Paul McGillick: Alright, well why don't we just start at the beginning and just give me a little background about your life?
Andrew Christofides: Well, I was born in Cyprus. My father came out when I was four, to Sydney. My mother, sister, brother and I came out a year after, which was the way things were done in those days. We went to Sydney first for a year and then went down to Wollongong. So I grew up in Wollongong until I was 20 and then I came up to Sydney. I was in Sydney then, down to Canberra, then overseas for eight years.
Paul McGillick: When you said you went overseas for eight years, were you already a practising artist when that happened?
Andrew Christofides: No, I was practicing because I'd been, I'd already drawn and painted ever since I could remember, but I wouldn't call myself a practicing artist because I always saw myself as an amateur. But serious about it. And when I went to Canberra at the beginning of '72, I remember being part of the Canberra Art Society, which I think was a fairly amateurish society, but I took it very seriously and I was involved in little exhibitions and competitions and so forth.
But at that point, I was really starting to feel the need to do something other than what I was doing, which was economics.
Paul McGillick: So what took you overseas?
Andrew Christofides: Well, I remember the time exactly. At that time, I was working with the Industry's Assistance Commission and they're what was called the old Tariff Board, and we'd done some research for protection of one of the big industries. And I think we'd been working on it for three months, my office was in the corner, and it was a Friday afternoon in Canberra, in summer, and I remember how incredibly boring Canberra was at that time. I looked out the window, and I literally said to myself, "I've got to get out of here."
So I went in next door to my boss and I said, "My father's had a heart attack." He said, "Go," and I did and I never went back. So it was more a sense of "I needed to get out of the place." I wasn't thinking of going overseas to see art, or I didn't even know where I was going to go.
Paul McGillick: So what did you do for those eight years?
Andrew Christofides: Well, the first thing I did was I went to Cyprus, which is where my father was living and I was there for about six months. I thought, "Well, I can't just sit in Cyprus going from one town to the other visiting relatives". I did some painting in Cyprus. In fact, what I packed was my paints and brushes.
So I set about applying to go to London to do a post-graduate degree in Master in Economics. I wanted to do international economics. I got into Birkbeck College in London. I, then, went over to finalize the entrance enrollment details and then I was going to go back to Cyprus and pick up my things and then come over.
But, in the meantime, there was the Turkish invasion and there was civil strife, I couldn't go back to Cyprus, so I stayed on in London. But I was going through the...What do they call it? The Royal Academy Summer Show at that time.
And as much as I think of that working in hindsight, I've never liked the Royal Academy Summer Show. At the time, I thought, "Wow, This is fantastic," and I thought, "I can do this." So I applied to an art school, got into Byam Shaw, and that's when I started to be an art student and that was the middle of '74.
Paul McGillick: I'm glad you said that because what I wanted to ask you next was the pathway to being an painter. So what was your pathway to being a painter?
Andrew Christofides: Well, I rang about, and when I got into Byam Shaw, they said, "Yes, come in and mm, come in and we'll do an interview. Bring in a portfolio." I didn't have a portfolio. So my uncle at that time had a delicatessen in a place called "Park" ... in Camden Town.
Across the road was a very famous, old paint supplies called Roberson's. I went and bought materials. My uncle had a spare room upstairs. I worked for two weeks making drawings and various things. And I took the portfolio in and they said, "Yes, fine."
So I was at Byam Shaw, which was focused very heavily on drawing. So at that end of that year, that was called a foundation year, I then applied to Chelsea School of Art, got into Chelsea, and then I did my three undergraduate years at Chelsea and came out with an honors degree.
Paul McGillick: Of course, it's often said that
Andrew Christofides: Well, no, that's quite interesting because many years after I came back, one of my relatives said, "Oh, you were always talking about abstract art when you were younger." They said they didn't understand what it was and I'm not sure if I understood what it was either, but I do remember before I left Australia, I was really keen on Paul Klee and I was looking at a lot of Paul Klee.
And I read about Picasso, and you, kind of, build up these fantasies in your head about what you're going to do. So no, I was fairly, fairly interested in abstract painting. I'd read something about it. I'm not sure if I understood what the latest trends were. I remember when I was still living in Sydney, going and seeing the show, "Two Decades of American Art," I think it was called. It was around '67, '68. While I don't think I understood it all, it really had an impression on me and I've still got the catalogue to that upstairs.
Paul McGillick: Now, talking about abstraction, can I ask you what your understanding of abstraction is?
Andrew Christofides: Well, I think all art is abstract because it does take from the real world and in the end, an artwork is not the same as the real world, it's a manipulation thereof. So everything is abstract, from a Raphael down to the most minimal piece of work. And I fit within a wide range of that notion of abstraction.
Hence, I can justifiably say that I'm passionate about Renaissance painting, which I think is abstract, and what I do and Paul Klee and Max Bill, a wide range of types of abstraction, so.
Paul McGillick: You keep anticipating all the questions I'm going to ask you because [laughs] the next question was this, that "There's an argument," and clearly I wouldn't be saying this if it wasn't my argument, "There's an argument that there's actually no distinction, really, fundamentally, to be made between abstraction and representation or figuration. That they are fundamentally about the same things." Would you agree with this?
Andrew Christofides: Oh, look, yes. I was in a show many years ago and the essay was written by a very well-known English writer, Norbert Lynton and what he said, and I totally agree with this, that abstraction is just one end of, if you like, what we understand as abstraction now, one end of representation.
For me, there is abstraction, which is essentially representation and then outside of that is something called concrete art. Even now, I think concrete art has a problem being purely concrete in the sense that it has no reference to the real world. So for me, there's concrete art and there's abstraction. Abstraction is made up of pure representation, call it mimicking the world, or very abstract work like I do, but I think it's essentially representational. But beyond that is concrete art.
Paul McGillick: So I guess if we look at all of abstract painters, they all in a sense start from a response to the phenomenal world. But what's interesting, I guess, is what happens, what transformations take place when you look out at on the phenomenal world and you come out ... come back with an abstract form. Are you able to talk a little bit about that process because you must have some of the same responses, responding to what you see?
Andrew Christofides: Yeah, I think that relationship is quite complex. I think that everybody's an individual and therefore, they respond to the world in a particular way. The way they respond to the world is dependent on individuality and what they know about the real world and their degree of sophistication, but also, it's dependent on where one sits within the framework of the traditions of painting.
I think my understanding of the real world largely or significantly comes from my understanding of the history of painting because I am wanting to add to that. When I try to add to that, I try and interpret the world in a way that comes out of that. So, I imagine that, that sort of interpretation would be different if I was an individual that came out of some other field, i.e., economics or engineering or something like that.
So, I think different types of people view the world differently, and then, they translate them in particular ways.
Paul McGillick: Now you revisited Cyprus in 1995 and I think that was a kind of watershed for you. Can you tell me a little bit about the significance of that return visit to Cyprus.
Andrew Christofides: Yeah. I went back to Cyprus in '74. And that was interesting because I realized that I loved the place, and I just settled straight back into it, and I felt quite comfortable with the language and so forth, even though I'd never really spoken Greek here.
When I went back in '95, though, I went back with my daughter and wife. And when you have a child, the interesting thing is you want to show them things, and you try and find out the things that are important to you.
And My daughter was really enthused about Cyprus. She was quite impressed by the fact that I'd come from a place that had this amazing history. When you see things through a child's eyes, I think it's kind of different. I'm very enthusiastic about Cyprus ever since. I think it's a wonderful place. It has a superb history. It's full of images, full of smells, full of the sort of things that artists take out.
Paul McGillick: But you came back with some images though, didn't you? You came back with some sort of visual stimulus.
Andrew Christofides: Oh yes, yes. I think firstly the colors...I remember we went to a museum in the archbishop's palace, which solely housed icons, because Cyprus was a great center for icon painting, when the iconoclasts ...I can't say the word ... iconoclasism happened, Cyprus didn't have the iconoclasts, so that became the great center for icon painting. It has some wonderful images. They're rich, they're relevant, and I've used some of those images in my paintings from about '97-'98 onwards.
Paul McGillick: Perhaps we should pick up on that point about, was it Peter Greenaway made a film, it wasn't called painting by numbers but it had a similar sort of title. So in a way you're, you could be said to be painitjng by number.
Andrew Christofides: Yeah, well that term, "painting by numbers" has a derogatory connotation because of the Warhol connection and the idea of filling in areas which have certain numbers.
Now, I've used number systems as ways of generating imagery, and I see that as a very valid thing to do. When I first started using numbers, and I said this in the catalog for the show, The Subject of Painting that you curated many years ago. I said that I started using numbers as a way of generating new visual combinations that I could never, ever come up with if I'd used pure intuition.
Now I use them differently because I know how they operate to some extent, so I've built up a language of using numbers, so I can build up certain compositions which have certain qualities about them, but back then that was the reason for it.
Paul McGillick: The other element that I'd like you to talk about a little bit is that article I did in Indesign Magazine. I talked about music, and I felt there was a strong affinity between your work and music, which I think you probably agree with. Would you like to elaborate a little bit on that?
Andrew Christofides: Yes. I think the relationship between my work and music, and the relationship that a lot of what I would call pure abstract painters make with music, is that music in a sense is the ultimate, or one of the ultimate abstractions.
It has no real meaning. It's made from these notes which are pitched at certain points. On their own, they have no significance. But when you put them together they are able to move people, but there is no narrative there. They can't be broken down into words, even though they come from certain emotions.
The other thing, specifically, and this is more recently with my use of numbers, I see numbers, number sequences, as having a kind of melodic and rhythmic visual to them, visual relationship. So in a sense, when I use number systems, I think very much of them about music, in terms of music. I showed you some images earlier on which I saw as relating visually to things like Gregorian chant. That's a visual connection, but I see it as a numeric connection as well.
Paul McGillick: There's a rhythm to the work, because the music has intervals.
Andrew Christofides: Yes, and silences.
Paul McGillick: Silences, and to me the work is very like that. It has intervals. It has silences between the notes.
Andrew Christofides: Yeah, and in actual fact, one of my lecturers and a mentor of mine, Jack Smith, a very well known abstract painter, who died in England this last year. He always talked about his work in relation to music, and his titles were things like "Seven Notes and Eight Silences."
And I think the idea of gaps between images as being silences is quite relevant, yes. I think with number systems it works more obviously, personally.
Paul McGillick: I'd like to talk just a little bit about influence, because I think influence is always interesting. Would ...do you concede that you've had influences? If so, what are those influences? Thirdly, how do you process those influences in your work?
Andrew Christofides: Yeah, I'd ... well, I think we all have influences. If you're talking about artistic influences, then the thing, the two things that I come back to are always my trips to Italy. I lived for a year in Italy. I've never been able to get over the significance of not only Renaissance Italian painting, but Italian painting of the sort of of the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th centuries.
Especially to see those paintings in situ, they're quite phenomenal things, and I still am moved by those. Late Titian I'm still moved by and I've always wanted to keep some of those aspects in my work.
The other influence that's been very strong on me is the early Utopian schools, European early abstract paintings, Malevich, Suprematism, De Stijl, but those movements that tried to, in a sense, extract an essence from the world. I just found that enormously heroic, especially at that time, and I think it's still a heroic thing to maintain that kind of purity.
So those two things have been general influences artistically, and I've tried to imbue some of my especially later work with qualities that I see in Renaissance paintings, the actual making process, and the quality of the resonance of the surface, the resonance of color, and the evocativeness of color and those sort of things.
So those have been my two biggest influences. When you talk about painters in particular. Vermeer still is a pinnacle for me, the stillness, the essence of the work, which I still don't understand how he made them, but just the purity of the making. Malevich, very important to me, Mondrian less so, but still important. Picasso because of his enormous creative energy, and many artists, too many to number.
Paul McGillick: How do you avoid becoming a slave to your influences? Do you have any tactic to avoid that?
Andrew Christofides: That's a tricky question. I think one ... if one is working on ideas and one sees things, new things, one tries to incorporate them and I think in that process, one extends a tradition. In a sense, I am, I have to admit, a slave to my tradition of painting and I love the tradition of painting. I think it resonates with so many subtleties. But because I see the world differently and I see other people's work and I travel a fair bit, things come into the work and I try and extend it.
So I've used, for example, my understanding of maps, my connection with map making-cartography. Those sort of images have come into my work. So I think the images gradually extend themselves, one develops a bigger and bigger vocabulary and one uses the vocabulary and gradually the work extends.
So in a sense, if one is part of a tradition and one is extending that tradition, if that is being a slave to the tradition, then I am to some extent. However, I do see my work as being continually refreshed by a number of things even though it's within a fairly narrow range of image making but that's my nature.
Paul McGillick: You do still teach I think, don't you?
Andrew Christofides: Yes and hope to retire at the end of this year.
Paul McGillick: In terms of studio practice though, what's your discipline? How do you work? Do you have specified hours that you spend in the studio every day?
Andrew Christofides: Yeah, I do actually. I'm very much a worker and having come from a fairly poor background...I remember the early days when we were poor in Wollongong, growing up in Wollongong. I do remember that and I've always put a value on work because coming from working-class background, one works. And the way I make the work is, it's fairly tedious at times, but I don't mind that because one becomes very entrenched in the piece that one is making and one gets literally very close to it. One sees the flaws and one sees the elegant parts of it.
So I tend to work methodically. I tend to get down to the studio at 7:30 in the morning and I tend to finish about three or four and then I'll read and do various other things related to that. So I'm not somebody who comes down with a bright idea and suddenly does something dramatic, although I've done that from time to time.
Paul McGillick: The work is very meticulous and I guess for me, if I look at the work, they're almost meditative. So then I see a parallel in the way you work because I've seen how you work. It's very meticulous, which in itself is almost meditative. Does that ring a bell for you? Is that true what I'm saying?
Andrew Christofides: Yeah, I've said to people in the past and to students when they've said, "How do you make these things?" I think you asked me earlier on today whether I make lines, I rule them up and tape them. I don't. I roll them up but I don't tape them. I do everything by hand because even at a very subtle level, if you look at my work, it looks like it's very even but there are slight variations. I just see that as the way the hand moves, the way the body moves in relation to the painting.
And when you're very close to a painting, 30 centimetres away or even closer, you become very intimate with the painting and you know every flaw in that painting whether it's six feet, what's that, 180 centimetres by 200 centimetres or whether it's 30 centimetres by 30 centimetres. I think that intimacy is a bodily thing which imbues qualities in the work and some of the qualities are imperfections, which I actually quite like because imperfections make the things real and therefore tie them to the real world because in the end, nature's not perfect. It's imperfect.
Paul McGillick: I think it's true and they're very meditative things and you doing...That must take you into another world...
Andrew Christofides: Well, it does, yeah...
Paul McGillick: ...all that concentration.
Andrew Christofides: Yeah and the thing is you've got to do it. And and, I, there's ... my daughter, she's in Sydney Girls High, one of ... one of her teachers said to her, "Oh, your dad's a painter, isn't he?" And Eleanor embarrassingly said, "Yes." But she said, "Can you tell the class a bit about his work?" She said, "I don't know much about his work but I know he keeps on saying that when he does a painting, it's like cleaning a toilet a hundred times," and I naturally became, I thought, "What, you said that?"
But she's right. It goes back to that idea of repetition creates things. I don't know if you've seen the film "Woman of the Dunes." It's a Japanese film, it's a great film and her whole life is based on sort of clearing the sand that falls in and on her house and when she has the opportunity to escape that, she says, "No, this is what defines my life." So the repetition is the theme that gives definition. So to some extent, the repetition gives the work definition and gives, I'd say my life definition.
Paul McGillick: Interesting, I just read a book by Imre Kertész, a Hungarian writer. It was called "Fateless" or something. Anyway he gets sent to a concentration camp when he was a boy, but at the end he, then he comes out at the end of the war, he faces the usual stuff, like the guilt of the people who were murdered in the concentration camps and the people who've appropriated their flat and all that kind of thing, and the interesting thing is that in a way he says with only a little bit of irony, in a sense, he was happy in the camp.
It's an incredible idea because we're not meant to think like that. But in a way, you get almost nostalgia. The regularity, the order, the structure, even the regular brutality and so on, kind of, gave their lives a strange kind of meaning. And when they came out, the world they came out into was a corrupt world.
Andrew Christofides: And had no , had no constant rules like that. No. no.
Does that answer your question?
Paul McGillick: Yes, that's a good place to stop too. That's a good answer.
Interviewer: Dr. Paul McGillick
Camera, lighting & sound: Cameron Glendining
Video editing: Dr. Bob Jansen
Technical & assembly: Dr Bob Jansen