Interview

Jun 13

Anthony Smith-Chaigneau

Anthony Smith-Chaigneau is a semi-professional artist who left his native homeland of Wales very early in his life travelling to Cyprus and Malta where his military family were stationed. Anthony himself went on to a 15-year career in the British Royal Air Force commencing at the tender age of sixteen; he was mainly stationed in England, the Mediterranean and also Scandinavia. He now resides in Arizona. These very different regions have inspired his innate artistic ability and given his work enormous diversity.

Both the acrylic and watercolour paintings he produces are as diametrically opposed as the regions where he has lived. Initially, after his military career, Anthony settled in France (Grenoble and the Gard Provençal where he painted soft, languid, sensual watercolour landscapes using traditional techniques.) He further studied with the renowned American watercolourist Tony Couch which enhanced his style and confidence. Continually experimenting and looking for new techniques, Anthony started creating works using brash, roughly hewn, vivacious metallic acrylics on textured canvas, expressing a move to the extreme opposite of watercolour. His acrylic work sees the use of gesso texturing, acrylic paste and black as an underpainting upon which strong colours are layered with brush and spatula and sheens of silver, gold and bronze metallic paints that play with refraction of light thus always changing under the luminescence of the environments where they hang. His multi-faceted paintings are always delivering different aspects of colour chroma and saturation dependent upon the nature and angle of the light cast upon them. In 2012, Anthony was awarded a Silver Medal from the Académie Internationale du Mérite et Dévouement Français (Arts) for his contribution to Art and Art Community. Whilst remaining passionate about the Gard-Provencale region where he keeps his family home, he moved to Switzerland in 2013 with his professional career and is once again on another life adventure as a resident of Scottsdale - Phoenix, Arizona USA since November 2017. Cartooning is ever present in his repertoire.

What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?

“I have always been an artist but struggled academically on maths and physics which were mandatory at school and for entrance into art college. I failed to achieve the grades needed and therefore this career path closed before me. My art teacher was devastated for me. I was naturally disappointed. As I came from a military family I chose to leave home at 16 1/2 years old to join the British Royal Airforce. They needed teleprinter mechanics or chefs so I plumped for the former. In parallel, I continued to draw and paint and took various extra-curricular studies in art. Not until a posting into NATO in Denmark at the age of 27 did I get the feeling that the artistic me was becoming a stronger force. I then studied illustration at night-school and took to learning from books by artists I admired. Watercolour was my first love. A further promotion to Sergeant saw me move to Oslo in Norway and this is where my art flourished. At weekends and on holiday I painted feverishly with my first exhibition in Sandvika where i sold around 40 pieces.”

What inspires you?

“Light, shapes, people, animals, friends, books, movies, documentaries, poetry, travel, vegetation, landscapes, buildings, colour, dreams, sport, conversations, other artists. Almost anything!”

What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?

“I am such a multi-faceted artist that there are no specific themes that drive me. I have tried many different subjects and I know the ones that I don’t pursue. Landscapes have been a mainstay in my work as have birds. Currently, I am experimenting with metallic acrylics and acrylic paste and the desert landscapes of Arizona are where I am presently focused.”

How would you describe your work?

“For this acrylic period, I describe the work as innovative as it uses a technique that allows for a different experience with each piece depending on the light that falls upon it. The metallic paints reflect the light source and this means you have to be physically with the work to understand the effect of a bright/dimming/real or artificial light source and how it hits the work. This portfolio was hard to 'describe' in artistic terms even by the owner of the gallery that took my work. What he did say was that it was lively, and entertaining and a pleasure to look upon.”

Which artists influence you most?

“Tony Couch AWS and Rowland Hilder for watercolour. Vincent Van Goch for the freedom of his work and Don Martin (Mad Magazine) for cartooning.”

“For this acrylic period, I describe the work as innovative as it uses a technique that allows for a different experience with each piece depending on the light that falls upon it.”

What is your creative process like?

“For my acrylics, it is a long process of preparation - a black gesso canvas is selected or a white canvas is prepared with black gesso. I then draw in white pencil and form the composition. Then, I add the acrylic paste for the structure and texture of the saguaro, plants, rocks and landscape. The whole canvas is then painted black once again and the composition completely disappears except for the texture and relief of the paste. I then re-visualize the work, feel my way around both painting and scraping using brush and palette knife respectively. The black underpainting is exposed where needed. The final piece gives a sort of rugged stain-glassed window effect.”

What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?

“There is not a single role for art; it is a multi-faceted entity. Art serves various purposes, from documenting reality - an area that evolved with the emergence of photography - to its unique function in courtrooms where cameras are disallowed. Art is integral to storytelling; even movies are storyboarded by an artist before production. It serves as a device for political means and provocation. Art can simply please, it can scare! Art can serve as a means of exorcising personal demons, transferring thoughts from mind to paper or canvas, thus used for therapy and healing. In today's society engineers are dabbling, as they create AI art via written prompts. However, they seek to emulate great artists using the vast library of human creativity to permit the machines to experiment. AI art, no matter how it evolves, is without that which makes us human - 'thought.' The absence of a singular role underscores why art remains a subject that resonates universally, a constant presence in humanity, that will remain a true constant, as it always has since the first ever cave painting.”