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FERVOR DIALOGUES: ELIZABETH ROSE LANGFORD

Elizabeth Rose Langford is a British painter living and working in Ibiza. Her practice engages with the inherent systems of natural materials, using traditional methods to extract colour from organic matter and craft natural pigments. She talks to FERVOR about foraging, aliveness, and conversations without words.

Is there an initial impulse that sparks a piece of work for you?

Initially it’s the desire to obscure the blank canvas. I think that’s a very strong desire for lots of painters. And it’s also fun to make a mess. The first thing I do probably is make a mess. And that’s great, I love that. I really enjoy the energy of the initial outburst, and I wish to keep that energy alive. Looking at some of the more ‘resolved’ paintings in my studio, sometimes I think they lose a bit of the energy when I use too many layers. For me, abstraction is easier to maintain that energy. In figuration, it’s really hard.

Is there a thread that runs through your work?

I’ve been working with natural pigments for ten years; it's quite a long time now. Since working with natural pigments, I suppose they have been my anchor. Sometimes you get a bit cross with an anchor, because it keeps you in one place in a way, but they’ve been a necessary anchor, and they do help. I think that's the thread that will run through the work, and that will always remain. The way that they are manifest might be different, but it'll always be the pigments that begin the process.

How has your relationship with natural pigments evolved?

I started collaborating with my then partner, and his father is a professor of pigments and Renaissance materials, and he kind of tutored us. During the time that we were working together, I learnt a lot from them. I was very lucky to be privy to all of that. Just like with any process, there are lots of rules around pigment making — there’s a perfect way of processing madder, or there’s a perfect way of processing an ochre. Since I've been working on my own, I’m breaking the rules, perhaps. I’m not doing it perfectly, but I feel as though I’m finding my own relationship with pigments. And also in a way, with art history — which I think is a big one for me and for lots of artists — that thing of situating yourself in this huge canon and asking where one belongs. We’re at a point where everything feels like it's happened, and so you're trying to find a new way. For me, it's a lot about returning to something, and trying to carve a new path for myself at the same time.

Do you have a sense that the materials you are using have their own agency?

I absolutely believe that the materials have their own agency. For me that is extremely evident in natural materials because they’re always different. An ochre is never the same because it’s made up of organic matter. Also, when you’re grinding, because it's a human hand, it’s never going to be the same as a mechanical process, and the particles are never going to be uniform. It’s always going to be a bit chaotic, and because of that, when you paint with those particles that are not uniform, they reflect light differently to uniform paint. So for me, it’s alive in a different way.

Can you describe the principles of your practice?

Something that I like about working with natural materials is that I don't think they'll ever do any harm. I like the idea that these paintings bring something good, hopefully, and that in a material sense as well, their making didn’t cause any harm. That's very important to me. The red ochre and the yellow ochre that I'm using are from Ibiza, and I think that when you see the paintings here, they have a harmony with their surroundings because it’s about working with the island directly, in that sense. I’m quite careful not to take too much of the raw material from any one place. I want to not impinge on the landscape in any way. I’d like to celebrate the landscape.

How does this translate into your painting process?

I feel that when it comes to the painting process, you don’t really have to do very much because the pigments are doing so much. The best you can do is just give them the opportunity to do what they need to do. It's about getting yourself out of the way so that things can happen. It’s really hard to get out of the way, but I think that’s the desire. I feel that if I’m painting well, then I hope I would just be creating the right circumstances for the pigments and the subject matter to reveal themselves, and allowing them to take whatever path they need to take.

How do you relate to the natural environment?

It’s a very dynamic relationship. It’s integral. I need to be around nature as much as I can, that’s where I get resourced. I was reading recently about the concept of the Sublime, and that feeling of awe in nature, and of your correct place in the scheme of things. That’s what I experience in the natural world — particularly in very vast, immense landscapes or those that are untouched by humans. I feel like my experience of this awe is where I’m no longer tethered to the body, I just sort of merge with the sea, or with the sky, or with the landscape. And then of course there are the pigments... In the red ochre, the red comes from iron, and iron is in our blood. I think there’s something about that — that we are the matter somehow, and that it’s part of us.

Can you share some of the inspirations within your artistic practice?

There was a point where I was obsessed with cave painting, because that felt like the beginning of painting. Seeing these ancient technologies of how people were processing pigments, that’s not dissimilar to how I’m processing my pigments. When you look at cave paintings, there’s something so humbling, and it moves me deeply because it’s like another human saying, ‘I was here.’ Often the cave paintings are handprints, and that’s so real, and you can feel it — like a hand reaching out through history. It’s something so simple in a sense — that hand has touched that rock — but so strong, and so visceral. The paintings that move me the most are the ones where you see the artist in that very physical way. I think that’s what painting is. It’s like saying, ‘I’m a human, too.’ And then if somebody relates to it, it’s lovely because it’s like a conversation without words.

What does painting mean to you?

I think painting is very romantic and a bit hopeless — it’s a crazy thing to do in lots of ways. But that appeals to me somehow. It doesn’t matter at all, but it matters so much. It’s like that paradox. For me, it’s trying to give meaning to things. Painting, drawing and making in this way on a surface gives meaning to life for me. It’s the way that I can make sense of the world and things that happen. I think it’s impossible to lie when you’re making a mark. Somehow, without thinking, things fall into place when I’m drawing. I'll make a particular mark, and then something that happens in my life outside of the studio falls into place, and I realise something that I could never have realised in another way. It’s some kind of ordering that visual representation allows for me. I’ve always had a bit of a delicate relationship with reality. Reality is a very slippery fish, because the moment you think you’ve grasped it, it sort of evades you. But I think that the process of making is a way of trying to define your reality. It’s trying to say, ‘This is how I see the world.’ And that comes back to what I was saying about why it’s moving when somebody identifies with your work, or when you identify with somebody else’s work. Because it’s like a way of saying, ‘I see you.’ Otherwise, it can be quite a lonely experience being a human. But when somebody else says, ‘I see that too,’ it’s beautiful. It’s like the hand on the cave wall.

Is there a distinction between your everyday life and your world inside the studio?

Yes, and it takes a while to disconnect from the outside world, and go into the painting world, because they’re quite different places. Then once I’m there, I want to stay in it. It’s a nice space to be in, because the brain isn’t involved. It’s not intellectual, it’s very bodily for me. And paint is very visceral. As a material, I always think it’s quite sensual. The painting world has a different sort of logic and a different sort of sense-making. For want of a better word, I suppose it’s flow. When you’re really in that space, there’ll be a moment where you’re like, ‘Well, there's no other colour that could possibly go there apart from indigo, and of course, this mark has to go like that.’ It’s a kind of madness, for that to be the truth — but you create this world where that matters so much, and where it just has to be indigo. And it takes a while to enter into that way of seeing.

What have you discovered through your creative process?

I think I’ve discovered tenderness, and care, because the paintings demand different treatment at different times. It’s a listening and an attentiveness to what they need. I’ve learnt that through painting, and I think there’s so much more to learn. The possibilities are endless, which is wonderful and terrible. It’s so overwhelming. There’s so much to discover. It took me a long time to believe that I was an artist. I always wanted to be an artist, but I also had this sense that it wasn’t something that you just got to be. That there was a rigour to being an artist, a dedication that it requires — and I think I’m starting to learn what that is, slowly. It feels like a long road. It’s not like a job, you don’t retire. It’s forever. It’s just a way of being, it’s a way of moving through the world. But that gives me a lot of hope as well, for the discoveries that are still to come.

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