Artist Q & A: Jamie Evrard
Jamie Evrard, Foxglove Meadow. Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches
1. There is a timeless appeal associated with gardens and floral imagery - what are the aspects that continue to excite and draw you back to this subject matter, particularly its wildish iteration?
Gardens are landscapes which have been deliberately altered by people in a search for beauty and self expression much the way paintings are, and, like paintings, each takes on something of the character of its creator. Colour and composition, both salient in painting, are key elements in gardens too. Plantings which are somewhat random and wanton appeal to me the most, maybe vegetables side by side with peonies, as I find them beautiful in their extravagance and more fruitful places to sit, draw, and exercise my imagination. Gardens planted sparsely and too predictably feel arid and empty to me.
2. The works in this new collection are varied balances between looseness and detail, gesture and realism. How do you navigate this tension within and between works?
Sometimes it is fun to fill a garden painting with detail to make it as rich as possible and a place the viewer can explore and get lost in. And sometimes I like to try to paint a garden in the most economical way I can. If I am painting a spot which I have already studied and used in my artwork I often enjoy trying to describe it with as few marks as possible to boil it down to its essence.
Jamie Evrard, Pruning Wisteria by Moonlight. Oil on canvas, 42 x 42 inches
3. There are some stunning images of wisteria and of poppies in the evening/late hours of the night. What attracts you to painting gardens at night?
Evening, dawn and night are times when gardens look, as Italians would say, "più suggestivo" than they do in the light of day. Low light can add an air of mystery to a place, make it somewhere that you’d easily know by day but almost not recognize in deep shade or semi-dark. Maybe there is more room for the imagination and artistic license at these liminal times.
Jamie Evrard, White Garden. Oil on canvas, 62 x 62 inches.
4. As have many artists throughout time, you sometimes explore revisiting favourite locations and images to paint them anew. What does this practice afford you and how does it affect your work?
I do love returning to favourite places and images in my work. When I have finished a painting, even if I am happy with it, I can see things that I would have done differently. Perhaps I would have simplified it and could do in the future having learned something about it from an earlier portrayal. Painting the same spot several times is rather like a musician playing a piece again and again and finding something new in it each time. And visual artists have often been intrigued by certain spots and returned to those spots again and again. Hockney’s spring woods drawings, Cezanne’s countless images of Monte Sainte-Victoire, Bonnard’s view out of one particular window onto the French Riviera. Returning to a subject can be a way of exploring it more deeply.
Jamie Evrard, Roman Garden. Oil on canvas, 24 x 72 inches
5. Roman Garden is perhaps the most romantic work of the collection - it feels like another place and even another time and has a transportive quality. Can you tell us more about this painting?
The idea for this painting came from an evocative fresco which is in Palazzo Massimo, one of the museums of Rome, and which I have visited many times to sit in front of and wander through its layers of pomegranate trees populated by the occasional bird. I chose to include acanthus plants in this garden as I think of them as quintessentially Italian, and the rest of the plants have been stolen from other favourite gardens or made up entirely.
Jamie Evrard, Water Drawing Black and White (left) and Water Drawing Green. Watercolour on paper, 25.5 x 26.5 inches each
6. These works are very much about immersiveness – what do you intend for viewers and collectors to glean from being immersed in these scenes?
I would be happy if the viewer could be drawn into the paintings as I was while I painted them and would want to explore them, getting lost in the foliage or just in their layers of colours... to feel as though they are sitting in the very midst of a tranquil oasis which might inspire contemplation and relaxation.
