Field Review | Artist Interview Series
In conversation with
Ismail Ucci
He works in a variety of mediums, including drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, and sculpture. The quest for order and harmony and a long-standing fascination with color and still life form led to his years of relentless experimentation with varied artistic styles. He has been working in his studio since 2022, after completing three years of drawing from observation at the Royal Drawing School, and consequently held an open studio in autumn 2022. He is now based at Candidartrust in Islington, London. Painting and drawing are nothing he believes unless there is an expression of the poetry in mankind to contemplate nature. Painting is a way, perhaps the only way, to affirm his spiritual significance. He enjoys experimenting with materials, taking an artwork to an unexpected outcome. The surface and perspective excite his senses - how he can look at something afresh and create through unconscious decisions. Drawing, for him, is about making an image which expresses commitment and involvement. This only comes after seemingly, endlessly sketching before the model or subject ideas, which are impossible to preconceive whether scraping off or rubbing down; it is always beginning again, making new images, destroying images that have lesser impact, and discarding images that are dead.
From:
United Kingdom
Artist Statement
The stilllife is a perfect subject of the meditative approach he adopted in depicting the everyday objects. The subtle palette with diffused warm light gives a sensation of silent and peaceful intimacy to his work. He follows his own vision unhesitatingly and confidently without troubling at all whereever it may lead him. His practice revolves around drawing, painting and pottery as one field extends itself to another and informs a direct interrelationship between the disciplines. He has a passionate interest in the old masters where he regularly visits the national gallery to sketch directly from the paintings and inspire his senses.
Tell us about yourself and your artistic background.
I am passionate about drawing & painting as it gives me the window to my soul. I have learnt a distinct style of mark making through drawing. This is formed by studying at the Royal Drawing School to become familiar with the possibilities of various mediums. I link my artistic practice with drawing, painting and Pottery.
How would you describe your artistic practice?
I pay attention to fragile physicality that echoes in Scandinavian aesthetic of an artist's compositions. I work across disciplines from figurative to stilllife to landscape. The variety of subject matter in my work indicates how I aim to engage directly with the past. My addiction to the art of the past is crucially important in my development as an artist.
What themes or ideas are most important in your work?
Gorgio Morandi, Vermeer and Picasso are recurring themes in my art. I admire the work of the old masters by initially making studies in my sketchbook, which I later introduce into my work either through painting or pottery. I exploite a very particular way of achieving marks after the great masters. It continually excites me because it becomes a contributing factor to the way I interpret the present.
What inspires your creative process?
Memories, Melancholia and ghostliness establish a precedent for me to deploy painterly forms. Colour is a significant attribute to my practice as I conjure up tonality through contrast. I envision tones but take unconscious decisions whilst applying colours either together or sporadically.
Can you tell us about a recent artwork or project?
I am currently working on an series of paintings inspired after Morandi as the subject of stilllife fascinates me. In the past year or so the table cloth on which I setup my stilllifes steadily engulfs a traditional compliment of glass, ceramics and collected cluster of objects. In rich glowing contrapuntual compositions painted here at my studio in London. As individual pots and bottles loose their separate identification and seem to be having a conversation amongst one another.
What challenges have influenced your development as an artist?
Through experience I've gained via the different paths that I translate into my work. I feel my work is mysterious and continuous struggle with chance. I believe when I work chance lies at the heart of the matter both in the sense of luck good and bad as well of the creative potential of sheer randomness. I am constantly moving, almost like the flow of water that never remains still. My quest for developing ideas always finds source in the past that introduces what I am doing next as it seems to be the best I created last.
What role does art play in your life today?
It took both intelligence and endless application for me to become the kind of artist I aspired to be. I am always visiting the national gallery where for many years I have been making pencil sketches of the old masters. It gives me an incentive to experiment and convey the endless ebb and flow of the contemporary art world to test out new formats and techniques as a way of seeking new solutions. I feel excited to believe as an emerging artist relating to the art world in one sense we all see the same thing in another we all precieve it differently,filtered through our emotions and memories.
What are you currently working on?
I am working on series of stilllife paintings and figurative drawings as part of my studio practice. I begin by loosely drawing the subject first and then it's surrounding brought in around up to it with an extensive additions and adjustments. The figure do not pass through the composition but rather act within the space that is identified as field or zone. I sometimes stand back and observe what I painted and surely agree with my sense that I couldn't set out to get such an effect. It was something that happened while I was painting almost as if the paint did it on its own as I moved it about.
What are your future goals as an artist?
I wish to continue on my journey and find various processes to attach and introduce into my practice. There is also the question of how the aim of my style and technique would develop particularly when introduced through drawing dance from life.
Where can readers follow your work?
Instagram printinfashion
