 ohn Beech has become well known for his manipulation of functional objects, creating the surprising out of the mundane. His greatest interest is in ordinary articles, things we normally overlook in our everyday lives such as car floor mats and rubbish dumpsters, which he interacts with other materials in order for us to reevaluate their aesthetic and physical appeal. Often he uses monochromatic photographs of the chosen subjects in situ, the shapes of which are then painted over with blocks of pure enamel colour, instantly lending them presence and bold grandeur. His sculptures likewise encorporate ready made objects which are modified into surprising and sometimes humorous compositions of shape and colour.
Born in 1964 in England, Beech moved to California with his family as a teenager, and went on to study for a BA at the University of California where he graduated in 1986. He initially studied architecture there, but was always passionate about painting and scuplture and by his last year was focusing on these entirely. His career as a professional artist picked up steadily after his first show at the Southern Exposure gallery in in 1989, in San Francisco where he was working. This was followed by a residency at the Chinati Foundation in Texas and then several solo shows in California and across the United States, as well as many group exhibitions. In 1996 he moved to New York and had work exhibited internationally as well as in museums in the USA, such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work is now in several private and public collections across the world including the Kunstmuseum in Basel and the Stiftung fuer Konkrete Kunst in Reutlingen, Germany. He has representation from numerous galleries in Europe and America, in particular Peter Blum in New York, the city where he continues to work from his Brooklyn studio.
Art Interview: Can you tell me what it was like for you growing up?
John Beech: I grew up near Winchester in England. My father worked as a computer scientist. My mother was involved in theatre and taught classes in public oration. She produced local plays in southern England. We stored stage set props in an old brick stable in the garden. I was certainly surrounded by an interest in a wide array of things. My father is also a musician and played the clarinet and piano, and now that he has retired he has put music on the front burner. My parents go to a lot of classical and jazz concerts. Music has always been a big part of their lives. My sister proved early on to be a real piano talent so I naturally never touched it. My mother also has always made paintings on paper, mainly landscapes. Fossil collecting, both from our garden and the slate cliffs at Kimmeridge, was an early fascination of mine. At 17 the whole family moved to California, into the midst of Silicon Valley.
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John Beech
Manhattan Dumpster Drawing
1999
Enamel on black and white photographs mounted on aluminium panel
Courtesy of the artist
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Art Interview: Did your parents encourage you to become an artist?
John Beech: They were relaxed about it ….yes, encouragement in that I always felt a value they associated with creative pursuits. We had Ben Nicholson books in the house, along with Lowry and Klee framed reproductions. My parents were realistic though, and had questions like, ”How will you manage to keep making art and support yourself?”. But these questions came up later really, when I was in my first year of college in California.
Art Interview: Why did you choose to study art?
John Beech: I went to the University of California at Berkeley, and I was actually in the architecture department there, but I was simultaneously taking art classes. For me, the architectural courses were a half step into the arts. I put myself in a field I had interest in, but it took a while to acknowledge that I really wanted to be a painter and sculptor. I bought some catalogues at a garage sale of Tapiès and Oldenburg’s ‘Notes in Hand’ along with ‘Poets of the Cities’ about the Beat era. This coupled with visits to the Berkeley Art Museum became my self-education.
Art Interview: Did you have to work while attending university?
John Beech: I did, but not a great deal. I had a one afternoon a week house-painting job in the East Bay Area. I also did a couple of night jobs working in copy centers, printing, collating papers for books, that sort of thing.
Art Interview: Did you have professors that you would say had some influence on you?
John Beech: Certainly, but being at Berkeley, one of the great things was I was not just in the art department, so I took classes in a range of departments, and that contributed to getting a wider education than if I’d strictly been in art school. There was a painter in the art department, David Simpson, who seemed to pay particular attention to what I was doing, although I was searching around for things. I was experimenting with works that resembled and were influenced by artists at the time of the early 1980’s. There was my Anselm Kiefer period, and probably a couple of Julian Schnabel attempts in there. David Simpson is a reductive minimal painter, and I think some of his influence caught up with me a little later. There were others, Peter Voulkos, the renowned ceramicists. His greatest influence was his presence. He showed up rarely, but when he did, he had an aura about him that you recognized, this is a person who doesn’t live how most people live.
Art Interview: Did you have the intention of becoming a professional artist after your graduation?
John Beech: Yes, in fact I took a trip to Europe and Morocco the summer before my last year of college and on that trip I visited the city of Fez, and something about that experience really tipped the scale for me. When I went back to California for my last year of college, I dropped architecture entirely and focused on painting. Fez combined the serene beauty of the old Medina, the Muslim call to prayer from the minarets’ loudspeakers, the fabric dying baths, with an urgent energy and a feeling of living in the moment. The hectic activity of this ancient city seemed in contrast to its age and had a very strong impact on me as a 21 year old.
Art Interview: When you came back, how did you approach starting a career as an artist?
This oral history transcript is the result of a digitally recorded interview with John Beech on September 6, 2007. The interview took place over the telephone between Berlin, Germany, and Brooklyn, New York, USA and was conducted by Brendan Davis for Art Interview Online Magazine. The introductory text was written by Lydia Ward. |
