About
Portrait: Barney Newman
John David Begg
Artist statement
A London-based abstract painter whose work tends to fall into two styles: Liquid and Linear. Liquid is more free form, where the final painting is never quite as planned due to the nature of the creative process. Multiple layers of acrylics on canvas, often mixed media using texture mediums and sand, applied with brushes, palette knives, squeegees and sponges. Linear is more graphic. Acrylics on canvas, often diluted. Paint is applied with repeated sweeps of the brush to apply and then remove the paint, deliberately allowing the brush to do what it will to create the linear effect.
Offcuts is a newly started series of paintings on boards. Having demolished and rebuilt the rear of my house, it made sense to combine my carpentry skills with painting and avoid waste. Leftover birch plywood offcuts are re-cut to square all corners. The best side is sanded and sealed before the usual application of gesso. Each panel is a different size. The rear surface might show signs of previous carpentry.
In all cases, entropy will play out; the unexpected will inevitably be a part of the finished piece. Inspired by landscape memories, music, physics, chemistry, and the cosmos. Artistic influences include the work of: Julia Ball; Frank Bowling; and Gerhard Richter.
Bio
John David Begg was born in Kent. He trained in photography at Blackpool and Fylde College, after which he worked as a self-employed professional photographer specialising in architecture and interiors. He closed his business after 18 years to take a degree. Upon graduation he was employed as a senior lecturer in Higher Education, teaching materials science and construction technology. He left that role after 15 years to concentrate on painting.
MA, BSc, PQE(BIPP), SFHEA
“A film or painting - each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words.”
-David Lynch, 2018
The artist in conversation, an opinion.
We all feel that we should let loose our inner zeitgeist just to see what happens, but life being what it is, few of us manage it.
One who has is newly emboldened, abstract painter John David Begg.
“It was a huge relief to get back in touch with my artistic side” he told me in one of Highbury’s many coffee shops.
Having worked as a photographer, Begg is no stranger to art, but, he says, it is his connection to abstract art that has set him on a new path.
German artist, Gerhard Richer is an influence. Richter’s work is huge. Begg works at a smaller scale, but his practice is to allow the viewer to make up their own mind, a theme that is also present in Richter.
Begg likes to quote filmmaker David Lynch: “A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words.” Begg’s artistic language carries an invitation to the viewer to let the abstract speak for itself. Afterall, it’s out there at every turn you look. With Begg, the viewer can focus and come up with their own meaning.
Begg’s journey to abstraction has been a circuitous route. He trained in photography, working commercially recording the results of the property boom. That took him further into construction as he became a trainee building surveyor, then a senior lecturer in the built environment at the University of Westminster.
Buildings are about angle, shape and line, and some distance from free-flowing abstraction. Begg doesn’t disagree as the medium he used to work in, photography, he finds “a bit too literal.”
Having worked in construction, he remains something of a problem solver. That might emanate from his working-class Glaswegian roots, or it might just be how he is, as there is something of it in his artistic technique. He uses brushes but he is into scraping, pushing the colour around to test what works and what does not. Methodical comes to mind. The result, though, is nothing like the popular understanding of that particular word. It’s all about colour, and colour intermingling with colour, yet retaining the vibrancy that (almost) defines the whole canvas. The viewer glazes at the work and thinks, “there is so much going on, yet nothing is lost.” I think, unashamedly, we can call that clever.
Begg’s first sale surprised him. It shouldn’t have. It is perhaps just a little bit ironic, that someone drawn to philosophy and science is making work that defies categorisation. Only up to a point. Begg says that, for him, abstraction is a natural way of using colour to express an idea. What that idea is, he leaves to the spectator. Art is nothing if not a process. Throw in the zeitgeist and there’s no telling what will happen. Begg the abstract artist is right at the beginning, better catch him quick.
J. Macqueen, freelance commentator, Aesthetica magazine
Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to the following wonderful fellow human beings, without whose assistance, creativity and encouragement this website would not have come to fruition:
David at David & George; Rob Garvey; Julian Macqueen; and Barney Newman.
My thanks to you all.
