Anne Riddell interview with Andrew Antoniou ARE
Andrew Antoniou’s journey through the world of print started in the late 1960s at Winchester School of Art and Central School of Art. It continues today, thirty-something years later and twelve thousand miles away, in the ‘reverse image’ of down under Australia.
Antoniou’s imagery seeks to capture a time & perhaps a dreamscape or a memory-become-myth where characters are given actors’ roles to occupy the space and time of an imagined stage set and bring mythology to life.
Q. In your work what do you feel is the main objective of the image-making process?
A. I feel it is a priority for me to get the story across and create a myth of my own making. I have heard and seen so many stories, as we all have, in my life and these stories have created images in my mind that are personalised and relevant to me. I love to bring those images into some tangible existence. I’ve come to the realisation that they are worked from my imagination and personal vision and somehow bound up with my own experience of the world.
Q. Has your work always been figurative?
A. Yes, for the most part. My work has been and is about an aspect of the human condition, though I would find it difficult to say that it is about the whole question of what it is to be a human being. Few artists have achieved that and it requires a very grand vision to bring it off successfully. The artists who have had an abiding influence on me were all great figurative masters, including Beckman, Picasso, Goya and many other great printmakers from the past and present.
Q. Is the print process integral to the realisation of your ideas?
A. Not exclusively. But it’s a process I am very at home with. It was an early love affair that has lasted by virtue of its mystery. I have always seen the making of an image in print as a journey, a journey through process with a kind of planned uncertainty that can bring some new element to the image without compromising it. The difference between print and the other mediums I use is the obviously progressive stages of existence that appear at each biting and proofing. This is the part of the journey where a dialogue develops between the print and me. That is something unique to etching and the thing that brings me back to the process. It seems to me that etching, with its richness of mark and tone, celebrates the idea and adorns the concept.
Q. Do you have a prescribed method of making prints?
A. I believe that all good outcomes in the final print are dependent on the drawings being resolved to my satisfaction. Often problems in print are drawing-related rather than on the technical side of the process. I think that technique is often used to mask the shortcomings of the drawing. I tend to focus on that aspect and may use several grounds to redraw the image. This gives the print something of a history of marks and creates a structure on which to hang the tonal life of the work. So I would go into the aquatint phase of the print knowing there is greater scope for interchange between line and tone. Getting the ‘feeling’ of the piece right comes from using the tools of the trade. Scrapers and burnishers are integral to my way of working. I find that lightening the image with those is the most satisfying way of creating tonal values.
Q. You’ve been granted a residency at Megalo Print Access in Canberra later this year. Do you have a theme that you'll be working to in those six weeks?
A. It’s a choice out of hundreds! But there are one or two themes I’m particularly keen to realise while I’m there. One of them deals with the nature of the figure and its relationship to architecture. During a previous residency at Canberra School of Art I made several large etchings of single figures in an architectural setting and was excited at getting that monumental feel across in the work. My ideas up to that point had been very much book and folio based and to change my mark and methods to accommodate that size of plate brought something new out of me as a printmaker. There are also some memories from a long time back that I want to bring into the present - too long a story to go into now but I’m looking at print techniques and how they can create atmosphere and remembered places . . . I guess you could say landscapes of the interior.
Q. What has being in Australia meant to you as an artist and printmaker whose formative years were spent in the UK.
A. I think that my separation form the UK has been a sort of self imposed exile and because of that I have a great longing for what I knew there - it is a place which holds half a lifetimes’ memories for me - my work is thoroughly influenced by my rural life in Australia but reflects an underlying tie to the structures and landscapes of Europe. It is often a quirky mix that makes me feel like I’m really on an immense and endless journey.
Anne Riddell is an editor retired to Victoria who’s interests include collecting contemporary art and works on paper. This interview was conducted for submission to arts periodicals both in Australia and the UK