couldn't control or you know, it was like an accident. Yeah. So we sort of I mean, it sort of is a fine line. I mean, obviously, again, this thing is kind of painting animal objects, and they're becoming more real. It's sort of to do with the uncanny but very interesting that that that spray painted space as a sort of uncanny element to it.
00:23:15:05 - 00:23:27:10
Will Teather:
And yeah, I think it's part of that. I mean, that's why I wouldn't call myself a surrealist, actually, because I think the uncanny is got a lot to do with reality and sort of like that edge of reality where you're not quite sure what you're looking at.
00:23:27:11 - 00:23:29:01
Robin Fuller:
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
00:23:29:13 - 00:23:48:01
Will Teather:
Yeah. That's slightly tougher. I mean, also relates to another thing to all kind of idea that interests me as a carnivalesque. Which is sort of related to the uncanny, doesn't just mean a literal sense of carnival, that sort of thing, of everything being slightly turned upside down so things like.
00:23:48:17 - 00:23:50:14
Robin Fuller:
It's almost like dream logic in some ways, I.
00:23:50:14 - 00:23:51:13
Will Teather:
Think. Yeah.
00:23:51:20 - 00:23:55:03
Robin Fuller:
Again, that kind of step, we are slightly slight our step.
00:23:55:05 - 00:24:02:22
Will Teather:
Yeah. And it's subtle things but it also kind of steps beyond the kind of into just generally sort of reversing sort of power structures and things like.
00:24:02:22 - 00:24:05:15
Robin Fuller:
That in this piece.
00:24:05:16 - 00:24:42:11
Will Teather:
Yeah. So like in the carnivalesque, I mean like a good example of sort of carnivalesque, right? Might be sort of like Angela Carter who about what she's doing simply empowering women but it's okay. Pretenses can be it can be used as some feminist sort of and then a capacity to sort of reverse power structures and things. But you know, you think about kind of carnival like obviously the origin of the term is carnival is a lot about sort of like poking the finger at the establishment and sort of like that sort of slight sort of sort of cheekiness but also kind of like, yeah, slightly irreverent look.
00:24:43:03 - 00:24:46:02
Will Teather:
Yes. You know, yeah. The powers that be.
00:24:47:01 - 00:25:03:18
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. I'm kind of glad you said that. Six. I've just got a random note here, which just where is it? It it says mischief. I think I looking at your work and, you know, knowing you as I do and you're like, I always think there's like an element of mischief in your work.
00:25:03:22 - 00:25:04:07
Will Teather:
Yeah.
00:25:04:08 - 00:25:08:15
Robin Fuller:
To say if that like, just kind of poking your tongue out of things and poking things and yeah.
00:25:08:16 - 00:25:28:22
Will Teather:
Sort of a gentle kind of nudge in things sometimes. And again, it's like this funny thing with all my vagina it often isn't meant to be funny, but you don't get a lot of I mean, there's more. So at the moment, I just like David treat me in there quite funny. Yeah. But particularly sort of realist paintings of baroque painting is meant to be very, very serious.
00:25:29:21 - 00:25:48:02
Will Teather:
Which is why I did a baroque painting of people fighting at the new role recently was because actually you know, it sort of is, it said. But then actually the people involved in that were very, you know, that sort of panic buying episode. I mean, that's about as dramatic as modern life gets. It's funny, I believe. So for them, there was a modern day drama taking.
00:25:48:02 - 00:26:05:22
Will Teather:
Yes. I see people getting very worked up about these things. And so, yeah, I mean, I haven't thought of that you've said in the work, but it is that's quite a fine line to tread like the line. As soon as you start playing with that sort of thing, you do really have to think about it is actually like am I just been horrible?
00:26:06:03 - 00:26:07:05
Will Teather:
Yeah. Or am I so.
00:26:07:15 - 00:26:10:11
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, you know, for us to be punching up I suppose.
00:26:11:04 - 00:26:11:15
Will Teather:
Was that.
00:26:11:16 - 00:26:14:06
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, punching up, you know, you know, like others you.
00:26:14:06 - 00:26:30:00
Will Teather:
Just both in that sense. Yeah. So it's sort of like, but you know, at the same time it's sort of a natural. As I say, other art forms explore all the time. So yeah, something that sort of interests me and if you're going to add narrative into the work, I think actually thinking about how you can provoke some thought in people is a good way of doing it.
00:26:30:13 - 00:26:50:04
Robin Fuller:
I'm just jumping back a little bit, but just kind of what you're saying about the uncanny and crazy in that sense of something being slightly off, that kind of but quite, quite hear from Jack Click and the the uncanny places us in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good pleasure from displeasure and creates an irreducible anxiety.
00:26:50:15 - 00:26:55:16
Robin Fuller:
Then again, that feeling of not knowing where you stand or something Um, but I think.
00:26:55:22 - 00:26:57:08
Will Teather:
I don't know that.
00:26:57:09 - 00:27:13:19
Robin Fuller:
Quite. Yeah, that's nice isn't there? But I think in order to do that you have to be very, very good. You have to have the ability to represent the real, you know, you have to have that skill. Yeah, I know where you have in terms.
00:27:13:19 - 00:27:15:05
Will Teather:
Of film based on music as well.
00:27:15:08 - 00:27:15:17
Robin Fuller:
So I think.
00:27:16:10 - 00:27:35:06
Will Teather:
Yeah, I think it's also, it's kind of when you hear it kind of spot, it also is we kind of touched upon what we were just discussing, but it's sort of a changeable thing. It's kind of the uncanny society's culture specific and era specific. I mean, there are certain kind of constants, whether they but there are also things that might be kind of changeable.
00:27:35:06 - 00:27:39:23
Will Teather:
So the uncanny itself is sort of probably dates sometimes, you know? Hmm.
00:27:40:10 - 00:27:46:18
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. It's an interesting point, actually. Sort of again, goes back to expectations of what people expect to see and what they will accept as well.
00:27:46:18 - 00:28:02:07
Will Teather:
There's a lot of stuff. It is arguably quite uncanny that's become part of daily life and does very quickly a lot of the time you know? Yeah. I mean, you work in exactly that sort of field, really, you know, that sort of thing that people are very accepting of sort of a shifting reality to some extent.
00:28:02:07 - 00:28:02:15
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
00:28:02:15 - 00:28:24:02
Will Teather:
But for me it to some extent in terms of my work is that I've sort of particularly as I've sort of I mean, we stuff the spheres that I've been doing. I think they were more uncanny in terms of a sense of the uncanny, these 360 degree panoramic paintings phase, which sort of depict the whole everything you can see that at certain points of have a constantly shifting viewpoint.
00:28:24:06 - 00:28:52:05
Will Teather:
Hmm. Yeah. They were meant to be very uncanny in a sense as sort of this odd sort of take on reality. They have sort of a slight apart sort of 3D. Yeah. You spin them, they sort of pop a bit as you look at them. So there's this oddly, slightly 3D sort of painting, but I'm not sure that if I'm honest, I don't think they're quite as uncanny as they were when I first did them because I've just seen more stuff like them when I first I and there really wasn't anything like there wasn't a lot of technology like that.
00:28:52:05 - 00:29:11:09
Will Teather:
I seem like they were very much sort of analog thing I was doing. I mean, they actually had an awful lot of exposure at the time in London, a lot of large events. And I don't know if I actually I mean, I think I wouldn't say that because I think that, you know, these things at the same time, people have been painting, you know, sort of frescoes and things like that for a long time.
00:29:11:09 - 00:29:24:21
Will Teather:
So I don't think necessarily anybody negatively me. But equally, I think somebody might have somewhere along the way and then somebody else came up with it somewhere else at the same time. But I thought it was probably part of sort of interest in that sort of thing at the time.
00:29:24:22 - 00:29:28:08
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Well, I think that whole like three 60 photography and three 60 video.
00:29:28:08 - 00:29:29:11
Will Teather:
Yeah, it's a very slow.
00:29:29:11 - 00:29:30:22
Robin Fuller:
Kind of coming around.
00:29:30:22 - 00:29:31:11
Will Teather:
But it was.
00:29:31:12 - 00:29:32:24
Robin Fuller:
A similar sort of time surface.
00:29:32:24 - 00:29:57:17
Will Teather:
But as you, I mean, it is very exactly it, it from a very break from the office angle. That's yeah, that wasn't, I mean the fractal stuff I'm doing and has very much embraced technology. I sort of thought about how I could absorb that into a sort of painting practice. The, the clothes came very much from sort of thinking about the working with our early technology in the way we see in the way, as I say, this journey of the eye.
00:29:58:08 - 00:30:14:24
Will Teather:
So it's odd but then actually kind of then all this technology pops up just to do with sort of three 60 panoramas. And these has been sort of quite a annoying sense because these two things are more uncanny when and when they're more unusual.
00:30:15:00 - 00:30:16:07
Robin Fuller:
Yes, actually, yeah.
00:30:16:07 - 00:30:16:24
Will Teather:
I kind of.
00:30:16:24 - 00:30:32:11
Robin Fuller:
Really well, well I think I do and if it's any consolation, I think in some ways it kind of goes full circle because I'm very familiar with three 60 panoramas, you know, I work with them quite a lot, you know, and I felt familiar with the way they work and the way that the social works and the perspective works.
00:30:32:17 - 00:30:52:12
Robin Fuller:
But then when I look at your Globe paintings that different because, you know, since like you say, that they've been done by human eye and it's if I were to try to recreate that photographically, actually, I couldn't. So to me, like it is there's something different happening there that is contrary to my understanding of the way three 60 panorama works.
00:30:52:18 - 00:30:54:03
Robin Fuller:
And so, you know it kind of.
00:30:54:03 - 00:30:54:16
Will Teather:
Yeah.
00:30:54:24 - 00:31:00:07
Robin Fuller:
If you know enough it kind of comes full circle. Oh well that's interesting. Kind of becomes becomes like I.
00:31:00:07 - 00:31:00:21
Will Teather:
Would take some.
00:31:00:21 - 00:31:02:12
Robin Fuller:
Shifted from reality. Yeah.
00:31:02:19 - 00:31:21:23
Will Teather:
Yeah. I mean it's it's a funny thing that because it's like yeah he sort of and that's the other thing about working with, I mean with the, the fractal stuff I've been doing and you know, you're working with the technology of the day. So I thought you are, I mean, I haven't seen him use it in quite the way I, I do see there's a lot it's a very, still a very sort of personal process.
00:31:21:23 - 00:31:51:17
Will Teather:
And actually I'm absolutely mixing bits of digital sort of play, overlaying patterns over things and sort of trying to work out the geometry underlying image with a lot of sort of just very, very old skills or painting processes. So it's a real mix. But yeah, it's whenever you using technology and you sort of worry that actually, yeah, you you're sort of becoming part of something, you will very quickly become so consumed by lots of other people doing something similar.
00:31:51:21 - 00:31:56:16
Will Teather:
Yeah. Because it's sort of part of that evolution. But then that's the nature of, oh yeah.
00:31:57:03 - 00:31:59:15
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah. To some extent. I think there's always.
00:31:59:16 - 00:32:00:23
Will Teather:
The great churning wheel.
00:32:01:06 - 00:32:08:23
Robin Fuller:
Yes. And but to say your sensibilities and your, your uniqueness, you know, your, your fingerprints will always be there. And that's, that's the one thing, that's.
00:32:09:06 - 00:32:18:01
Will Teather:
The thing you get a fix out of. Another thing is that the way that one person uses anything isn't quite the same as yet. The way to just taste isn't as well just.
00:32:27:02 - 00:33:00:15
Robin Fuller:
Because we talk a little bit about kind of your processes and techniques, actually, because I mean, obviously there's this sort of let's let's be grand, let's call it virtuosity of of painting, you know, a figurative painting, which is kind of plain to see in the work. But then again, you're taking those techniques and adding to them and adding new things to them, whether it's that warped perspective on the Globes or basically all kind of the uncanny touches, these fractal images like beyond the kind of like the mastery of the craft of painting.
00:33:01:00 - 00:33:04:10
Robin Fuller:
Where do those bits come from? How do you develop those extra bits.
00:33:05:09 - 00:33:24:03
Will Teather:
I think those sorts of things come to way. So sometimes it's like a process. So you just sort of play with process. It's a way as a form of innovation. So and we sort of reverse the process you've got or you sort of just change it up where you think, How could I avoid doing this thing? I only do what can I do?
00:33:24:03 - 00:33:44:03
Will Teather:
Instead? Right. So it's very much about sort of breaking down the activity that you go towards the painting. It's one of the things with experience you get that actually makes painting easier is you kind of know the steps to get. People say when there's a painting finished, it's that actually if you're painting or it's very easy to know the painting finished because you've you've done all the things you do to painting.
00:33:44:12 - 00:33:45:15
Will Teather:
Okay. But that is done.
00:33:45:20 - 00:33:47:21
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. You have like a standard process, like a.
00:33:47:23 - 00:34:09:20
Will Teather:
Exactly. But I certainly can have I have a set of processes. I mean, it's not standard because I've changed it up all the time, but that, that goes way for me. And I could have a set of processes. And for a body of work, I would normally have a set of processes. I certainly for making a collection of work and you know, you know my works of identifiably different sort of collections.
00:34:09:20 - 00:34:10:03
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
00:34:10:07 - 00:34:40:08
Will Teather:
And they're very obviously kind of a collection and each one of those collections probably does have a process that's very similar for each work and maybe change the bit, but it's basically the same process. And so if you were to create a new collection is partly to do is just sort of subverting the process of another one in some way, you know, and but then it depends because like the Globes is a good example of something where I have the idea years before I'd worked out how to make them right.
00:34:40:09 - 00:35:03:03
Will Teather:
And I went through like two different processes. I could make them in various ways. I can sit and just draw one, okay. And I could make it like both on the site and I could work from sort of collages but I could I've in one case, I commissioned an animator Mark. We can animate a flock of dust to me in different angles.
00:35:03:03 - 00:35:11:04
Will Teather:
So he sort of created a panorama for me that I had a shifting viewpoint to work from. And because obviously I couldn't just walk into a locked up.
00:35:12:09 - 00:35:14:00
Robin Fuller:
You stay there you say, Yeah, well.
00:35:14:00 - 00:35:36:00
Will Teather:
I thought about the other way. I thought about doing it was to actually commission that and a taxidermist to give me said the fact, right? Yeah. I probably would also work. But so in that that was a good example of something where I had a very clear idea of an artwork that I thought should exist, and I kept trying to think about it.
00:35:36:00 - 00:35:58:20
Will Teather:
I didn't know that I was talking about. And then eventually I sort of managed to get something together that was close to to that. But then there's been lots of examples of, of generally speaking, it probably happens the other way. So it's normally kind of process driven. But then once you've got a few processes together, sometimes that leads to a more intentional right.
00:35:59:02 - 00:36:22:13
Will Teather:
I thought with the fractal works, it sort of I'd start thinking about this idea of patterns that were informed by an image rather than absent of them. As I say, that's a premise that was just interested me is partly from seeing some really sort of obsessive, crazy geometric, oh, done by some outsider artists and outside of Eugene and or Sick, which is entirely abstract, and we've got a very geometric construction.
00:36:24:09 - 00:36:48:23
Will Teather:
But then once you reach a certain stage with sort of thinking about that sort of thing, and that actually started as an analog process. So I bought a giant compass and started doing these things entirely by just just drawing and then suddenly brought in like Photoshop Illustrator and sort of thought about how I could design more complex patterns with that but then at some point that process sort of you again, he sort of realized why you're interested in it.
00:36:48:23 - 00:37:11:02
Will Teather:
And again, it does create sort of uncanny, weird rippling movement within these images. And so that there is something kind of slightly unsettling about it. But also you think about what it references even as the process to start with, it's like, well, this sort of does definitely reference inside. In fact, you're letting these patterns over an image reminded me a lot of sacred geometry.
00:37:11:02 - 00:37:27:24
Will Teather:
This idea that there are these these geometric patterns within our legs. So I started deliberately overlaying the patterns over images that you might associate with this idea of sacred geometry, then sort of trying to deconstruct those particular pictures and really think about the composition element.
00:37:27:24 - 00:37:28:16
Robin Fuller:
So yeah.
00:37:28:24 - 00:37:41:23
Will Teather:
It's sort of like an evolution of kind of thought across something, and it's something that's become perhaps more intended, not just sort of a random process of rearranging. Yeah. What you're doing, you know?
00:37:42:01 - 00:37:47:18
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I sort of give it a shape and give it. Yeah, reshaping, give it meaning.
00:37:47:18 - 00:37:55:00
Will Teather:
We use that to respond to what's going on. And you start to see some meaning in it, and then you start to kind of think wrongly.
00:37:55:00 - 00:37:55:22
Robin Fuller:
That it.
00:37:55:22 - 00:38:06:18
Will Teather:
Takes you simple, which has more consistent things to do. My work kind of come back again. So those sorts of preoccupations are always there. So they sort of drive where these sort of experiments are taken.
00:38:07:07 - 00:38:21:08
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah. This is a nice place to be. I think creatively it's a sort of almost like a play with the kind of the confidence that it will get somewhere or get somewhere where it hasn't, where you can kind of find meaning in it and direct it.
00:38:21:17 - 00:38:42:04
Will Teather:
Yeah, I mean, it's funny because from a sort of just a purely career point of view and it has been a problem at points, like the fact that I've always just suddenly changed what I'm doing. I mean, look what Dave David's hyper know because he thought that meant to be so marketing you. They think that I who you are and they've said you this and then you suddenly like not today.
00:38:42:21 - 00:38:58:08
Will Teather:
So and I've done that. I've burnt the bridge along the way doing that. Right. But then, you know, it's one of those things it's like I think the funny thing is that I think the general public is two hoots about whether or not this sort of stuff is doing the same thing or not. I mean, they might be a bit annoyed with them if they liked what they were doing.
00:38:58:13 - 00:39:22:16
Will Teather:
Yeah. But equally, a lot of people just enjoy the change in thought. You know, you think about artists like well, like David Bowie because I thought they were endlessly changing but actually something that sort of oddly can be discouraged in the art one. I've often specifically sought out people who support sort of and my approach and I guess people with integrity.
00:39:22:16 - 00:39:29:10
Will Teather:
So I would say, but also just sort of interest you. You also enjoy that sort of journey and seeing seeing things change and evolve.
00:39:29:24 - 00:40:03:17
Robin Fuller:
I love it when this happens. I kind of find it like a conversation goes in a direction that I haven't really anticipated but ends up kind of circling back to something that I had picked out as a discussion point. And it's kind of like about the evolution of ideas in your work. I was kind of imagining, like if we kind of laid your work out on the timeline, you could see those different kind of a lack of a clear evolution of like, like you're saying like almost like different stages, different, different bodies work, I guess different collections as a kind of new ideas become prominent within the larger body of work.
00:40:04:21 - 00:40:11:18
Robin Fuller:
And I was going to ask you if if that's something that happens kind of gradually and organically, but it sounds like you're making quite clear decisions actually now are some to make a change?
00:40:12:02 - 00:40:46:24
Will Teather:
I think it's a bit of both, really. Um, but I do I mean, I just literally I just get bored. Okay. That's where I pretty I actually have quite I mean, come on. He spends an awful lot of time on I'm on the single painting sometimes I have a very low attention span which is so, I mean, actually is a look, it's just a natural thing for me to sort of but actually, I mean, the other thing I would say about that which sort of contradicts I like the idea of sort of and that's the stereotype of artists is they work through these bodies of work and most of our bodies work I've been going on
00:40:46:24 - 00:41:08:10
Will Teather:
since I began almost. Right? Yeah. I keep adding to them. I keep telling myself less, agree more, because instead of getting ridiculous, as mentioned but I'm still sort of periodically making sort of a hyper realist painting. And then in the same day I'll go and do something really sort of expressive and then I'll stop putting some sort of geometric abstract piece.
00:41:08:10 - 00:41:31:21
Will Teather:
So they they're all sort of riding in tandem. Actually, I okay. Partly to do just them. I mean, I have been a do you wait bodies of work. I mean, it depends on what's going on. I mean, at the moment I've got a real deadline. I'm working towards a show in London in May, so I have to get I have I mean, I literally have to get 30 pieces of a particular collection together and my collection of work I was working on anyway.
00:41:31:21 - 00:41:49:16
Will Teather:
So I'm very pleased, Derek, but I haven't got time to do something completely different. And actually there's something very healthy about that as well because it means you really get involved in the process of that particular so body of work and go to a deeper relationship with it before you go on to something else. But yeah, but I haven't got anything like that going on.
00:41:49:16 - 00:41:51:19
Will Teather:
I'm often just sort of doing everything all at once.
00:41:51:21 - 00:41:52:05
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
00:41:52:05 - 00:41:55:10
Will Teather:
So I can see this gassy sort of way to relax.
00:41:55:11 - 00:42:03:10
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Yes. Is there anything that you have kind of closed the door on, like a collection or a process or anything?
00:42:03:11 - 00:42:25:08
Will Teather:
Yeah. I think a lot of I made the odd piece when I was in my mid-twenties and I was sort of just really sort of trying to struggling to work out what I wanted to do. Yeah, I wanted to paint and I was didn't know how I was going to survive. I hadn't got like some sort of private income or anything.
00:42:25:08 - 00:42:42:11
Will Teather:
So I was just signing on for a long time, and I think I ended up making some slightly cynical work, just very overly commercial by any side which is not generally something I think of myself as doing, but there was some work I made in that period that was sort of I mean, I'm going to like it more again now.
00:42:42:11 - 00:42:54:11
Will Teather:
Actually, funnily enough, some of those pieces I actually think they were about paintings, but I sort of had a bit of an issue with them because I think I was I try to second guess something. It wasn't necessarily about me, it was about other people yeah.
00:42:55:02 - 00:42:56:15
Robin Fuller:
Like you're painting to an audience.
00:42:56:24 - 00:43:14:02
Will Teather:
Kind of some sort of idea of an audience. Yeah, I didn't I didn't like that. I think you should have a place in the gallery but then so I mean, I have closed the door on things. And the other thing I've tried to do and I've done a lot of the other thing I have done for years is the odd sort of jobbing portrait.
00:43:14:18 - 00:43:28:10
Will Teather:
And I still do you take on the commission generally. I sort of sound people out to find out if they find me to paint something or they can find an artist to make you in print.
00:43:28:19 - 00:43:29:03
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
00:43:29:23 - 00:43:41:19
Will Teather:
You know, like posh to basically though. So, I mean, I, I, I haven't knocked on the head and I did do them because again, it's like that's the reality of sort of surviving is.
00:43:41:20 - 00:43:42:02
Robin Fuller:
Yes.
00:43:42:10 - 00:43:44:00
Will Teather:
You do take them particularly given.
00:43:44:03 - 00:43:45:05
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:45:06 - 00:44:13:13
Will Teather:
And people are very lucky to have that privilege, you know, and I, I have that privilege now actually. I'm lucky in that I don't have to do that. People collecting my work enough to me, I can make my work. I can't worry about making things. I really do. Well, yeah, but I for a while, I mean, I thought the other thing like a portrait of a policeman's wife used in the sand dunes of, like, north Norfolk and it was a surprise for her.
00:44:13:13 - 00:44:25:14
Will Teather:
I don't know whether she liked the surprises on commission, but, yeah, I mean, I've done all sorts of things over the years. I was asked to do and commission to do, which I wouldn't do now.
00:44:26:02 - 00:44:49:11
Robin Fuller:
Okay. Yeah, well, it does again. Okay. Brings me on. I actually feel like a broken record saying this. It brings about a thing I wanted to ask you about, which is actually the practicalities of of making a living from, from painting. Yeah. And kind of how you, how you've met the advocates around the got no what in my brain, how you've navigated that kind of and how it's changed for you through the years saying I think most of your work is now going into it.
00:44:49:11 - 00:44:50:12
Robin Fuller:
Just going into collection.
00:44:50:18 - 00:45:16:04
Will Teather:
Yeah. Is banking or public funding to sort of develop something? Yeah. I mean, if it is a sort of new innovation, it might be funded by the Arts Council and they're sort of they're good at supporting innovation and sort of risk taking and then yeah, I'm lucky I do have quite a wide collectors bases these days. I've been doing it for a long time, which is the simplest way of putting it.
00:45:16:04 - 00:45:21:08
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Ah, you can find it by, by sticking to by.
00:45:21:08 - 00:45:41:24
Will Teather:
I mean, I started, I mean I saw it was pretty set on being a painter from the get go after leaving art school. Okay. And I was, I was dabble with music for a while and very briefly had a job in the music industry which is meant to run alongside being a musician. And I got fed up with that very quickly.
00:45:41:24 - 00:45:58:02
Will Teather:
And so it went four days a week and then became the guy who delivered sandwiches to that place cause I realized he only worked mornings I quit my job there and then kind of went back as the sandwich guy despite that was actually quite a nice it was quite it was a really good job for seemed to have he was like a digital media attention.
00:45:58:02 - 00:46:25:06
Will Teather:
So the Joe there was a job in Soho. So I went from being a sort of media attention in Soho for the sort of post-production of music plays to the guy who delivered sandwiches there. And then sort of I did I've always sort of tried to sort of make a go of things I had to now I sort of I was actually trying to kind of sell paintings and portray commissions through well with my sandwiches because they were central London.
00:46:25:06 - 00:46:25:11
Will Teather:
So I.
00:46:26:05 - 00:46:27:10
Robin Fuller:
You're really hustling, huh?
00:46:27:10 - 00:46:27:20
Will Teather:
Yeah, yeah.
00:46:28:06 - 00:46:28:16
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah.
00:46:28:17 - 00:46:55:05
Will Teather:
The Hustler. Yeah. That was of trying to work. I have to make things. Yeah, make it work. Really. So I and I got some sort of commission out of that and then jacked in the sandwich job and the commission fell through. But I just sort of ended up unemployed for a while, ended up being several years actually and painted and probably drank way too much and sort of was young.
00:46:55:19 - 00:46:59:02
Will Teather:
So you know, had had some sort of I had a district.
00:46:59:19 - 00:47:01:07
Robin Fuller:
Collected the wilderness years before.
00:47:01:07 - 00:47:16:10
Will Teather:
Those. Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, I was only creating though and actually I can't really see how else you do need a sort of dedicated period of time. I consumed an awful lot of art in that time and I read a lot of sort of literature around and so and I haven't had time to do that since.
00:47:16:10 - 00:47:24:11
Will Teather:
So that really was sort of right. And just like and things I just reading a lot of like Tennyson or just random sort of things that I found really inspiring. Yeah.
00:47:24:13 - 00:47:27:03
Robin Fuller:
Like a like an extended like at school but without the teacher.
00:47:27:03 - 00:47:47:12
Will Teather:
But like, yeah, I've never really thought South Korea responded well to well to bring to anything by anybody else, anyone I've always needed to be independent. And the best thing about being the art school was going to the National Gallery of the time, which was kind of neighbor I was studying, but in that period I sort of slowly started doing all the things that I still do now, but I wasn't paid for them.
00:47:47:24 - 00:48:18:18
Will Teather:
So I was teaching life jewelry, but in a school in exchange for a studio in the squat that was run by these Brazilian guys who've taken on this building and ended up getting permission to ta ta ta squatted basically. So it was no longer I guess kind of a squat. But they also had been sort of they would they were the preferred squatters, so they were kind of they were kind of allowed to live there because they'd renovated the building they tended not center had a recording studio, very nice recording studio.
00:48:18:18 - 00:48:53:15
Will Teather:
It had it all these two art studios and like amazing families club nights. This is sort of like a different era in London when there were no disused buildings. I ended up with the studio in there and everyone had to contribute something to this community. So I started teaching lecturing there and from that I ended up somehow getting, doing, teaching a bit of lecturing only once a month or something for the Students Union, the rest of the arts, London and then I think the house I was living in got sold, and because I was on housing benefit, I couldn't move anywhere else very easily.
00:48:53:16 - 00:49:12:06
Will Teather:
So I ended up kind of going back at the tail between my legs to Norfolk. And I mean, there was sort of a bit of wondering what I was going to do next, but I ended up getting a bit of work at the art school here. Yeah. And so my kind of once a month sort of teaching gig at Yale sounded pretty good on paper.
00:49:13:14 - 00:49:34:05
Will Teather:
And yeah, I just sort of realized actually the studios are affordable enough here to rent one rather than Scotland. So stay working part time and got myself a studio and sort of got on with it from here. But it took a long time for it to become a career, really. And there was a lot of bashing your head against a brick wall until you till the wall detaching from labor.
00:49:35:08 - 00:49:58:13
Will Teather:
So I mean, things like I think my first sort of validating break was probably getting a residency in Scotland, not the residence of position myself suddenly was given it was five grand in two months to to make some art and at the time that made me feel like a millionaire. Yeah. And it was quite a lot of money at the time, but in 2007.
00:49:58:13 - 00:50:02:12
Will Teather:
So I was kind of like over the moon and I.
00:50:03:00 - 00:50:08:00
Robin Fuller:
Guess psychologically as well, that must be really like validating.
00:50:08:00 - 00:50:15:18
Will Teather:
Yeah, I think I really had been in the wilderness before, but I really hadn't. I've never really sold any other than something to my parents friends or something.
00:50:15:21 - 00:50:16:04
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
00:50:16:16 - 00:50:24:07
Will Teather:
I'd never really thought of as heart Cody Self, an artist. And so someone else has you know, it's so it was very validating.
00:50:24:07 - 00:50:24:15
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
00:50:24:23 - 00:50:58:09
Will Teather:
I was the first time I had the confidence to start making the work that I wanted to, but it wasn't actually only the work they'd taken me on for. Um, but I just sort of suddenly threw away and just felt right. I could do what I want now. Yeah. And that was the work that actually got me my first proper so serious gallery, although I've been showing in galleries occasionally over the years, and I got picked up by a gallery in the Thames Valley from the Modern Artist Gallery that was a bit more sort of had some chops, although it's really something which is, I mean, again, it's, it was a very long sort of journey
00:50:59:02 - 00:51:07:07
Will Teather:
Um, yeah, I think the main thing actually, it's just been, I think very well he wants to do that sort of thing and you really have to just decide you don't want to do anything else. Hmm.
00:51:08:02 - 00:51:16:10
Robin Fuller:
I was going to say, like, what There must have been times during that, during that period that you were just tends to check it. Yeah, I've been so.
00:51:16:18 - 00:51:38:01
Will Teather:
Embarrassed talking about it. It's, I mean, it's actually very a comfortable thing to do to decide on for a long period of time, you know, that people do look at you like your piece of shit, you know, and you yeah. I mean, it's, it's not ideal, but I genuinely can't really think how else I would have kind of got to think he's.
00:51:38:01 - 00:51:54:04
Will Teather:
I mean, the funny thing is art school is there's too much, too much going on and too much questioning and reassessment. That's kind of the whole nature of art school to me. And you could possibly, for me, I could never have come out as a fully formed artist. You need some time after that to work out what it is you do.
00:51:54:04 - 00:52:23:05
Will Teather:
And yet I probably hadn't finished learning how to paint, but I felt, yeah, rather it is. Yes, it's a long journey. So I certainly had didn't know anything about the art world. And so, I mean, I think it just takes a long time to sort of figure, figure things out and but yeah, it was very difficult. I mean, the, the I think my twenties were really tough for me, but I saw a personal level when I had some sort of personal issues anyway, I think.
00:52:23:05 - 00:52:43:15
Will Teather:
But I think in particular the, in terms of bustle professional sort of activities, the whole, uh, just watching other people get like, which I could have done, I had a degree other people just get a job and suddenly like a normal salary and visit. Yeah. Quite a pleasant.
00:52:43:15 - 00:52:44:08
Robin Fuller:
House. Yeah.
00:52:45:02 - 00:52:59:18
Will Teather:
You know, go on holiday and all these sorts of things. I literally, I didn't go on holiday for about ten years. Yeah. You know. Yeah. But you know, and yeah, that sort of thing was, was the difficult you know, you sort of start to feel like a bit of a black sheep.
00:53:00:03 - 00:53:05:15
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Well, you know, it's similar few years for like freelancing when I first started freelancing as an animator.
00:53:05:18 - 00:53:06:02
Will Teather:
Yeah.
00:53:06:20 - 00:53:24:04
Robin Fuller:
As animation director, it was a very similar situation. And, you know, I had those moments where I was this, like, I felt like I just couldn't get it. I couldn't make, couldn't make it viable. Now and then slowly I got to that, I got to that point where there was enough, you know, I had contacts with agencies and I had enough of a reputation that people were coming to.
00:53:24:07 - 00:53:26:22
Will Teather:
It is the same plausible that's going to happen. And it's very.
00:53:27:02 - 00:53:29:02
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, you definitely have those moments then you and you just.
00:53:29:21 - 00:53:42:23
Will Teather:
Yeah, well, I remember a friend of mine, one of the things I said to me is it's important never to get bitter and actually that was one of the best piece of advice I got, was not to walk around with a chip on your shoulder. Yeah. About everybody else's opportunities. Yes.
00:53:43:06 - 00:53:45:18
Robin Fuller:
I never look sideways. No way to make.
00:53:45:21 - 00:54:03:20
Will Teather:
Yeah, exactly. Because if you do that, you pay everyone's back up anyway. Any opportunities that might have been arising closed down, I think. Well, I mean, I had a real battle with that. Start with just about getting I, I, so I think I, yeah, I mean, I couldn't really, I didn't even really wasn't even comfortable really with it selling work.
00:54:03:20 - 00:54:25:07
Will Teather:
People would approach me and I wouldn't really know how to deal with it. I was the whole thing, this act of confusing and like I think I had a very purist idea about stuff as well. So I, I mean I've sort of realized that the art can be quite innocent of the commerce to some extent. So I mean, I'm quite engaged with how to sell my work these days and have to be, you know, obviously sort of manage your career.
00:54:26:06 - 00:54:33:00
Will Teather:
But the art doesn't necessarily need to know about that too much. You know, that sort of has its own thing going on. I guess the two is sort of slightly independent.
00:54:33:20 - 00:54:36:06
Robin Fuller:
Is like two, two different sites, like different brains.
00:54:36:19 - 00:54:41:03
Will Teather:
Yeah. There's like a guy who's managing what the other guys do. Yeah. Sort of, you know, trying to pick up the pieces.
00:54:41:07 - 00:54:42:00
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah.
00:54:52:18 - 00:54:57:06
Will Teather:
You know, I've sort of I mean, I'm going to change things up again quite soon. I've got quite a radical change.
00:54:57:06 - 00:55:00:24
Robin Fuller:
Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Here's the scoop that's come.
00:55:00:24 - 00:55:30:06
Will Teather:
At well, I mean, it's actually, you said it doesn't sound radical, but is it just because I've been using a lot of these sort of digital sort of processes and I've become increasingly dependent on photography. And, you know, I know the kind of person that currently working with photos, source material. Um, I've decided to work entirely from, from life for a period.
00:55:30:23 - 00:55:31:04
Robin Fuller:
And.
00:55:31:06 - 00:55:54:24
Will Teather:
That but not make life drawings to make to hire models and build sets and create set pieces and work from those. And I know this is, this is something that has been backed by the Arts Council. So I've got the funding to do this because I mean, this thing is actually I've been I've got kids these days. So again, this is the great thing is I actually I can't do that without being unbelievably selfish unless somebody supports me doing it.
00:55:55:12 - 00:56:16:02
Will Teather:
And but it's one of those things that I mean, a lot of artists I have my dad'll do work in that way. And I just think it would be it's sort of like a bit of a it's a way of shaking everything up again and again. Going back to this sort of journey of the I'd be I'd like to bring more era into the work, I guess.
00:56:16:19 - 00:56:20:05
Will Teather:
But kind of and then but then, Heidi, polish those hammers.
00:56:20:05 - 00:56:20:16
Robin Fuller:
Yes.
00:56:20:16 - 00:56:22:19
Will Teather:
So that they really sort of meant to be there.
00:56:22:19 - 00:56:25:04
Robin Fuller:
And more of your interpretation, more if you say that.
00:56:25:13 - 00:56:49:03
Will Teather:
They draw things a little bit wrong and not worry about it. So the truth I would actually maybe do I mean, I've got my ideas to probably do the initial drawings of these kind of set pieces quite quickly and allow there to be quite a bit of human error in that. Because if I'm not careful, I sort of you get rid of the obvious causes that, you know, but actually kind of work, work quite quickly and then slow down and refine what you're doing past them.
00:56:49:03 - 00:56:50:15
Will Teather:
That's often issues of birth.
00:56:50:15 - 00:57:04:10
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Sounds exciting when you're really kind of just describing that. I was on a knife edge of what you were going to say. You're saying like, I've been doing so much in this digital work, I decided to work entirely and it's like entirely. I could see you going down again entirely digital, like exploring something. And I was like.
00:57:04:17 - 00:57:23:09
Will Teather:
Well, I have done that. I sort of. I mean, I went off and started making performance for a while, so I did have abandoned painting, but I, I don't think I would do that now. I think I sort of, I have this one thing that has come with age is I've sort of settled as a more, more settled as a painter and master.
00:57:23:16 - 00:57:45:04
Will Teather:
I mean, the thing that I have done alongside my painting perhaps in four years is music. Yes. But I'm quite happy to sort of be a bit sort of showcase musician in a way that I wouldn't let myself be an artist because of unreliable. Yeah. That's what makes it so of a hobby. I think I sort of my life mission.
00:57:45:04 - 00:58:03:23
Will Teather:
I think you also realize that life is quite short and actually particularly I think maybe with modern life and maybe just with the kind of where my career is out, it's an awful lot to juggle. You know, I haven't got teams of people helping me with everything. So it actually, you know, it's a lot to manage just being a painter, my, a lot to learn as well.
00:58:04:11 - 00:58:22:24
Will Teather:
And so I think kind of for me for one reason, I know that that's the journey of on. So I probably will always be around that sort of making thing to me about physical banking. I like objects as well. I love the painting as an object. Yeah. So I don't think I personally I couldn't just make something digital.
00:58:23:08 - 00:58:25:16
Will Teather:
I need that sort of physical substance.
00:58:25:20 - 00:58:27:23
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. The tactile artifacts.
00:58:28:04 - 00:58:40:01
Will Teather:
Yeah, exactly. And that's an element of chaos. Yeah. I really like the materials. I really like, you know, despite the fact is probably going to be the death of me. I really love all the fumes and know, you know.
00:58:50:18 - 00:58:52:23
Robin Fuller:
So I found the Will Tether manifesto.
00:58:53:01 - 00:58:55:17
Will Teather:
Oh, yeah. That was a while ago.
00:58:55:18 - 00:58:57:02
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that.
00:58:57:05 - 00:58:58:01
Will Teather:
Sounds I haven't.
00:58:58:07 - 00:59:15:12
Robin Fuller:
Looked at it recently. I think there's a there's a lot there, which I think is is pretty straightforward, and I think it's quite easy to see in your work. Things like art should offer us extraordinary spectacles. I should learn from the past. I should exist in the present. You know, these are all kind of things that we've spoken about and I think is very evident in your work.
00:59:15:19 - 00:59:21:14
Robin Fuller:
There's a couple of things I'd like you to expand on, if that's okay. Yeah. Um, art should be alchemy.
00:59:22:12 - 00:59:45:12
Will Teather:
Yeah, I think, I think that that's about kind of trusting your instincts, really. And about enjoying an element of chaos and and not ever getting too literal. I think really bad art is often too literal. You know, somebody got an idea and they've got a message. I don't think art is a great medium for a clear message.
00:59:45:18 - 00:59:46:01
Robin Fuller:
I can't.
00:59:46:19 - 01:00:12:17
Will Teather:
I think that that becomes illustration or a structured manual. I think it's about opening up a journey for someone else. And it's about sort of saying questions. And that, to me, there's a degree of alchemy, and I think that's what good I think as that sort of nebulous thing, something that's that we can't discuss fully, you know, despite the fact we've just spent an hour trying.
01:00:14:09 - 01:00:16:06
Will Teather:
So, yeah, that's the alchemy element.
01:00:16:10 - 01:00:16:20
Robin Fuller:
Okay.
01:00:17:00 - 01:00:38:09
Will Teather:
And also it's just thought. I mean, it applies definitely applies to portraiture. And somebody today ask me how you can kind of go like this. And I said, Oh, that's great. It involves a lot of alchemy because it does, you know, it's like you can get a portrait where everything's out of whack. Yeah. But it looks just like the person, you know, gets photographic, but looks like a waxwork.
01:00:38:09 - 01:00:54:01
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Has an element of truth as. Yeah, it's oh, oh. It's the guy's name. He teaches at the Royal School of Drawing and I did a show, of course, there, and he said this thing to me, which is really always stuck with me, which is true or what it is. Don't draw what it looks like. Yeah. And I was interested.
01:00:54:01 - 01:00:55:09
Will Teather:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that.
01:00:55:10 - 01:00:55:14
Robin Fuller:
Like.
01:00:55:22 - 01:01:11:06
Will Teather:
But yeah. And that's kind of what I want to bring. One of the reasons I'd like to just go back to sort of drawing from life entirely is just bringing with the alchemy in that sort of human experience like that. There's a lot of sort of, you know, I like the fact that when you work from life, you're also just recording the passing of time.
01:01:12:10 - 01:01:18:10
Will Teather:
Yeah. That's the element of, of any artwork is it's in time that that's been sort of sealed off.
01:01:19:02 - 01:01:22:18
Robin Fuller:
On the page. Yeah. Yeah. It's freezing that moment of view making that.
01:01:22:18 - 01:01:24:23
Will Teather:
Yeah. Which is a little bit of alchemy. Yeah.
01:01:25:07 - 01:01:31:04
Robin Fuller:
So I can, I can. And one more art should embrace its inherent artifice.
01:01:32:05 - 01:01:38:14
Will Teather:
Yeah. I think we've sort of covered that in a sense. Because that is the painted space. It's a very, you know.
01:01:38:19 - 01:01:39:12
Robin Fuller:
Okay, so.
01:01:39:15 - 01:02:05:24
Will Teather:
Yeah, it's kind of fake. I mean, I guess I'm talking from the perspective of a sort of realist painter in particular. But, you know, art is about pretend. It's all pretend in a sentence, but that doesn't that's not the superficial idea, but it's like you know, it's like I'm into history, like a kind of sculpture and a kind of an object, you know, that this is always intended to debate, but, you know, sort of what's classically a craft object?
01:02:06:03 - 01:02:30:03
Will Teather:
I think something that's got a function element is the object is generally, um, functional. But in terms of painting, it's like, you know, any sort of a realist painting is fake is no, it is unreal. And I think embracing is an inherent artifice for me is to do with recognizing the fact that you're dealing with sort of an illusion and sort of playing with that.
01:02:31:06 - 01:02:56:15
Will Teather:
So, you know, that can be played with the perspective of it in looking at the construction of that illusion, it could be dealing with sort of subject matter that sort of references a sense of illusion. So a lot of my work is very theatrical so which is again, has a strong sense of artifice to it. So kind of deliberately painting things at a stage, the evidence stage, a lot of my work is very evidently staged acknowledges the fact that the thing is fake anyway.
01:02:57:05 - 01:03:12:02
Will Teather:
And it's like trying to kind of, you know, make something looks like it's a piece of social realism when in fact it's just a painting it to me sort of a natural partnership of the painting to sort of embrace, to deal with that some sense of illusion because it is an illusion anyway.
01:03:12:03 - 01:03:12:12
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.
01:03:12:23 - 01:03:13:13
Will Teather:
So why wouldn't.
01:03:13:13 - 01:03:18:14
Robin Fuller:
You? Yeah. Yeah, that was, that was that, that the two things I picked out for secularly. That's correct.
01:03:18:15 - 01:03:25:18
Will Teather:
You just left without any sense of guilt. Talk about this. So if I were getting shot up.
01:03:36:17 - 01:04:00:14
Robin Fuller:
So that was wheel tether I really enjoyed catching up with. Well, we've had a few conversations over the years I've known him, so it was really great to really dig into, into his practice and really kind of dove into things in slightly greater depth. Had some really interesting ideas about the uncanny, this idea he mentioned of the painted space, the sort of realm that blurs the line between what's real and what isn't.
01:04:01:04 - 01:04:26:15
Robin Fuller:
I think that's fascinating. It kind of makes me think, what are the wider implications for other mediums, you know, other art forms and other realms in which these kind of similar ideas might apply especially in the work that I do. That involves a lot of virtual reality, that idea of kind of using the medium to kind of question its representation of the real I don't know, there's a rabbit hole that I could go down, I think I think is really interesting as well.
01:04:26:16 - 01:04:56:13
Robin Fuller:
He kind of mentioned this struggle of the early years of being an artist and this sense of shame that he felt about having to sign on during those early years, but how necessary that time was for his practice to develop, I think that's quite interesting and something that's quite common that people sometimes just need time to develop. And in that time it's very difficult for them to make money, especially, you know, if they don't have they don't have money to fall back on.
01:04:58:01 - 01:05:20:00
Robin Fuller:
So yeah, I don't know if there's a solution there, but I'm just going to go on the record and say that I'm happy for my taxes to support emerging artists because without them the world would be a much, much poorer place so now is the time where I would normally ask you to subscribe to the podcast or write the podcast on whatever subscription service you use, whatever, something like that.
01:05:20:17 - 01:05:44:22
Robin Fuller:
But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to ask you something else, and that is if you don't already give blood, think about becoming a blood donor slightly less free or two, maybe for a podcast about the arts. But I recently had an experience where I actually got quite sick. I really was quite sick and I didn't quite realize how classic I was until I ended up in A&E, ended up having a blood transfusion.
01:05:45:05 - 01:06:03:10
Robin Fuller:
They stuck full bags of blood in me. So without those people giving that blood you know, I don't know where I'd be right now, but I wouldn't be in a very good place. So I'm very grateful for those people who do who are able to give blood. And if you've never thought about it, maybe think about it. But also, yeah, that's why I haven't been uploading podcasts.
01:06:03:20 - 01:06:18:00
Robin Fuller:
But like I say, that puts a new blood in me and and seem to be pretty much good as new so yeah. Hopefully back to more regular quoting schedule. So I've enjoyed that. And yeah, I'm out.