David Auborn

To The Studio

Series 1 Episode 4: Audio Transcript

David Auborn
Hello, and welcome to episode four of To The Studio. Today's guest is Daniel Pettitt. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2017, Dan has elaborated his painting within a register of elusive and speculative abstraction. Ingesting an eclectic mix of visual and cultural materials, such as lyrical abstraction, everyday signage, modernist poetry, and post-conceptual art, Dan's work tracks fluctuations of index, fragment, metaphor, memory, semblance, and mood, as they can drill and dissolve into provisional fields and partial images.

Recent exhibitions have included: Tin Decade, Roper Gallery and Bath; Dark Lantern, Gallery Sabine Kunst in Munich,;Little Bouquet at 49  West Princes St in Glasgow, and Head's Roll at Graves Gallery in Sheffield. I met Dan in his studio in East London, just after his solo show had opened at PALFREY, London and nd he recalls his vivid memories of some John Constable placemats, the advantages of slow-cooking paintings, and the real troubling nature of titling work. It was great to get up with Dan, and I really enjoyed our conversation, and I hope you do too. Here it is.

David Auborn 
Thanks for having me over to this weird industrial estate.

Daniel Pettitt 
It's not that weird, is it? It's quite charming.

David Auborn 
Yeah, what have you been up to today?

Daniel Pettitt 
A  bit hectic, not really making anything, more like digital admin would be the underline, answering emails I've put off, following news because things like that happen in the monring. Some friends from the Royal Collge earlier who popped bm and now, including yourself. So a semi-social day.

David Auborn 
Good good because you've been super busy yeah.

Daniel Pettitt 
A busy month, a busy concentrated time of working.

David Auborn 
So, I guess we could start talking about, because you've got two shows running alongside each other at the moment.

Daniel Pettitt 
Three. Well, one finishes - it finished 20 minutes ago - so, let's say there were three. There were three.

David Auborn 
Maybe we could start talking through the one that closed today, was that Tin Decade?

Daniel Pettitt 
Yes, that was in Bath. There was there was a rainbow on the poster...no the one in London has a rainbow on the poster. The show was called Tin Decade. The the original conversation around that began last year and, that would have been arounf ten years since I finished my BA in Bath, so it's a slight kind of nod to that anniversary, and your 10th wedding anniversary gift should be tin or some nonsense like that,  and it sounds like a bit like a David Bowie album. So I thought it could be a kind of funny show title

David Auborn
How did you deal with all those shows coming up at the same time? Did you have a specific work in mind for each?

Daniel Pettitt 
With Bath, I always knew it might be a wider section of work. So it's got paintings  made a month ago to things made four years ago. So things from the Royal College that I wanted to show. I always knew there'd be a bigger breadth of work to have available.

The other show that then opened after that was a group show, in Munich, that needed one piece. And there was a bit of a brief for that: very, very dark. But it could be subject matter or actual dark in a material sense, which is called Dark Lantern, the show. So I made something out of lead, which was uncharacteristic, but quite enjoyable.

Thirdly the show in London, that's all new work - again, maybe a couple of them made with that show in mind - but more or less what was currently in the studio and what was finished. That inevitable thing where you take more than you plan, or I do anyway and edit down. I don't think I could plan a show rigidly and rigorously. I need a bit of ebb and flow. Is that answering your question?  I knew I had enough work to spread around. It's just the case of editing, I think is the main thing. And doing that well and getting opinions from people you trust, and maybe people you don't, just sound things out, which kind of confirm things in your own head.

Bath was nice, it was a bit like, as I said, it's been ten, well, a bit more than ten years, since I finished my BA there, it was a bit like a kind of homecoming to show again. The opportunity came through some friends who studied at the Art School there, so it's like a nice continuity. It was really nice actually to go back.

David Auborn
Did you say you studied in Bath?

Daniel Pettitt
My Undergraduate was in Bath School of Art Design, finished in 2008, and then kind of quite a big gap until I stared at The Royal College of Art in 2015.

David Auborn 
You grew up in Brighton, right? How was that?

Daniel Pettitt 
I think when you're from somewhere - and maybe you'd agree or not -  you can't really see... you don't see it the way other people do. People seem to love Brighton, but it feels like Camden by the sea to me. A bit a busy, but there are nice bits and I think going back now I don't live there I recognise the bits I hadn't noticed and I was quite fortunate to be there because it's got museums, it's got its close to loads of other things on the coast, it's very near to London (not that should mean anything) but it kind of does, South East England is all kind of London, and Brighton happens to be by the sea.

David Auborn 
The University of Brighton, on its Painting Course, that was one of the major things it said "we are near London" It's all right, don't worry. You can go there on the train. It's fine. Come here, because you can go there. (laughter)

Daniel Pettitt 07:05
Never known a university to pitch their proximity to the capital.

David Auborn 07:13
So growing up in Brighton, I guess it's quite a small place, but there's a lot going on all the time. And I'm not sure how it was back then with the arts, but do you have anything, remember anything, that happened that might have kickstarted your interest in painting, can you remember how that all started?

Daniel Pettitt 07:44
I was always into making things, you know, people who say that don't know it as a kid, but it's kind of true. I was a fairly quiet child, and was another way to be noisy, I think, without being loud. I only just thought of that in those terms

Another memory that has come back recently that sounds funny was we used to have, table mats, placemats, you know what I mean? This set was John Constable paintings with a kind of peach border, and then the famous like :six footers”, so the The Hay Wain and Salisbury Cathedral etc. So I have a kind of strange recollection of seeing these paintings, recognising it as a flat image, as a painting, but on this strange functional thing. And the underside of these placemats were cork, which then became kind of cutting mat for me. Making balsa wood aeroplanes and things like that with my dad. So it was a kind of duality of a painting…but the reverse was a then a surface to work on. So it's like a funny residual memory. I don't think that made me want to paint there and then, but it's like, I was exposed unintentionally very early to things that I still look at now. So it's kind of funny, 30+ plus year continuity.

I need to buy those placemats, too, because you look on eBay, and the whole set comes up like, can I justify it? Maybe if I was someone else, I'd make work from it, but I might have to indulge. But to fast forward, I did my foundation in Brighton, which I think was really important, like, you know, less than a year, but kind of throwing together people you don't know, kind of 17, 18, you know, so quick fire thing is that you're doing a bit of sculpture, a bit of this, a bit of that, then you choose a pathway. Really encouraging tutors, which I think makes a big difference, like the people you're with and the people that push you. So perhaps there's a more kind of formative direction that I think the foundation was quite essential, really, in galvanizing. I'm definitely going to go to art school, you know, come what may, maybe not a guaranteed career choice or success career.

Can you remember what you were making on foundation? Yeah, I think it's still something rusting in mum and dad's garden. I remember making, like, a strange sculpture, all the scrappy bits of metal, like, spot welded together. But that was from perhaps that, that, whatever, whenever you do metal work. But I made photography, that was it. That was it.

My final, final show was like three photographs. Oh, really? The friend John and some of his friends we went, I don't know how I read about it, or is there an artwork near Bristol that someone's put loads of fluorescent tubes under pylons and certain pylons generate enough electricity to illuminate them? Oh, OK. So John and his friends had a card to say, oh, let's go into Sussex countryside and find the right pylon. And it worked like you've just took lots of fluorescent tubes like a field in midnight somewhere became light sabers and one field is full of cows. And I don't know how we didn't get stamped because I just remember hearing it in the background. But it just became three pictures from that event. And then I gave there were three to John and two of his friends and I gave each of them a picture.

Daniel Pettitt 10:52
So I don't have the word, you know, but it was quite a nice, like a conclusion of something like, yeah, and there was colour and there was, you know, there were things that were unconsciously painterly. But I think I think I had always painted, but I probably avoided committing to it, which I think carried on into the B.A. as well, I think, in a way of like keeping painting a distance, probably for fear, fear, fear and excitement. Yeah.

David Auborn 11:22
Yeah, so the decision, obviously the decision came to go to Bath, was there a reason, was there a reason you wanted to study there in particular?

Daniel Pettitt 11:32
Should I be honest, or? Yeah, yeah, yeah, brutally honest, brutally honest.

I didn't go with the open day, but another friend of our foundation did, and she came back with a kind of prospectus leaflet, and she said, oh, it's really beautiful, you like old buildings, you get to live and work here. And it was a picture of, at the time, they occupied a kind of whole Georgian crescent. And I was like, okay. Obviously did the inevitable online research, and it did have close connections to London in terms of tutors. So I think it benefited from half the stuff were kind of old school dressed in black type kind of London people who still taught at schools in London, Goldsmiths or Chelsea, and people who've been in Bath a bit longer. So it wasn't, you didn't feel cut off. I mean, it sounds a bit arrogant, back to the thing about Brighton being in London. They didn't pitch it like that, but I think the diversity of staff was a draw factor. The location was a draw factor. Yeah, and someone else's recommendation. They did look nice. And was that, was it a broad fine art degree? It was fine art. So again, there were kind of loose pathways, like moving image, or maybe it was called something else. Sculpture, but it was an all round fine art BA, and then you could just focus. Maybe they prioritized studio space, come your second year, depending on what you were making, but it was very broad, really.

David Auborn 12:52
Do you remember when you started painting? What happened? Yeah, what happened? I think what happened.

Daniel Pettitt 12:59
I think there was always like dabbling in painting, but I don't know again if it's true for you or other people It almost felt I'd done this thing at foundation that I could have gone down a photography route But almost like started a fresh in bath because it is somewhere brand new It's the first time you're away living with other people like it's kind of oh, I need to reinvent myself now And obviously never tempt inevitable temptation of bath is all the landscape the kind of funny history um of landscape painting I feel like I remember going to oxfam bookshop and buying Lots of music books. I don't know this strange like Never cover books for 99p that I thought I'd put leaves in or Honestly, it's all coming back in my mind um But maybe that was just a continuation of of different flash points from the foundation I'm not painting but color is somehow Weedling away or borrowing in a better expression uh But painting probably took off more in the third year as kind of outright things on their own Yeah, still with some photography Come to think of it.

So it might have been a kind of proposition like A bit theatrical a bit staged set Kind of it's about that time provisional painting had its moment and richard aldrich who's still around. Yeah I remember reading a kind of art forum review on him in 2007 or 8 kind of oh, you know You can make you can make very convincing things very quickly, but you can also be a musician or you can also be a poet you know, it's kind of New york flavory thing but this thing that this soup that enabled you to to be a painter, but you weren't That wasn't just what you did.

Yeah, not that I was a track I couldn't I can't play music or anything but I Probably liked entertaining ideas. I could do lots of other things, but I just find myself coming back To this thing.

I did a lot of printmaking too, which again, I think That's about line. That's about color. I mean a pressure Literally in like how much you're rolling it through or again or screen print kind of hard edge again saying that It does feel like these things feed into the paintings now Yeah did then but so I think in a very long way I've gotten to painting by kind of casting my neck quite wide And exhausting other things and moving on from it

David Auborn 15:11
So, what happened after Bath? So, you left Bath.

Daniel Pettitt 15:15
That was 2008. And then not that anyone, not that it really affects you as a young person coming out of university, but I guess like the financial crisis and everything that seemed like nothing was as easy as it was before. Went back home to Brighton, applied for lots of jobs I wasn't qualified for optimistically. It was quite difficult actually.

I think I applied to kind of every London gallery for internship or some kind of, you know, that kind of embarrassing thing that you, I'm being honest, but I know very few people got back, even just to play it. No, it's kind of funny how much effort you put into something and obviously, you know, there's a thousand other people after you, but a few got back in touch. And again, London, easy, easy reach to Brighton. Like it wasn't, again, again, it's a shame just to come back to that. But there wasn't really anything in Brighton to apply for and it's like, okay, I like the arts. I know about London. That's a logical place to go to work if that's not a stepping stone to then living there, working there for myself. And then what happened? Yeah, I was interning at Alison Jake's gallery for a bit and that kind of led on to paid tech work and meeting some of the artists through that. And through one of them, Ryan Mosley, who was at Royal College, quite a few years before me, put him in touch with a friend of his in Brighton, who had a studio building. I mean, she was like looking after some studios above a jewelry shop in Brighton station. And she's like, yeah, we've got space, come along. So up until that point, I kind of been in mum and dad's loft, but it didn't quite. Yeah, I was gonna ask, yeah, how are you making? It just didn't feel, it just, you can't, you know, can't quite relax, you can't quite get messy. It's just all a bit too conscious, which I think I always need a separate space to make things, even if they're not messy. So getting a studio is quite important, I think, kind of having, so there's a connection to London. There's a studio that happens to be in Brighton. That's kind of the beginnings of working and then getting to know people and, but most importantly, I guess, making my own work, really. And that was painting in Brighton.

David Auborn 17:29
yeah and then obviously the decision came to want to study again um that was the one

Daniel Pettitt 17:36
I mean, I guess that was always on like knowing okay, like I can do this and then that'll be the thing But yeah, I knew I wanted to wait for a while What do you think that waiting gave you? Well, I mean I was thinking in that time.

I Got it I moved. They came like a freelance tech at the listen gallery, which you know opens up to more people And did it and I worked in the archive there I looked after books and I mean I was there for five or six years Before going through a college and that kind of ended at a full-time job looking after all the the image archive so digital images shows historical things things for books, so it's kind of It it was a position that they would used to be in touch with a lot of artists obviously officially through the gallery But again meeting lots of people, you know, most people who work in galleries have gone to art school Yeah, they've either gone down a kind of art history route or they're actually practicing artists It's kind of you you meet another peer group again will be a slight remove because you're at work Yeah, but you're still in the mix again, you know, it's still a job and it's tiring, but you're kind of fortunate to say, you know See a book before it's come out to the press. You can witness artists talk so you can go to the studio It's like there's a kind of there were lots of fringe benefits for one of a better word and then I But I still didn't have a studio in London I hadn't moved to London initially and then an old tutor had space in his studio in London That was an impetus to then move to London So it all happened quite quickly and then a few more years of listen and then it's but okay I can actually have enough money.

I have enough time. I don't want a full-time job forever like It's the right time to go back basically and to do it to do an MA

David Auborn 19:19
Yeah, why did you want to apply for a Master's and was it the Royal College in particular that you were interested in?

Daniel Pettitt 19:28
I think a year or two before I applied to Royal College, I applied to the Royal Academy once, was on a successful interview and then left at a year or two and then applied to Royal College, the RA and Goldsmiths and then had interviews for all three, but I'd known people that had gone to the Royal College so I'd had been able to come in as years had gone by and it felt like the right place, I think, you know, through, I think having that exposure helped being able to actually get a feeling for what everyday life was like and again, the people, I think, like, the other students on a course do make it, I think, not because you're setting out to make friends or anything, but that's like a natural thing. You are, again, with like-minded people, you're in quite a kind of confined space in a confined amount of time and the Royal College felt like the right one, really, when I could be honest and say, I didn't get into the RA, I did get into Goldsmiths, but they didn't seem interested in painting.

That's not good. No, but for the truth that they did for like the Royal College felt, the right kind of, the right time, the right place, the right mix of people to go to.

David Auborn 20:37
yeah and was it because was there was there like something specific in the work that you wanted to investigate or was it more that you wanted that maybe um kind of kind of i don't know focus time i guess on on the work and um as a whole

Daniel Pettitt 20:57
I mean definitely that the appeal of having more time you know like obviously after work to get by but almost having every other day or a lot of time to just be making work and there's you know a dozen people within your sight line who you could talk to yeah on top of structured you know mid-career artists educational things that was definitely appealing I've been making paintings more consistently for a few years before and showing but I knew you know it needed to the work need to be shaken up and I think of any MA like wherever I would have gone my expectation was the same to kind of unpick the work you know break it stretch it apart and then in theory put it back together but maybe with a bit more glue or a bit more a bit more stuff to at least enable me to then keep making it I don't know if that sustains you for your life or the next ten years you then feel the obligation to do something else or study again but I think that was the main impetus for going to Royal College was to really pick the work apart and push it back together yeah which maybe that's only happening now but

David Auborn 22:00
Well, yeah, possibly, but it's funny because I think, yeah, and what you just said about putting things apart and reassembling and then putting them back together, it has parallels with how I've seen you use your studio and I've seen, well, and we're in obviously in your studio now, and there's obviously remnants of, yeah, what I perceive to be that kind of process of things surfacing and resurfacing, and yeah, has that been, was that a process, well, maybe you could talk about, yeah, first, yeah, how you might go around or go about making or assembling a painting.

Daniel Pettitt 22:38
I mean as you said that it almost reminded me that it did remind me I began the raw collision a similar way to Bath of kind of knock but maybe not entirely rejecting what I'd done before but like okay it's a fresh start but things definitely resurface so kind of motifs or forms or colours or things I'm unconsciously drawn to that are still in the mix but for me I couldn't... the making of it happens very slowly or very quickly so the actual execution is often very very quick the application of the paint the actual gestation could be years and you know some of the things in the shows we touched upon had been kicking around for years but then it was just a kind of final last rush of colour or form that like completed it so I get a bit frustrated that I can't be consistent in my output but I know I need to make I need kind of detritus around me like you know the desk over there is kind of piled high with bits of paper and that's not dissimilar from the Royal College there are always bits of paper that were and are stencils like bigger stencils that go on to a canvas and then that almost kind of makes an arsenal of material that a different colour choice is different touch you know if it's palette knife if it's paintbrush other generative things so I'm kind of always feel like I'm on the cusp of I could make a hundred collages in one go yeah but I'd rather make two or three and have one good painting or but then I might feel differently tomorrow so there's always this kind of not wanting to maybe it's not wanting to give myself too much rope to hang myself with by have by being too proficient at one thing that sounds a bit arrogant but it's like I couldn't knock out ten of the same thing at once but then when I see all my work together in a show I do recognise things across time or scale or even medium they are like handwriting they are mine so I think there's some kind of friend always talks about recognising your work as being yours it's your own like I think that's quite important like you get all the references and people you look at and what you're reading and listening to but recognising something is yours it's quite a kind of mature thing.

David Auborn 24:49
Yeah, definitely. And I think, yeah, that definitely takes time. Yeah, especially as time goes on, there's more to wade through, and there's more to look back up back upon, and there's more history to deal with.

And yeah, especially as a student, starting on a master's, and you feel like, oh, this is this is big opportunity to then kind of be put in that artists and people that you, yeah, that you, some that you admire, some that you don't get on with or whatever. Yeah, it's a melting pot of all those ideas. And it's all of that as well that you have to, that you have to deal with. And to then come out of that, or, yeah, come out of that, maybe, with something that you kind of visualise as yours is, yeah, it's a tough.

Daniel Pettitt 25:40
Yeah, it's tough. I think college, it's good for that kind of mix of people, but you are people of different ages. Some people have galleries, some people seem like they've never painted, in all honesty. On painting, people come from every different direction, and you kind of have to situate yourself, or what is your position, or not playing a game, but you recognize a difference, if that's cultural, if that's age, if that's what you make. I think, obviously, you benefit from doing a master's being with some life experience, and you've been making work before, if that's with people in isolation, you're thrown into this blender very quickly, then you come out, and if you can't keep making, it's probably not for you.

But always knowing that I've made before, and I was gonna make after, it's like, I know I'm gonna carry on, this is not the end. So, degree shows, one or two or three, four paintings, from two years worth of stuff. There's that kind of, with any show, that anxiety to display what you can do, but you don't wanna cram it all in, like there's gotta be a selection, an editing. I may say that because that's probably how I make work, in private, in here, that there could be several things happening at once, contenders. But maybe one will rise to the top, and the others will become stencils, they'll become dispersed, or they'll live for a year, in their kind of half-life, and then they'll be the right size the right day. It's kind of, you know, emotive in the making. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, not consciously.

David Auborn 27:15
When things arise in the work that you see as something or that you see as an opportunity or that you see as something that's exciting for you, does it always come at you in a particular way or not?

Daniel Pettitt 27:39
I mean, again, it varies. I don't I like if I make something very quickly. I don't then want to dwell on it I need to walk away from it or come back. I I don't want to oh, that's the best touch Because in the next day, it's terrible um But there is a lot of repetition I think which I form or some compositional thing that I enjoy because maybe it's a kind of An autistic thing or a dyslexic thing or some like a reinforcement of the same idea but put through a different Mill a different churning sequence So I couldn't make the same picture painting again But I like the idea of kind of the same things repeat in different permutations or they're like echoes across time Again seeing the shown bath It's funny how things from four years ago are not dissimilar the things from from at the minute There's things in here that look a bit like it and that doesn't bother me.

Um It's mine. Yeah. Yeah Yes Yeah, it's a kind of I'm not answering a question. But no, no I mean it was I think the inevitable thing is I did the process for me is things just rise to the top Yeah, and then they get chopped off or they get they get raised up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well that yeah That makes sense. Maybe

David Auborn 28:56
yeah maybe my question was a bit too direct in terms of well the forms and things that arise in the work how do you yeah how do you gather your material for that

Daniel Pettitt 29:19
I think it's always been there is I don't, I couldn't work from a straight kind of photograph or an image. I think I like things that have had a kind of life, kind of second order or that they've they've already been interpreted. So there's already maybe it's an illustration of something or it's another artist work, not too overtly, but things that already deviate from perhaps a shared consensus. So if it's a photograph of an iPhone, well, for the photograph of something that we can all agree on, but it's been reinterpreted.

But I kind of look at these as very loose kind of skeletal forms or armatures. Maybe like, oh, that looks like an axe head. Maybe it was, but I'm not really, I don't really care about being a narrative. It's quite a difficult question to answer, but it's like, you know, it's like what your paintings about. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, but it's like that. And I'm not saying that's what you asked, but it's like, is that or like where the colors come from? Or what's the composition? They're all spinning in my head when I make it, they spin in my head afterwards. It kind of reaches a harmony that sits to make, oh, okay, it's finished. You can go in the world, out in the world. I think I like peppering enough information that's, I mean, people describe things in the London show as being, you know, they're semi-figurative, but they're recessive, but then they're, but then the handle, they're now strapped waist as a kind of, it's quite intriguing getting different people, not all of them artists, but people who make very different things and have a specific way of knowing their own technique, kind of being confronted by something I've made half, also not knowing how I've made it to then kind of analyze it. So I think, you know, there's always a bit of mystery, a bit of fog maybe in the work.

David Auborn 31:05
Yeah.

Daniel Pettitt 31:05
Yeah, definitely, which was maybe that was a foggy answer, but foggy answer is a good answer.

David Auborn 31:12
that's the truth. Or maybe we could talk about, in terms of the titling of the paintings, there's a continuity in the crop rotations which, oh for me anyway, there's a there's a nod to kind of the agriculture side of things but there's also like a crop rotate kind of digital world that it kind of nods to as well.

Yeah maybe you could talk about that particular titling of painting.

Daniel Pettitt 31:47
We always find titling quite difficult as trying to write an email the other day to someone who commented on one of the shows who said, you know, I just looked at the work and didn't look at the title. I didn't want the signs the titles are giving me.

Yeah. And it's like, well, yeah, titles are kind of the embarrassing. Yes, I do want two pints, but it's almost like it's either too much information or not enough. I find untitled kind of inadequate, not that I haven't titled things that myself. The crop rotations, which are about 35 or 40 now are kind of a series that did begin at the Royal College. And you're right, there's a kind of, you know, agriculture thing of rotating the actual thing and rotating your crop, you change it, you leave something fallow. I quite like that. Within a painting, certain things are in fallow, certain things come back. It's a kind of philosophical attitude as well, which escapes me at this exact moment that I'm speaking. It's incredibly embarrassing to have to edit it out, but that idea of a kind of, it's not fixed or something, you know, something will perish, something will change, you know, kind of topographical thing in a way, like the paintings are almost, again, saying that kind of clarifies some things for me, like the paintings, the viewpoint is either kind of frontal or bird's eye, or there's a different kind of a way of looking that to me, they don't all feel flat, but then they are all very flat, but then there could be a kind of up, down side, oblique quality, and that you look at pictures of fields, they kind of are, like it's an unconscious thing of segregation, hedgerows, you know, I guess you can't escape some landscape comparison as a British painter, but it's, you know, I guess that kind of titling sequence is a bit of a tongue in cheek acknowledgement to that too.

Also, it's probably a kind of homage to art and language paintings, a series of works called like Hostage Paintings, and more recent ones called Sea Ghosts that I think is hostage, it's like an anagram of hostage, but that idea of, you know, you're making not necessarily things that look similar, but they're kind of bracketed in the same field, but not so I haven't called, I've deviated from titles, you know, the crop rotation, not every single painting is a crop rotation, it's also something to come back to, but that is also potentially confusing if people wanted, you want to kind of read a continuity, or that one's not a crop rotation, but it's the same handling, you know, so I mean, titles, it would be nice if it's just about the work, I find often artists to artists, titles are kind of the last thing you talk about, you admit it, so it's a bit like it's not the be all and the end all, like, you know, some people go into a show, it's like how big is it, or what's it painted, or what's it called, and then what is it, you know, certain American painters who judge their work by size first, and come down from that, like, okay, what are you comparing?

David Auborn 34:59
So there isn't there isn't necessarily a reasoning for a painting becoming a crop rotation a painting becoming Another title

Daniel Pettitt 35:08
I like the idea of if only for my lack of neatness in how they're made and how I go about thinking that they're pinned together, they're pinned under a certain umbrella and if that is a series I don't mind that but again I think if I forgot all my titles tomorrow I don't think I'd really, I wouldn't feel a loss. It has some kind of painting amnesia and I can't remember what they were called.

I think I'd happily wave them away.

David Auborn 35:40
talking of pinning there's we've got this door to our left there's like a totem of your left pinned yeah stencils looks like yeah

Daniel Pettitt 35:52
Is it? It could be.

I think that's something I did out like all good things out of necessity in the previous studio in Hoxton. I had some sheets of board and some lengths of wood and it and but the walls were brick so I couldn't pin anything up so it became oh here's something soft to pin something to but it is essentially how I work there is an overlay there's a repetition there's a kind of you know you can things penetrate and you can see same color shift the same touch things come from different periods as well I mean now they do have the potential to be work but I don't know if it'd have to just be you'd have to make quite a bold move and just have this is a show of this kind of work yeah for sure which again I'm suspicious of I couldn't bolster up a show with that here's some paintings here's something on the floor here's something else yes it's funny like incidental things probably hold as much knowledge and decision as something very labored hmm and often it's the same you know with color or touch I might have a certain certain application in mind for a certain painting but it'll often be the kind of dirty canvas to the side yeah that'll clean my brush and or empty the things on that is much more exciting the next week and they all kind of all the paintings need to get off and go through that attention and neglect it's kind of a push and pull yeah so yeah things pinned up together I've done it where I pinned them on the wall too and it's kind of funny that people again from kind of different walks of creativity have come in and kind of been really drawn to the things on the wall that's just that's just out of convenience but I did that at the Royal College too and again I think only saying it reminds me people commented on them yeah which makes me very suspicious of pursuing something when people approve it yeah it's the same as someone coming in like you have now and you've seen things that are not finished yeah and you could easily say they're all finished and that would be a compliment but also massively deraille me so it's that difficulty of when how much cooking does something need and then when do you show people and it's about space to again seeing you know even clearing one wall in this room and standing way back you can't really get a feel for a painting it's only needs to be sadly in a kind of white box or yeah an open space to actually appreciate it and that's what's happened in these shows I've been able for the first time to really look at things that are brand new and things that are also quite old hmm and see that they are you know that is a painting yeah I'll stand by that and I'll continue to stand by there's a reason I made that I see it again

David Auborn 38:31
did anything surprise you or anything that was highlighted to you when you saw all of the paintings together?

Daniel Pettitt 38:40
Uh, specifically with Bath or London.

David Auborn 38:42
Either, either of them really. Yeah, you mentioned that it's not until you, you know, you see these paintings in a room, you realise certain things about the work.

Daniel Pettitt 38:51
London. I mean you've seen the London shows so maybe that's better to come yeah sure to touch on that.

I mean what one of them was made was made partly with a view to the space in which they're shown it's like a kind of slightly domestic scale so the very the very large painting fits just just brushes the concrete floor and touches the kind of very wibbly ceiling. Again and oddly the space of the gallery is probably almost the same square footage as the room we're in if this room were empty so maybe that's an unconscious nod to making something having a difficulty viewing it because this is a very big painting but it's not got them it's not been given the most generous amount of room to stand back nevertheless you can still see it so maybe that was a kind of different tangent of presentation. Other things were made not with the expectation they'd be shown together or shown in that space yeah but it is like seeing something new again like the thing that excites you in the making because you're often right up in in the front of what you're making and where you can stand back without treading on a teabag or falling over or knocking over a paint pot like the kind of annoying things that happen in here. Yeah I mean each time I've been back to the gallery it feels like this looks like a show this looks like my work and I stand by it's funny like very like basic motivation I think but you can do this but you know I recognize I made it it was funny after the show different people have commented it seems to be like people drawn I think how many paintings are there one two three five five works in that show there are five works yes yeah and often people commented on one or two but often the same one or two so people that almost made pairs and they might or that touch of that looks like that and then I really love the red one it's kind of funny how so I enjoy the kind of divisive quality of it again not as a campaign you think well I recognize the difference in them because they're made at different times or with different things in mind to some extent or even different paint you know oil there's oil in there as acrylic there's encore stick there's essentially drawing really on a canvas like chalk and crayon hmm so it's kind of you know it's it's as much painting and drawing as you can get in a painting yeah so I quite like that that it's kind of split opinion you know it wasn't oh you made five for the same looking thing really well done would really like I don't know I hang up hang up my shoes my painting

David Auborn 41:26
Yeah, I was going to ask you how you deal with, when you have a show and all these opinions can come your way. If you're open to them and how you deal with what I imagine to be quite a vast range of insights or, I'm not sorry, insights but more opinion.

Daniel Pettitt 41:47
I suppose in half the people that come to a show, probably people that have seen things in progress when you're friends, you know, they've come to the studio, so it's not a complete like reveal. But I think coming back to what you said asked before, it's a bit like the work's been given our space to stand on its own two legs and be a show. And often when I've shown a painting, I'm kind of done with it in the best sense. I stand by it, here it is, I could wrap it up and never see it again, I could sell it, I could destroy it in theory. I think there's a kind of mental barrier that I need to get past once something's been shown. It's not about validation, or it is for me, my own validation that that's held its own. I stand by it. I don't mind if people hate it, if they love it, it's done its job.

It might continue to do its job forever, it might have only done its job once, which makes me think of something I'm looking up on the shelf, this blue and brown, that was in a museum show in Sheffield. And that was kind of made slightly with not enough time and with a view to putting it into a very specific show. And there's a reason it's rolled up. It looked fine, but I went to that show when it was up, and there were people walking around with a list of works. And the show is called Heads Roll, it was basically about portraits, of which a large feather could be a portrait. But I remember all these people looking at the list and looking, oh, okay, that's number three. I don't know what it is or why it's here, but it's here to make us think, isn't it? I guess that, yeah. I mean, I'm not confident enough to have tapped them on the shoulder or had a funny conversation about it. But I wasn't bothered. I mean, I think it's fair enough. I think with anything, music, whatever you make, and you stand by it and you make the effort to put it out there, you should take everything that comes at it. And if you capitulate, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. There's obviously definitely grains of truth and criticism, but it's like, again, recognizing that. And it's the same with a painting show. I think even your good best friends might have nothing to say to you about it, but it's like a blip in time. Or it says more about them than it does about you. It's not that any of that's happened, but it's making a scenario that someone will then ask about. But yeah, and I think shows are definitely like a hurdle to do, and the work is ratified just for me.

David Auborn 44:21
Yeah. Um, how are you?

Well, you, you may answer this quite easily. Um, how do you find that the time after a show, um, so all the works kind of lead the studio. Um, and yeah, and you're back in here. How do you then, is, do you then hit the ground kind of running? Do you feel like the, the momentum hasn't really stopped or?

Daniel Pettitt 44:49
I probably would hit the ground running if there was ground to a hit, but there's obviously enough stuff left over that didn't make the show. I think I feel optimistic after a show, I think. So not that I'd then come in and repeat or couldn't remake something that's in the show, but having had time to dwell on it, look at it, recognize that that's a good painting for these reasons for me. Yeah, I feel a bit more empowered to kind of make more choices, more quickly maybe.

But often that will fizzle out not through a kind of lack of confidence, but just the natural thing of needing several things at once. And then you're obviously diverted by other aspects of life. It's not like if I had every day in here for a month after a show, you'd probably get another show's worth of work coming out. So I think the stop start thing is a kind of inevitable reality. And as I said, either work very slowly or very quickly. And it's often as a marriage of the two. So these things here that have kind of color grounds on them will probably have a one sitting, something happening on top. At the minute, they have to kick around here as these slightly awkward things that I don't want to look at you, but I can't really put you anywhere because there's nowhere to put you. So it's more like dreading the work coming back from a show for a practicality of space. There are two shows worth of things not here, minus one thing in Munich. That's going to double up. The storage there will double up, but you just have to roll it up, cut it up. That's another reality of making things I think because you're making things that don't serve a functional purpose. And unless you're selling everything out of the studio, Mugen is going to come back. I think, yeah, facing up to that, it's not precious. It's doing a job.

It's for a show. You can roll it up if you want to keep it, but those are valuable stretches. You kind of need to use them again. They are valuable in there.

David Auborn 46:48
So when the work comes back, you talked about maybe recycling the work, do you recycle the canvases or is it just the stretches that you recycle?

Daniel Pettitt 47:03
probably the stretches to start with but I'll often I'll often keep the canvas and then eventually cut it up to kind of extract certain bits that then become more material that become collage fodder or I think of using the kind of canvas as a stencil for something completely different image but again it definitely takes a while there's things I found from like before the Royal College that they're not good but it's like I need to look at that yeah but then that said very gradually you know a razor blade will find its way and I'll destroy it so it can't exist I'll put into two different bin bags I'll put into two different bins it won't resurface but that's a very slow thing for me so stretches at first just get get something back to stretch up and get on with and then a bit more gestation with kind of the roll dot works

David Auborn 47:52
There's so much material around on the floor. It seems like... And I've tidied it up, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. No, but it's exciting. And I don't really know where to start with.

Daniel Pettitt 48:03
can pick things out if we want a kind of visual audio tour of the...

David Auborn 48:07
Yeah, so there's this cork kind of starred emblem on your floor. Was that was because he made an art. You said he made an iron work. Let's work.

Daniel Pettitt 48:18
Yeah, that was a contender that didn't go to Munich, but I mean, at the minute, there are only two lead pieces, but they're kind of lead over cork, which the compositions are loosely based on preexisting paintings. It's a bit like doing what I said it would be. Yeah, it's a bit like paintings are kind of immersion collages and drawings. So the lead works are somewhere kind of freak in between where they've come off the painting. So scale and composition have kind of been defined previously.

And then, okay, I'll make a kind of funny emblem. It's a bit, you know, a bit like a heraldic shield, kind of like a homogenous surface. I'm not describing it well, because the lead is quite new for you. It has potential, I think, a different kind, you know, it's not painting, but it's a painterly intention. Not so I couldn't paint on the lead, you know, it's kind of, it's only as you say, you begin to think of different avenues to go down, but I couldn't, I'm not just going to make one kind of work. I need kind of a lead thing over there, a painting over there. I like to move between things all the time.

I think from a kind of consistent output, I have to be inconsistent in the number of things I'm working on. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, exactly. Hence the stuff on the floor. And those photocopies and even that paint to change color since we've been here. Yeah, yeah, I've noticed. Because the ground is quite biscuity, kind of gesso. Back to cooking, I guess, but they're right kind of surface. Yeah.

David Auborn 49:44
Which kind of leads quite nicely into what I wanted to ask you as well, what's next for you with the work? Or have you got anything coming up?

Daniel Pettitt 49:55
Not at the minute. I mean the London show is on until the middle of October so I suppose that's another answer to the earlier question that once it shows up you want people to see it.

There's a degree of like telling people you know it's on you know and those people might be people you've worked with there might be slightly more industry people to go down that road so it's a bit like I put this effort in. It's in London, you're in London, let's get together, kind of but not like again back to people you might trust that people might have worked with but you stayed on friendly terms I think anything like that should be sincere like you could bombard every gallery in the whole world with the best painting but if you don't approach if you don't make the right approach you know as I say that talking ideal situations where someone who might have some degree of interest comes along and that sparks another show that's pretty the best thing to happen off the back of these shows is someone seen it which brings you into a conversation with needn't be a gallery it could be a curator it could be I don't know someone completely different field literature whoever I think extending the conversation I think is something that isn't really not really said at art schools like you are brought together but they doesn't really tell you you need each other like yeah it's a person to elect because you need them in your life like you need a core group of people and you need to be open to all the other people that you'll come across so I think I suppose for artists who essentially make things in or painters who make things in private this show is a public face so you might as well embrace is there for all to see get all to see yeah and hopefully something comes for you yeah but in terms of what's next I mean nothing nothing show-wise I mean

David Auborn 51:41
I mean, you can be forgiven for saying not much.

Daniel Pettitt 51:44
I mean, well, there might be something but it's not been confirmed. It's like a rumor. So maybe another show but not but maybe

David Auborn 51:56
So I think it's time to ask you the final two questions if you're ready go for it So the first question is if you could swap Seats with me and visit any artists studio living or dead. Mm-hmm Who would you visit and what would you what might you ask them?

Daniel Pettitt 52:20
That's a bomb, isn't it?

David Auborn 52:24
The reactions to this question have been...

Daniel Pettitt 52:27
But do you want a kind of explosive reaction or a kind of... Either. I've only ever reached the 20th century book of art.

David Auborn 52:38
breathe through or maybe to make it a little bit easier in terms of where the work where the works at now

Daniel Pettitt 52:45
No, I'd like to answer you, but I think I suppose someone dead, you can entertain the romance that they'll be the most fascinating person you'd ever know. True.

Like, I wonder what Marsden Hartley's studio was like, but he might have been, you maybe couldn't look you in the eye and you'd have no conversation. Yeah. So I'd like the idea, but I don't think the reality would match up somehow if it was Marsden Hartley or... Yeah, I don't know, it's difficult because you're like, what's your favorite band? All of them. No, maybe Marsden Hartley, it'd be funny to see Julian Schnabel's studio for different reasons. Maybe, yeah. Also, I don't know, maybe they just wouldn't want to go and see anyone, I don't want to. But if I was you, if I was you, I'd be like, quick, Jasper Johns, he's going to die soon, hurry up. There's not really anyone left, is there? No. Rosenquest, Rauschenberg, Bob Law would be quite good to talk to, but I think he'd probably be a real prick, so... Could be implicit. So again, it's like, I think that if someone's dead, you can really romance the idea of they're working in the country, da-da-da-da-da, but I think it might be much less convivial.

So to answer and answer your question, all of those names. Great. Okay.

David Auborn 54:09
That's fine. That's fine.

Daniel Pettitt 54:12
It's as good an answer as any. It's really not fine, but it's fine. It's a good answer. You could put a call out.

David Auborn 54:19
And the last question is, a little bit easier, has there been a piece of advice someone's given you or just something in general that someone's said in terms of your artwork maybe that has kind of stuck with you and has carried through?

Daniel Pettitt 54:47
I want to say yes, but I can't remember. No, I have a terrible short term memory.

I think often to broaden out, I'm often surprised at how complimentary people are for different reasons. So I think, again, I can't go into specifics, but it feels like certain touch color actually, color comes up quite a lot from lots of different people. Like, oh, you have an innate color sensibility or things that don't, that sounds kind of pompous, but things that I don't recognize, like that's just how I paint. So I think from, again, from people who are sculptors, people who are painters, so people from different walks have kind of come back to color actually, which I think essentially for painting is probably quite important. There might not be in the forefront of my mind every time I'm making, but I do find it quite kind of boosting that, okay, like I kind of have got a handle on this and people are recognizing it. So there's not been one kind of grandfatherly person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and that the works are different as well actually to come back to something someone did say, that they all look different, which quite pleases me. Because again, they're not set out to be like that, but then I couldn't be consistent to appease that. So I quite like that they're divisive. Again, back to thinking about the London show, people are lighting on maybe one or two, but not the whole group. So yeah, they're different and the color is quite good.

I'm gonna cry.

David Auborn 56:15
that's that's fine and I should ask although we have been talking about all the shows if you've got anything to plug but maybe you could mention where the shows are yes when they're close show

Daniel Pettitt 56:29
The show in Bath that's finished today on the 25th of September 2019 was at the Roper Gallery at Bath Artist Studios. The show Munich, which is called Dark Lantern, is on at Sabine Kunst and the show in London is at Palfry and that's Granite and Rainbow and that's on until the 12th of October 2019.

It's on during freeze, so that's like a proper radio plug. Of course, this will come out afterwards and it will not be dated. Hopefully not. Hopefully not. I can't. I think it's important to put the date. That's the other thing you're not told. Put dates on your posters. Because when was the 25th of September? What year? Mark time. Because you'll be dead and then someone needs to check on it. Or you'll forget and you need to remember. When a situation like this comes up and I'm not prepped, because I can't quite reach the 20th century heartbreak, we'll do a footnote. Can you put footnotes down? Yeah, I can put footnotes. For a reading list. I can put footnotes. Like in our time. Yeah. A reading list is available.

David Auborn 57:30
Yeah, I can put whatever you like in the notes bit.

Daniel Pettitt 57:34
yeah there's things I didn't answer well. I can keep that in there. Cheers Dan. Thanks Dave. Cheers. Bye.

David Auborn 58:00
So thank you very much for listening to us all the way through. Please find more information about what was discussed on the podcast in the notes section.

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David Auborn is an artist based in London and host of the To The Studio podcast.

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