In Conversation: Rachel Lancaster and Paul Smith
Tuesday 30th June 8pm-9pm
About Rachel Lancaster:
Rachel Lancaster's practice is focused on painting and its intersections with the languages of cinema, music and photography. Photographic ‘stills’ from found moving imagery, alongside an archive of her own photographs are selected from, edited and then translated into oil paintings. Lancaster's paintings represent detailed fragments of a greater narrative. She is drawn to seemingly insignificant passing shots, extreme close ups of inanimate objects, common place domestic interiors; the split second moments that are “in-between” the action. Divorced physically from their position within a narrative structure, these paintings become abstract, ambiguous and open ended as to the unknown events which have preceded or may follow.
The process of remaking these images in paint is used to draw out the uncanny and the potential psychological charge within source imagery. The paintings are made by applying successive thin glazes of translucent oil paint, many layers of colour and texture accrue over time. This technique encourages a dichotomy of definition and abstraction. The surface of the paint creates an array of optical effects; the anticipated details within the surface of the paint often give way to loose and minimal rendering on closer inspection by the viewer. Cropping, colour and mark making are manipulated in order to play upon the latent 'otherness' and dreamlike qualities often found in cinema and how this can be reflected in painting.
Rachel Lancaster (b.1979) lives and works in Newcastle Upon Tyne. She has exhibited widely and taken part in numerous projects, performances and artist residencies both nationally and internationally. In 2015 she was invited to be ‘Artist In Residence’ at Alewive Brook Road in New York, former residence and studio of Elaine De Kooning. In 2018 Lancaster was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize. Rachel Lancaster is a selected member of the Workplace Foundation Community of Artists.
About Paul Smith:
Paul Smith is a musician best known as the singer for the British alternative rock group Maxïmo Park. He briefly worked as an art teacher and studied art history at Newcastle University after completing a Foundation course at Cleveland College of Art & Design. Maxïmo Park released their debut album on Warp Records in 2005, and Smith continues to perform and record with the band, who are currently recording their seventh album.
Away from the band, he has collaborated with poet Lavinia Greenlaw, as well as composing a 26-minute a cappella piece of music for Great North Run Culture. He released his debut solo album, 'Margins' in 2010, alongside 'Thinking In Pictures', a book of Polaroid photographs. In 2014 Smith teamed up with Field Music's Peter Brewis to record an album, 'Frozen By Sight', derived from his travel writing, featuring string arrangements by Brewis. Last year he composed new music for Unfolding Theatre's 'Hold On, Let Go' production.
His latest solo album 'Diagrams' (2018) features Workplace Foundation artist Rachel Lancaster on vocals and guitar!
Transcript:
Miles Thurlow Hang on a second. The split seconds. Moments that are in between the action.
Miles Thurlow ...these to become abstract, ambiguous and open ended.
Miles Thurlow As to the unknown events which are preceded or may follow? Rachel Lancaster lives and what works in Newcastle upon time. She has exhibited widely and taken part in numerous projects, performances and artist residences, both nationally and internationally. In 2015, she was invited to be artist in residence at Alewive Brook Road in New York, former residents and studio of Elaine de Kooning. In 2018, Lancaster was shortlisted for the contemporary British painting prize. Rachel Lancaster is a selected member of the Workplace Foundation Community of Artists. Paul Smith is a musician best known as the singer for the British alternative rock group. Maximo Park. He briefly worked as an art teacher and studied art history at Newcastle University after compl eting a foundation course at Cleveland College of Art and Design. Maximo Park released a debut album, on Warp Records, in 2005. Smith continues to perform and record with a band who are currently recording their seventh album. His latest studio album, Diagrams 2018, features workplace artist Rachel Lancaster on vocals and guitar. So, as usual, we'll try and make time at the end of the session for questions. If you could try and make use of the Q&A function down the bottom and also the chat. I'll try and field both and gather the questions and ask the most pertinent questions to Paul and Rachel. So enough of me here is.
Miles Thurlow Here Is Rachel. Welcome, Rachel, where are you?
Rachel Lancaster Oh there we go.
Miles Thurlow Paul and I will. Once Paul's arrives. Hello, Paul.
Rachel Lancaster We're all here ,
Miles Thurlow As u sual. I'm gonna disapp ear now and work the i mages. Please request anything. Order me around and see you later.
Rachel Lancaster Thanks, Miles.
Paul Smith Thanks, Miles.
Paul Smith Yeah, we will try not to talk too much and leave some time for questions at the end, cause we had a little chat earlier on and it ended up being about two hours, but it was mostly about second waves of corona virus. Not that interest stuff.
Rachel Lancaster Its all positive stuff, Yeah.
Paul Smith Yeah. You know, hopefully we'll we'll move past that kind of thing and lock down beards and such topical stuff. We'll get onto your painting. To begin with I wanted to touch on the subject matter of some of your paintings. I'm gonna hopefully and we're seeing Miles is putting some on the screen for us to give us some context. We'll talk about your technique a little bit later on.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah,.
Paul Smith Your source material is, as we've heard from Miles, seemingly insignificant passing shots either from films or your own photographic archive. And you've recently started painting from Dreams, which we will come to later. I was wondering what interests you about these overlooked moments.
Rachel Lancaster Good question, Paul. I'm kind of more interested in things that people might overlook or might not notice. That's the main thing that I think I'm drawn to and kind of slowing people down like the way like today, everything's pretty fast moving and things are pretty quick. So it's kind of a way to get people to slow down and look at things that maybe they would like blow past them. So literally taken, a still out of a stream of moving images. Is it a way to sort of draw people's attention to like this hidden layer in everyday experience that they might not notice? And that subject matter, what the actual things that are paint. It's pretty varied, although there's certain things that crop up like that are repeated, because we were talking about that earlier. There's certain subjects that even though I've been using this process since like 1998 when I started my degree. So but then there's certain objects like like fabrics or like hair and like textures and stuff. Quite old school subject matters that you would find it like old like Memento Mori paintings and things like that. But yeah, there's certain things that crop up and then there's other things that kind of work in series with. So yeah, it's more about taking an image and then put it in a new context, really. So it's it's not really like the thing itself isn't quite as important as, like your reaction to It I think is the main thing.
Paul Smith Yeah.
Paul Smith Yes, I think that answers your question.
Paul Smith It does, it does. I was wondering how important the subject is compared to the end product. And You're creating a new entity with the painting. Would you be happy if a viewer was stimulated by the surface of the painting alone? Or would you feel like they were missing an extra layer that would enhance their appreciation?
Rachel Lancaster I think. Because a lot of people there's only really me that knows where exactly that image is from. So then it does become about the paint and what's happening in the paint. And then like the illusion that there's detail, there when there isn't really any detail there as well. I think the Paint comes first actually I have shown photographs without the paintings before as well. But I always circle back to painting again, and that's to do with, like, the surface of the paint. And then, yeah, that thing where and you think there's gonna be little detail and you get up close and there's just like nothing there. I've always been really into that as like an effect. Yeah. That's that's quite important to me I think.
Paul Smith Yeah. I mean cause a lot of people get hung up on what is in a subjective, what the subjective of a painting is, what is in the painting rather than the whole thing. And then other people are kind of the other way around. And often when I'm in a gallery, I'll be looking at the blurb that goes with it and thinking, well, yeah, that's obviously giving me the knowledge that I need to fully appreciate whatever artwork.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah.
Paul Smith Do you, do you do you shy away from that kind of extra context that you can often find in a gallery.
Rachel Lancaster It can add something. I think your reaction is something is primarily you just have a gut reaction to something and then if you like it, you'll read the text on the wall. If you don't like it, you probably wont read the text on the walls. There's got to be something in that piece of work itself that makest you want to find out more? Yeah, I'd be quite happy if people didn't really know where the images are from. They just reacted to them as paintings, because like I said, there's only me that knows where this like where the images from like and especially now the subject matter is quite like the source material that I'm getting the images from is quite wide, like it could be an absolutely terrible film on YouTube from like the 80s or it could be something off TV or it could be something that I've seen in the street that photographed. So the subject matter is a bit wider now and the source material is wider than it used to be. And so. Yeah, so that's interesting to play on because a lot of the paintings that are from photographs I've taken still have like that cinematic feel to them, even though they're not actually from a film.
Paul Smith We were talking earlier on as well about when we met each other. I think was it... Sixth form for some sort of life drawing class and you'd...
Rachel Lancaster Year it was a night class.
Paul Smith So extra work.
Paul Smith Being the interested people in the actual art course at sixth form colleges. And then we went onto meet each other properly in Hartlepool in 97/98 for our foundation course. And I was thinking, you know, I think about that time a lot in terms of what I'm interested in now and some of the things that in my music, I write lyrics about some of the things that I'm interested in when when it comes to art, work for the music or how to present our band, which is always difficult because, you know, it is a group of people, some kind of collaborative thing. But yeah. In terms of my own personal influences, yeah. It's some of those things are foundational, that foundation. course even if it was just to tell me what I didn't like and what I really didn't want to do or be spend my time doing. And I wondered whether you feel like the work that you've made in that foundational few years, not just art college, because it was a broad based kind of thing. But when we when we went to university, I was at Newcastle University studying art history and drawing on my combined honours course. And I would spend a lot of time in your studio in Northumbria University, probably talking more and distracting you more than anything else. I feel like there's a connexion between what you do now, even just in the kind of the way that you use paint or with your kind of in inherent style. So I think I mean, you know, I'm not a visual artist, but when I do drawings and stuff, when I take my sketchbook away with me, it's still kind of rooted in some of the things that I learnt and the techniques that I enjoyed and wanted to develop when I was at art college and university. And as I sort of think sometimes I think I should I should have I should be beyond this. Obviously,.
Rachel Lancaster I think that too actually, i cant remember which artist it is but they say. Like it is, the same subject matter keeps knocking on the door answer it. So I think that's what keeps happening with me in terms of I like specifically on the foundation, though, was when, i learnt how to use like a SLR camera and how to develope my photographs so that breaking down of process and like learning a new skill and stuff. That that definitely has fed through all of the work like photography or not using photography. But it's still reflected in photography, even if you're not using it. So that definitely like directly comes from doing stuff at Foundation course. And then I think quite a lot of stuff, really, I think. It's obviously more of doing it. It's like 20 odd years ago, we did the foundation course scarily. It's obviously more developed now, though, but I think at the heart of it is still kind of the same. But just a more maybe more developed version. Yeah, still, it's kind of there's quite a lot of themes that like crop up. I think your right actually the way that I use paint is, So there's definitely a thread running through it. And I've always used drawing. I did quite a lot of drawing on the foundation course and drawings always been like a really important part of my process. That I think a lot of people see the finished paintings. But they might not realise that. I actually do like tonnes of drawings behind the scenes. So that's quite an important part of my process, too.
Paul Smith And was there a stage that, in hindsight you feel was a breakthrough for your work, or do you feel like it's more of a long continuum and it's just a gradual evolution? Or do you feel like, oh, this was the point where I was really started developing something that felt my own and that was going to continue with an explorer over the coming years?
Rachel Lancaster Yeah, there's like many, many little breakthroughs along the way. And then probably the biggest one for me was when I went to Newcastle Uni to do my MA in 2009 and for the first year of that was painting, because I've always just been like a peainters painter. And then just like that was the only thing that was interested in painting and drawing. And then when I got to the MA i realised, like, I was kind of stuck in a bit of a rut. So yeah. When I got to the MA i painted for a year, then realised I was really bored of like the ideas that I was having. So basically for the last year I didn't paint and that. From 2010 till about 2015, I didn't do any paintings. And there's like video and film stuff. So that was quite a breakthrough. Kind of it wasn't deliberate. I didn't intend to spend that long not painting. But it just ended up being that long, I tried other things. I've been in like bands and stuff too. So there's quite a lot of music that was happening. And it's it's easier to take photographs and stuff when you're on tour than it is to take like some canvasses and do some oil painting. So it was just like a bit of a natural break. But I think it's ended up being quite a beneficial thing in the end for having that break. I feel like the work that I making now is richer for having for, like, sort of breaking apart the process and challenging myself a bit, really, because I'd got to the point where i was painting and then I could kind of I knew how to make like a painting look good almost without really having to put too much effort in. In a weird way, not to sound arrogant, but there's just like a way that you can paint. And so it wasn't really challenging any more. So I think i sort of, throughout my practise, I always try and throw in like curveballs to try and throw myself off to, like, try something new. So subconsciously or very deliberately. So, yeah, with the MA, like, I'd literally never made like edited video before. I made a video and then for my MA show i actually only showed photographs and videos. So for me that was quite a big, big move. Yeah. Big, big change for me.
Paul Smith Do you feel like that was anything to do with the weight of history that comes with painting? And you know this. I mean, you know, with lots of preconceptions about paintings, a lot of discussion as to whether paintings even relevant.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah.
Paul Smith You often hear of the death of painting and that kind of thing. Do you feel like it's a bit of a burden all this kind of history of painting and maybe it's, you know, a bit defunct? Or do you or do you draw off it and thrive off it and are inspired by it? I mean, I take it you're definitely inspired by painting, otherwise you wouldn't be.
Rachel Lancaster There was a phase, though, where like like you say the sort of history of it. And kind of because I've trained as a painter, there was all of the expectations and then it was i suppose it came down to the idea of skill and like showing that your skilled. Whereas when I'm making a, when i started making videos, I didn't have a clue how to use the editing suite, how we use a camera really. So it's threw me off a bit. And so there was a bit less pressure. I was a bit less precious about it because there wasn't as much expectation so that as long as I had something at the end of it, I'd learnt something. And then that was the main thing. So that really helped me to focus on the idea of processing. So taking things apart. And then I almost like what comes at the end of that is like a bonus, but it's not necessarily like the end point. Yeah. So this. Yeah, definitely the history of painting is in there but I think I've sort of got over it a bit now and I kind of think it's because I'm not I feel like I'm painting by choice rather than because it's the only thing that I felt like I could do. Whereas now. Because I know how to make, audio and video pieces, it's like the paintings a choice. It's like that's the appropriate medium for the idea that I've got rather than just only being able to paint.
Paul Smith Really interesting. Are there any contemporary painters that particularly inspire you? When I when I'm looking in, I don't know. In interviews with bands, I'm always seeing what bands they're into. And so same as with painters, you know, you're looking for little reference points that you maybe wouldn't have, wouldn't have guessed. Are there any other any particular contemporary painters that get you going?
Rachel Lancaster There's a lot of older painters. There's there's a few new ones that I really love. Catherine Murphy's paintings. She's she's contemporary, but she's like I think she's actually about 70 od Now. But her paintings are really, really amazing and really tight, like cropped images that look super photo-real, but they look like they are from photographs. But she actually sets up she has like sets that she sets up in her studio and paints from life. But they look like that they are from photographs that's really interested. If you haven't looked at her paintings they are really good. And she plays with, like, the idea of the picture plane and like flatness and stuff. So they'll be something that is if it's glued up against the picture plane and then the idea of like illusionary like space and stuff her's are really good. And then just like the classics like Guston and... Those kind of those guys.
Paul Smith Yeah. Well, we've we've seen a lot of your charcoal drawings floating past on the screen, so we'll discuss that over the past few years. You've done a lot of charcoal drawings and they're usually to prepare for a painting. But I actually like them just as much as your paintings. And I wondered whether you saw a hierarchy between drawing and painting because drawing is often seen as the prep and as a secondary thing, which, you know, I kind of dispute. It's a bit like watercolours being seen as a hobbyist medium. Rather than oils are the serious painters.
Rachel Lancaster They're really tricky to use, watercoolers there not easy?
Paul Smith I had to teach them at one point and I had to learn how to use them in order to teach them.
Paul Smith Yet I don't think I mastered it. Let's put it that way.
Paul Smith How do you feel about your drawings? Do you feel like they're just prep or what?
Rachel Lancaster I think I used to I used to sort of skip over them just to get to the point of, like of yeah. So I guess the reason why I started doing them was to start figuring out how to take the image apart and then put it back together again. And then figuring out what the important parts are and then which bits you need to focus on and then like, say, on that image, the image that was just up, of the mirror that drawing, like if you saw the photograph and the drawing next to each other. It's kind of nowhere near. So it's kind of like figuring out the shorthand for people to think that there's more information there than there is. So, yeah, it's like to try and play around with, like, mark making in the scale. Like, how much to zoom in how to crop things. So they started off as just a way to sort of figure those things out for the paint and like you say. But as I've gone on, I actually, they used to be a hierarchy, whereas now I kind of see them as being equal, really. And sometimes I'll make a drawing and it won't end up being a painting because I really like the drawing and I havent really shown the drawings as much in a gallery context. But they're definitely becoming more like, of yeah, a piece of work in their own right rather than just like secondary to painting or anything. But yeah, it's usually a way of trying to figure out the Problem-Solving, like how we. And then sometimes with the drawing because it's more direct. You've just got this piece of paper and this dusty stuff like charcoal is quite a simple, like simplified, like broken down process. Whereas with oil paint you've got to get all the stuff out. And so, like, a lot more messy. So there's a bit more like work behind it and a bit more expectation. where as with the drawing, it's like, oh, it's terrible. It doesn't matter. It doesn't take up much space and you can just put it in a folder. Like that image thats up now that one i made into a painting. And that one was the idea that the the white of the paper is the white of the the white of the paper and the drawing is the white of the paper coming through. So when I made the painting and I didn't use any white paint so that the white of the canvas is the white on the picture, if that makes sense. The idea of like a glow, yeah. And like the glow coming through, which you can get with charcoal as well because you get some really lovely. I've always loved it's always quite a lot of black in my paintings, which I always got told not to do at university. There's always tonnes of like velvet black that always been something that I've really enjoyed. And you can get some really good dense blacks with charcoal. And that one's terned into a painting as well. Actually, but it's not quite finished. But, yeah, just the idea of how to crop things and how much information to put in, like i might have missed some bits out of that in the background just to, like, hone in on the parcel itself and stuff.
Paul Smith Do you feel like there's a similarity between the durational layering effect in when you're doing a charcoal drawing and adding more and taking things away? I mean, we used to, you know, used to rub a lot out to kind of, you know, get the contrasts. Right. Which, you know, you're obviously beyond that now but with the paintings. I believe that you've. You've layered them over a long course of time and the paint are the drawings much quicker or they just, you know, is a layering process with both of them to you or do you just, you know, have a quick approach to the drawing and then that sort of frees you up in order to have a clarity when you're when you're doing the layering of of lots of different layers of paint. Because the the drawings themselves end up because of the nature of charcoal, they have a lot of dark contracted contrasts.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah.
Paul Smith Whereas the paint ihave this kind of transparency to them, especially when you see them up close, you know this. Yeah. Iridescent in some way. And yet, you know, are they both made up of lots of layers and time to you or is or is drawing just really quick in comparison.
Rachel Lancaster I think it used to be that drawing was a lot quicker. But now with this the paint and the way that I draw and the way that i paint is more closely related, it's like you say that these are built up with lots of layers. Gradually, I use willow charcoal, that gives the dusty light like tones and then like really dark, like black charcoal. to get the sort of depth of the blacks. And that's like the newer paintings I've been making for the last maybe 18 months. I've been working on like a few paintings at once using like super thin layers of oil paint and like Alkyd medium. So you get that there's a really loose but only when you get up close. They look quite photographic from a distance. But then you get to me like, oh, there's like nothing there. So there's a similar play with that in the drawings. So I think that the drawings to do take less time, actually, but the way that I make them is quite similar. And obviously with the drawing you just got tone, whereas with oil painting you've got tone and colour. So it's more complicated. But The newer ones have all got, like ive started the idea of not using white paint because they were getting a bit too contrasty, I kind of like that in the charcoal trends, but the paintings were going a bit too contrasty. And then sometimes if you put too much white paint on it can, like, really kill an image and it suddenly looks really flattened dead. So I had this like look challenge within myself. I'll try and paint one without any white paint on and like this one that's just up there. Which is actually quite hard because you end up just wiping loads of the paint away and it's obviously takes a lot longer to make them. So that they are really really layered. But then, like I said, when you get close up to one of these they are really broken down and there's nothing really there and there's quite a lot of bright colours as well that you might not expect when you get close up to the surface. You yeah the idea of slowing down the process, even though I'm really familiar with the process of painting and throwing like the extra element in just to, like, keep me learning something different, or making me have to like. I always like the idea of an active painting surface instead of it just being something where you paint it like put it through the Rachel Lancaster filter. That's that one done. It's more like the process of how the image comes together when you're looking at it. It's kind of a bit more like the surface is a bit more active rather than just like a passive copying.
Paul Smith I wanted to talk a bit more about the process as well. When you're when you're actually painting because you've spoken about your paintings being of details in a broader narrative and how your technique leads to I'm going to quote you back at yourself, a dichotomy of definition, and abstraction. And I've noticed a recurring motif, which you alluded to earlier on, of strands and tendrils and fibres and the parcel drawings that we saw earlier on. Also, I have lots of layers and string binding them. Do you get lost in those details sometimes? Or are you quite clear minded and preplanned with the method, with your methods?
Rachel Lancaster There's always like in each image that I paint because I take quite a lot of stills. I take hundreds of stills and then it's a relatively small percentage of them might make the grade at the end that i paint. And it's usually the ones that have a particular quality or like something really particular about them. I'd be curious, like, how would i paint that! Like the strings on the parcel was like, oh, how would i paint that without using the white paint so usually it starts with like problem solving kind of angle. And then I've just always been drawn to painting hair. Things that, things that when I look at it, I think, gosh, how am I going to paint that! And then, like, i start painting it and then some how the paintings finished. And I kind of didn't I don't really know, whats happened in the middle sometimes. So it's like the idea, it's kind of the image that you copy and being like a puzzle and mapping it out. So with a lot of the paintings and so like the newer ones. Like this one, thats up now, that's a new one. And I usually map out all of the shapes with like a really, light tone of like painters grey, or a really light tone. And then just gradually it just if you turn up the contrast up on it. Just gradually gets darker and darker and. But there usually is a particular quality. This one I really liked the shine on the ribbon and then the the idea of like the detail in the middle. But you can't really see what it is, because I don't know what it is like. The photograph I had wasn't very good quality, so I'm just kind of approximate in what I think might be there. So it's yeah, it's usually like there'd be one particular thing that I really wanted to get across.
Rachel Lancaster And then the other bits kind of fade away or aren't as important.
Paul Smith Is that kind of leading into the uncanny side of what you do, because you've mentioned how important it is to reveal the uncanny aspects in this sort of psychological charge of your source imagery and some of some of your recent paintings from dreams. Is it easier to find the uncanny in a dream because they're often fundamentally odd, or is it harder to grasp such an intangible element? You know, when you're trying to remember what a dream is and make sense of it, you can't really do that. So it is it is easier to find the sense of uncanny in a dream. Or is it just harder to get it?
Rachel Lancaster Yeah. Good question, actually. I think it's I've always been interested in, like the the weirdness like the weird and the everyday in that level does like a frequency of weird in the everyday life. And like what David Lynch's interest in looking at. Like so suburban things. But then there's this odd like off kilter somehow. I think you get that, you get that in films and in dreams. So to me, the maybe more closely they're not as separate to me because I have quite vivid dreams anyway. So. So the one like this one is from a dream that's up now. And to have a little book, it's relatively recent actually, and I haven't really shown them that much outside of showing them in the studio. I have a little book where I write down if I have a particularly vivid dream, like a memory or a daydream. And I try and write down as much detail as I can to try to describe it. And then again, out of that, there's like books full of these like notes, but then only certain ones are vivid enough that, like, come back to me sometimes when I read the description back. I can really picture it in my mind's eye. So it's an idea of painting something like trying to find the image in your mind's eye rather than copying it across like from a photograph to the painting. Is the image isn't anywhere apart from in your head, which is quite tricky. But I think that the dream ones still have a film still. Sort of quality to them, because of painting from stills for so long, it's just become part of the muscle memory, how to create certain textures or shine. So this one's from a dream. Actually, the first one I did from a dream, and i did a lot that didn't make the grade that they just got painted over, but some of them worked, so it was a bit less. I've definitely got less precious about the idea of like painting having to be good. It's like, what did you learn while you were doing it? It's become more important. And if if I don't like the painting I just won't show anyone, but I still might have learnt something in the process of making it. But yeah for this one was like the idea of someone's shoulder like epaulette on a shoulder like this fancy old costume or something that you'd see in a museum. And then I could just really see it and I was trying to get it across i dont know if it comes across. But the more sort of open ended as well so I can describe what I was trying to, what my intention was, but it's totally fine if you see something completely different at the same time.
Paul Smith Yeah it's much I mean, this particular image is much more abstracted than.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Smith Most of the other ones you can you know, you can have a go at finding out or at least for you figuring out what it is or you know, especially when you are aware that a lot of them are from in between moments. And that kind of explains the sort of absence within them. Whereas this is much more mysterious because, yeah, it's a little bit more abstracted than then. Do you do you feel this is something that you will pursue a little bit more, kind of let something that's even less representational?
Rachel Lancaster Yeah, I think so. I've still got. The ongoing things like jotting down my dreams and stuff. So they're kind of going on on the sidelines. Yeah, I think as well doing the dream one, like making the ones that aren't from photographs. It's really hard when your brain is trained to just look at a photograph as your painting so it's really good at braking habits as well, which I think as a painter. You do get set in like a certain way of working and I really enjoy like putting the cat amongst the pigeons. To me, it was totally wild, not drawing from a photograph. What was i doing it's going to be terrible. But then like this one. So these ones are more. I mean, at the risk of sounding quite cheesy, they're more to do with getting a convey a the capture of feeling rather than an image. So it's like this was like I had a dream about being getting all the details about what being in a wardrobe full of black feathers like them being like in your face. And I was just thinking that I how would i paint that, how on earth would i paint that. I mean, whether the painting was successful or not. But it definitely was a really good exercise in just the idea of, getting across the feeling of a subject matter rather than just what it looks like. And the idea of capture, like what is it to capture something? And it's not just like what it looks like. It's it's more than that. And I think even though I'm painting from stills like from found imagery still, that feeling is in the ones that are from photographs, too. So I think that become that feel like my paintings have become more personal as especially in the last three or four years. I would say it's definitely helped me to loosen up and not worry so much the idea of something being finished or that kind of thing it's more to do with it like process is definitely important.
Paul Smith You mentioned David Lynch and cinema being a big part of what's influenced you visually. And obviously we're talking about the uncanny as well in your in your paintings. So maybe now's a good time to put up a picture of a cassette tape. Well, i shouldn't pre-empt what people think about it, because a lot of people these days wouldn't know exactly what it is.
Rachel Lancaster It's a bit old school these days.
Paul Smith Yeah.
Paul Smith The this the painting that we're about to see. Yeah. It will lead us onto it because we used to be in a band together and, you know, maybe one day we will be again when we're allowed to see each other again. But yeah, there's this big painting that you did. Of a cassette. An old cassette tape. And to me it was kind of unnerving a little bit. There's something sinister about about it because of the scale of it and the kind of teeth of the of the real on the on the cassette and the movement that's in it, as well as a kind of blur. And, you know, we grew up playing in music, playing together. Music was just a big and still is a bit like it's obviously a massive part of my life. It's my bread and butter.
Paul Smith Yeah. We obviously have. We started off in in practise rooms in Durham Street, in Hartlepool, taping our music. And we've just used to make lots of feedback. And every now and then a melody would come in there and we were just interested in making noise together. We'd just met each other and were interested in similar music and very shy and just wanted to get on with this. You know, this this once you work out what it is, if you know what it is, then it's you know, it has a sort of dual meaning of it. Once it's out there on the wall, it's kind of transformed into this monumental thing. But do you know do you feel like there's something deep rooted in in in what your practise is in terms of music? Do you feel like it? Kind of it's a big part of of what you do. Or is this just a coincidence, coincidental aspect to this to this particular painting?
Rachel Lancaster Well, I've always. Yeah, ive always been in bands and stuff for years, and it's been a big part of the stuff that i will make for a long time. But this is actually one that I made. You might not be able to get the scale actually on, from the image, but five feet by four feet. So it's at the spool off a cassette tape so obviously like massively magnified. So I was interested in how to bring together, like, sound into paintings and how you can reference the other senses, but using painting. And it does have a bit of a monolithic sort of feel to it like it is sort of creepy, even though it's the cassette tape. How is that? Why is it looking so creepy? I think it always has been. And I think because I'm not I'm trained as a painter and I make plaintings, but I'm not trained as a musician. But I still feel I could make music. So there's it's again, it's like the idea of letting yourself just experiment and be a bit free. And I think with music, I always I never really felt the pressure as much as with visual art in some ways. And I'm trying to bridge the two things together a bit more now like through making music. And then I've also made like visuals to go with music and I've also made my own music. There's a bit more of a melting pot of different things happening. But the idea that. as well, it's to do with how we experience music, music's more. It happens in a space in a time. If you're at a gig or whatever and you've experienced it, you experience something as a group, too. Whereas painting or looking at arts, usually quite solitary. So I was interested in how it could bring, i'm interest in how to bring all of those things together in a way.
Paul Smith And with a lot of the moving image work that you've done, there's sound and an image coming together. You've talked about moving paintings in the past. Can you. Can you talk about that for us here now? And maybe we can put on one of the little clips of one of your films.
Rachel Lancaster That would be good, actually, rather than me boldly describing it. Look at the clip.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah, I mean, again, that started. That started on when I was studying on my MA. It's actually. It should have some sound on it.
Paul Smith Yeah, that might be might be difficult.
Rachel Lancaster Maybe tricky is pretty abstract, but yeah. So this one was one that i made in collaboration with Stephen Bishop, who's also a musician. And it's a shame we can't get the sound on. But it's on. It's on my video, if you will have a look later on. So yeah this was just a it was a commission for the Tyneside Cinema. This one, actually. So it's Iron fillings really close up. So it was the idea of something being moved by an unseen force and it kind of looks like it's dancing around. So the sound, if you could hear it, is the resonant frequency of Iron, obviously Iron fillings. So it's just like an abstracted sound track. Connected it to the like the material that you're actually filming. But a lot of the, again the moving image work that I make is a lot more abstract than the paintings that i make. Again, maybe it's just because I feel a bit less pressure, there's a bit more freedom. And I usually have like a particular because it started with my MA. where I was really interested in the idea of handmade illusions. Paintings obviously havent made illusion, if you like, trompe L'oeil paintings. Mine do look kind of real sometimes. So I was interested in the idea of making a handmade illusion and making something from really minimal materials, but look kind of epic and a bit like monumental. So this one actually is a using. It's from a commission that I did with an artist called Wolfgang Voigt, who runs Kompakt Records in Cologne. So he commissioning me to make visuals for him to go with his piece called Ruckverzaoberung im probably murdering that because i don't speak German. It actually means reversing in transit. which i think Is quite cool title. Yeah. The sound is a pretty. It's pretty aethereal and kind of atmospheric and quite dark. So I wanted to make some imagery that sort of fit with that. And this is actually appropriating, an old school special effects technique that the it's called called cloud tank. So they use it on Close Encounters and Poltergeist and those kind of films where they show like underwater and like smoke and things like that. And they usually have big massive tanks and loads of technicians and stuff in Hollywood. But I wish I had a fish tank in my studio and a macro lens. So these are actually filming and so something that's maybe two centimetres square in a fish tank in my studio. And it's based on the principle the saltwater and freshwater don't mix. So you inject milk and fluids and stuff into the two layers and make all these crazy effects. So it's kind of Hollywood but done on an extremely tight budget. But it did make quite an atmospheric film. It was again, this really pushes that really minimal like micro macro kind of thing because it was shown. This is like filming a two centimetre square area of a fish tank. And then it was projected think it was about 20 feet wide screen that was shown on. So obviously it really becomes like a moving painting. And the idea that it's all like colours and rhythms and light and things, which are all things that to do with painting anyway, so I really enjoyed making that one. It was really nice being in the room with it on and everyone watching it together to. It's pretty cool.
Paul Smith Yeah. The idea of homemade effects or kind of things that you wouldn't expect to be creating the effect reminds me of the Foley sound.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah, yeah.
Paul Smith That you were involved with the idea of making the sounds for movies, you can you'll probably be able to explain it better than I. But...
Rachel Lancaster So foley. It's funny because some people really know what it is. And some people didn't even know that happened in films. Yeah. Forley it's what they use in films to add. Almost every film has got Foley in it and it's basically used to add extra detail and make something feel more real and solid. So say if that was, for example, a crude example is horses hoves they use like coconut shells or it's mostly in like horror films. I was really interested in the sort of gory like spallery stuff where they do use them like watermelons and things like that to make squidgy, ans in alien like the chest burster scene stuff that someone would be squidging around in a mellon with reallt close up mics to get sort of really gory textures. But I really like this or the silliness of it and the idea that you do use it totally wrong material to try and make the other things seam even more real. It was really interesting. So I did some of that. I do quite a residency actually, where where we really looked in the Foley. And I looked really into it.
Rachel Lancaster And I made a piece of work where I filmed the surface of my bath with some torches and stuff really close up to look like the ocean. And then I made a sound truck, which was dried peas on top of a snare drum, and I did loads and loads of loads of like roll in these peas wrong to get like an ocean sound. So that was pretty cool. I like this the the playfulness of that. And it's a bit silly. And sometimes I'd catch myself in the middle of making something just thinking what on earth am i doing. What have i got here. But it's a mix of remember that you can have fun when you make something. I think that's really important to remember.
Paul Smith Did I see you at the Tyneside Cinema again? Again in the gallery. In the gallery, maybe.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah. Yeah. We did a live foley performance. who was that with?
Rachel Lancaster Katie Goodwin my friend Katie Goodwin,.
Paul Smith Because you've done a lot of collaboration's, which is something else I wanted to touch on.
Paul Smith Obviously the collaborate collaboration with Wolfgang Voight and with Steven Bishop we have heard those mentioned and I saw some of your work with your sister, Laura Lancaster in Baltic 39.
Rachel Lancaster Oh, for glimpse it. Yeah.
Paul Smith Yeah. And I was just wondering what you what you get out of the collaborations. Is it something something you enjoy and how does how does it make you feel to collaborate? Obviously, because obviously you're usually on your own in a studio, in a studio painting. And you know, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but.
Rachel Lancaster It is quite lonely. I think when you choose to be a painter, you sort of know that you're in the studio a lot on your own? And so if you with your own thoughts in it, it's almost like, well, you're probably get the same with music where you get sick of your own thoughts sometimes. And it's nice to have other ideas. And thankfully, I've been lucky enough to find people who have really similar taste but coming at, things with slightly different directions. So, yeah, these ones are stills from the Wolfgang Voight thing just while we are chatting. So yeah I really enjoyed colaborating, and to be honest, I never thought it would be something that I would do because I always really thought of myself as a painter in the painting on my own. But the collaboration are really nice. It gives you a different perspective on your own stuff as well. Like people like just having a dialogue with other people. Makes you realise things about your own work that maybe you might not know because it's your thing. It seems really obvious why you do, what you do. But then if you get another person into question you, it makes you reinforce the things that you are doing. Oh, yeah. These are some images from from glimpses from figure four in Baltic 39. I think it was twenty twenty, seventeen, twenty seventeen when we did that. So we basically made these two massive screens. We took over the gallery for four or five days and we set up two massive screens, either end of the room, well timed. And then we had speakers and projectors and me and my sister, Laura Lancaster, who was also primarily known for painting so was really interested in us both being in the like us both riffing off each other, doing stuff. And we took in a bunch of images and source materials. And so I had my own like like an archive of photographs and then Laura had some edited Cine film loops, and we basically played around with how we could fill the space in different ways. But like so mashing both of our practises together even. But none of it was painting. And so that was really interesting. And I did a performance as well where I used the sounds of Laura editing her cine films and like the spools and the Reals and stuff. And I edited the sounds and made like sort of a piece of sound work that filled the galleries we were playing with the projectors and stuff. So that was that was really fun.
Paul Smith Did it feel. Did it feel like an isolated thing? A bit of a break and then get back to get back to something different, or do you feel like it influenced what came next?
Rachel Lancaster I don't know what it was. It was fun and it was the idea that we didn't have to make a finished piece of work was really good too like. Nothing was set permanently, it was constantly changing around. Like if you went in one hour to the next, it would be totally different. So something about that was actually it was quite freeing. I probably would enjoy doing it again, but it maybe has influenced me, but maybe not in ways that I could identify particularly. But it's always good to try to try something new out.
Paul Smith One last question. I think we will maybe take some questions if anybody has any who is watching us, which seems odd because we're just we're quite isolated, doesn't feel like anybody is watching us. No, there are actually about a hundred people. Yeah. The last thing that I wanted to ask about is because you've done lots of different things and, you know, you've taken a break from painting and work with moving image and, you know, used photographs and obviously explored things like foli. Do you feel like that's made you a less 'marketable' artist? You know, do you feel like you exist a little bit more on the margins than you might have done if you just kept doing something more streamlined that's more readily identifiable rather than your practise kind of moving moving around into, you know, using different media? Because a lot of my favourite artists or whatever, whatever kind of discipline they might be doing existed on the margins. And it can be quite a quite a good place to exist. You know, you can get it. You can get on with what you want to do. But obviously, you may not have that kind of wider reach in some ways.
Rachel Lancaster Yeah. In some ways, its tricky to answer, actually, because I was I wasn't intending to not paint, but it just kind of I just follow where the idea and like, my instinct takes me. So you can't really fight against that. Really. So I don't really regret anything. Like, it's not really a thing that's, but at the same time that probably has made me potentially a bit less marketable in some ways. But also it does add a richness to I think my paintings are richer now for having that bit of a break and do other things than there would have been had I just kept painting. And I think the ideas that I had just didn't fit into painting anymore. So now I've got the like more of a skill set, really. So whatever the idea that I had, I could go like the appropriate way to try and express the idea or try the idea out. And it just so happens that a lot, like for the last 18 months, two years, they've all been painting based. So it's not to say that wouldn't go back to the other ways of making work, but definitely the ideas I've got now, I'm like more focussed on painting and. It does it does in a way. I mean, there's loads of stuff that I've done. If I had just stuck with painting and there's loads of things that I would have missed out on at the same time, so yeah, but ultimately, I think my paintings are richer for, for having done the other stuff.
Paul Smith Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's.
Rachel Lancaster Is it question time?
Paul Smith Let's see. Let's see what Miles thinks. Miles unmute yourself.
Miles Thurlow Hello. Hello. Sorry I was lost in there. (inaudible).
Rachel Lancaster Hypnotised.
Miles Thurlow These dulcet tones. I'm about to appear in a second. Hang on a sec. Right. Hello. Can you see me?
Rachel Lancaster Yeah.
Miles Thurlow Here we go. Right. There aren't that there's we don't have a huge amount of time. So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions here. That's quite a few rolling in. All of a sudden, as usual. So Lizzie asks. "I was wondering what future projects you have planned, Rachel."
Rachel Lancaster It's hard to say, really. It was a few things planned but global pandemics kind of put a few things up, brakes on a few things. Nothing. Specifically really, at the moment. I guess I'm focussing on painting. And that's it, that's my main focus. I'm showing some work in the Beep painting prize in October. But apart from a lot of things that were planned kind of have been paused unfortunately. So I just keeping on painting basically.
Miles Thurlow I wonder, Paul, if we could ask you the same question, actually.
Paul Smith Well.
Rachel Lancaster You've been busy Paul.
Paul Smith I've been reasonably busy. I've made a record which is just about finished. We've been mixing it over the last couple of weeks and it's it's taken shape. But we've been doing it remotely with a guy in Atlanta whose production work we liked. And we were due to fly out to Atlanta around the time of the lockdown. And so we've tried to tried to make our record by sending everything that we've done in our bedrooms except for Tom, our drummer, who's done stuff in an actual studio behind a pane of glass while somebody else recorded him in a socially distant way. But, yeah, it's been kind of it's been a big challenge because it's you know, we're usually in the same place and we can work quickly and we can go through songs and amend what we're doing. We can improvise and play around with things. But it's been a bit more of a detached process, however. Ben Allen, who we've been working with, is, you know, is great with sounds and he can play keys and bass as well, which is helpful for us because our keyboard player emigrated, Lucas, and our bass player Paul is in in Liverpool and has his own his own band going on. So it's been yeah, it's been kind of interesting. Interesting bit of time. So will the rest of this year. I'll be getting the artwork ready for that. No surprises. But we discussed that earlier on. We've got a few ideas and maybe about maybe using a painting on the front cover, which we've never done before.
Miles Thurlow Heard it here first.
Rachel Lancaster Exclusive.
Paul Smith We'll see. We'll see which artist we can we can we can find it. But yeah, the rest of the year will just be planning for next year. But everything's so up in the air. You know, in festivals and. Yeah, I mean, there's still some in the diary, but I suspect they'll also be cancelled towards the end of the year and we'll just try and start again next year. And in the meantime, I bought a drum machine. I'm going to try and learn to use that.
Miles Thurlow One thing a few people have been asking while you've been talking is that it's quite clear that you two have known each other for quite some time. I remember meeting, I first I met you both separately, but I remember, I think 2002 seeing this kind of crazy band playing in the corner of a basement of Waygood gallery in Newcastle and some some particularly mad hyperactive jumping around from Mr Smith here. So I just I was kind of interested in those kind of early days of art school and knowing each other in in Newcastle and how, you know, in that kind of thing, really.
Paul Smith Well, we were, we were kind of, you know, Hartlepool and Billingham, I'm from Billingham and Rachel's from Hartlepool. You know, they're not hive's of cultural activity, you know.
Rachel Lancaster Especially you then as well, back in we're talking 1997. Well, not many people had mobile phones and like, you know, there wasn't as much like there wasn't social media and people weren't quite connected. So you feel even more isolated. It was like a tiny town. You felt like extra isolated, I think, back then. So I think once you got the chance to go to art college and then you met people who were also like the same weird music, you did and had heard of like some obscure painter or something. There was a kindred spirit feel, I think, which is good. I've got really fond memories of foundation course.
Paul Smith It well it kind of a for us. We both went to Newcastle and so did Laura, your sister who we were in the band with. And other friends of ours and other people who were art college with came along as well. And it was kind of quite a little crew from Hartlepool ended up, well mostly at Northumbria doing doing Fine Art or doing some of doing more hands on stuff, whereas I decided to do something more academic, and which is why I ended up in the studios more often. So it was more of a communal sort of collaborative atmosphere. Whereas again, I was on my own in a library and, you know, I would be easily just pop in and see what what was happening with your paintings and with Laura's and our friend Gemma. Gemma Millward and yeah, it felt like, you know, we were growing up, we were having we were having fun, but also a kind of learning about ourselves and what we were into. And, you know, our our tastes would diverge along the way, but then we would kind of introduce each other to something else. And and I guess that's that's where I'm still at in terms of being in a band, you know. I like making music by myself and following my own path. I also like that that the joy of collaborateing or to even share influences or I mean, the moment I'm doing a radio show for the Star and Shadow DIY Cinema on a Saturday, and I spend, you know, it's just a volunteer thing, but I spend ages just trying to find the right songs and I'm really eager to share things with people. And it's to me that's very exciting the idea of, you know, somebody listening to something and being into it and feeling that same way that you do or or something similar and being excited by things. And I mean, that's you know, I've being in a band together was was was all about that as well. Just, you know, let's create our own excitement. Let's try and find find some sort of common ground. And that was that was exciting to do that.
Miles Thurlow Neil asks, "Does time play a part in how you consider your work, Rachel? I'm thinking how painting itself is a process of time being displayed on a surface as a record of the time taken. And you using single frames of film, which are really moments of time we don't ever fully experience??"
Rachel Lancaster Yeah, it is a big factor, actually. And again, that's probably why I was drawn to making moving images because there's a different relationship to time. So you've got more time and it's like, how would I fill that time? What would I do with it? But I liked the idea that you, there's like a stream of images and then you take an image from that stream and, you pause it. And then as you're painting it, it's like the image becomes animated again as you painting it. And then once you stop painting it, then it freezes again. So there's like that play between things freezing and them being still and them an active. And then just taken again, just taking something from a slice of time's always been really interesting to me.
Miles Thurlow That's another question from Claire. "Have you ever made your own film and then painted stills from that film? How do you decide which still image or object to paint?"
Rachel Lancaster I have tried that. It didn't really work out. I don't know why. I did it. I think because my the moving image stuff that I make tends to be a lot more abstract whereas the paintings I make tend to be like on the edge of abstraction. I don't like it when they go totally abstract. So I have tried that before, but it didn't really work out, to be honest. And then it terms of choosing what to paint. It's just like a gut instinct really, which is like it sounds like a bit of a cop out answer, but it is just something where, like it might be a particular colour or a particular texture. I'm like ah I really want to paint that like the one of the gold head that popped up a couple of times with that one it was the red like the red in that. I just really wanted to paint like that. Like the scarlet-ty, red. So it is usually just a very particular thing that I think would operate well in a painting and but yeah, gut instinct. Really. That's it. Yeah, that's the honest answer.
Miles Thurlow One thing I quite like to ask both of you, but maybe, maybe more, Paul, in a way, is the there's a decision that you make will make it maybe less so if you if you're from the Northeast. But there's a decision, I think, to stay here. If you've kind of had your formative studies here, you know, it it's always true that London has this magnetic kind of pull. And at a certain point in your your sort of new this the success that is growing in front of you. Often people move to London or New York or wherever. But, you know, staying in in a small city like Newcastle is a very particular decision. And I'm just kind of interested in that.
Paul Smith Yeah, it's I mean, I've been asked about this over the years and even bumping into people in the street who recognise me or like the band. They'll say, hey, what are you doing up here again? Have you come back to visit? And I never left. I was I did a TV show with Bryan Ferry. It was the Culture Show on the BBC. And we both performed, me with Maximo Park doing a kind of stripped down thing and him doing a stripped down thing and got chatting. And he was he was saying, oh, you still in Newcastle? Well, you know, wasn't really an option when we were younger because it was really hard to to make it not to get that kind of attention that, you know, Roxy Music wanted. And, yeah. I've never felt I've never felt that. I mean, I think I've felt sometimes a little bit alienated from the music industry. And in many ways, I don't really mind that because the music industry is a little bit you know, it's a business and it's, you know, my my interest doesn't lie in business. It in my interest lies in making things. And I feel like I can do that better here. I can do that better here because I can afford to live here.
Rachel Lancaster It has been the same for me. I like the studio the size of the studio I've got. I just wouldn't be able to afford that in London. And obviously the space that you've got to work with like really affects what you can make and then just having like sort of a standard of life that's comfortable and manageable as well. Or is that you'd be struggling a bit like, I think of being in a band and touring and maybe the same for you, when you're in a band and you get to tour you feel like you get to see stuff anyway. So you feel like you get, it's ticking that box without you haven't actually go and live somewhere else. You kind of get that outside influence and stuff, but then you get to come home and be comfortable.
Paul Smith Yeah. I mean, you know, I feel very lucky to be able to move around. And again, it's not that kind of things, not for everyone. So. So we find that nomadic lifestyle that it's frustrating or whatever. I think. When when I've been to places like New York or Berlin or Tokyo, which is a bit different because again, you know, there's less people who speak English, you know, the culture is is different. But, you know, in somewhere like New York or or Berlin, you could if you could afford it in terms of New York, you could you could live there. And there's a vibe. You know, we talk about that kind of that the draw of places like London, London, to me just doesn't have the kind of space that I feel like I would enjoy. You know, I like being near the coast here, being very it's like, you know, 20 minutes or whatever on the on the metro to get to the coast. You know, I feel like it's already a beautiful place, but it's also a city up here in Newcastle. And I can go back home to Teeside where my family are. And so for me, it's kind of it's it's perfect in many ways. Obviously, there are points when you go to somewhere like Berlin and you feel like it's vibrant, there's a lot of space there. And I definitely, you know, friends of mine and friends of ours have moved there and they have studios there and they're part of something small scale and vibrant. And there's obviously the bigger scale things that you can tap into in somewhere like that. And I think, yeah, that's that's kind of tempting. But then you look at it and say, well, I'm here and I'm you know, I'm kind of representing in a little in a way what can be done by staying in the same place if if if I can make work, if I can make records that people can listen to anywhere and I can go on tour. Then why would why would I want to leave the place that allows me the time and space to to formulate something that's my own, or in terms of the band, our own, you know, the kind of identity. And I think if we'd have moved to London in terms of trying to get noticed, we would have we would have blended in with the crowd, perhaps. Hopefully not. You know, again, being up here allowed us to forge our own identity and be and be a bit odd. You know, our music is still it's pop music, ultimately, but there's something not right about it. You know, mainstream pop music. And and the... It's a that's what we're searching for, really, you know. And also, there's a kind of community here as well with people like my friend and collaborator Peter Brewis and the band Field Music and his brother David. You know, I've just made a record with Rachel Unthank from a folk band The Unthanks. And I'm a big fan of folk music. And I've often wondered, you know, how to put that into my own music. And collaborating with her has been really fruitful. But I wouldn't have been able to record the album if it wasn't for David Brewis. You know, I have in his studio and saying yeah come in and, you know, if you release it, give me some money. Otherwise, you know, you can be the guinea pig for our new studio.
Rachel Lancaster If you went to London, of course, you would just wouldn't be able to afford it.
Paul Smith Because it's you know, I know that. Not not that many people are going to be interested in it because it's a little bit more niche. You know, I want the world to hear it. I know that that's not possible. You've got to find a way of making it like any artist. You know, you've got to find a way of of making the work that you want to make.
Miles Thurlow Well, on that note, I think we've probably run out of time, and I should just say that the next talk will be in two weeks time and it will be Nina Chua, an artist based in Manchester in conversation. So do join us again for that. Thank you very much, Rachel Lancaster and Paul Smith, for joining us tonight. It's been really lovely to hear you talking about Rachel's work and also a bit about your work, Paul. So thank you for that. People who have joined us on Facebook Live, which has been a bit of an experiment for me, I crossed the stream slightly.
Rachel Lancaster You're not supposed to do that, Miles.
Miles Thurlow Just to let the people on the Workplace Facebook page know this is a Workplace Foundation production and Workplace Foundation is a charity that Workplace set up in in 2017 to support emerging artists based across the North of England. So do check out our website. And, you know, follow what we're doing because it's a really interesting, you know, emerging scene right across the North that is vibrant and vital and important. So keep it keep a close eye. And just to say thank you. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. And I'm gonna be very abrupt. It's always very horrible and abrupt when you're in these things. So but we'll put the video on wherever it goes soon. And, you know, we can re create this lovely atmosphere. Thank you, everyone, and goodbye. Thanks. Press leave, leave, leave.
