Marie Louise Wrightson - Questions & Answers
Click on each question below to view Marie's response.
1. Have you worked with museum objects before? more »I haven't worked with St Andrews Museum before, but I have worked with the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther. I used the objects there to make a work called 'Where Go the Boats', which is based on the decline of the Scottish fishing industry.
2. How did you go about choosing the objects to work with? more »In the last two years, I have completed two works based on the Iraq war, one on a Black Watch soldier, the other on a RAF nurse who did a three month tour in southern Iraq. So when I saw that St Andrews Museum had a collection of Polish objects from the Second World War, I was interested in the differences between the old soldier's kit of WW2, and the new soldier's kit of the present day. I had to condense the Polish collection down to a few choice objects to express the meaning and motive of the painting, by cutting up and starting to arrange print-outs of the objects. One of the main choices was the black photo album, with a number of photos placed at the feet of the Polish paratrooper.
3. What attracted you to the objects you chose? more »The personal qualities of the objects, the thoughts of the individuals who owned them, and the journey these objects have been on through the war. One of the most emotive objects is the map of Arnhem, which still has numbers drawn on top from some sixty years ago.
4. How did you research the objects further? more »I started by looking on the web for more information about the Polish soldiers in Fife during the war and what part they played in Fife. I also wanted to find out more about what action the men saw, ie their involvement at Arnhem, and why so many came back to Fife after the war. I also managed to find an old Polish soldier called Johnny in the village where I live; he is the last living Polish soldier from some 15 men who settled in the village.
5. Did you think about who originally made/used the object? more »I was more interested in the men that used the objects, and how important they were to those men, than who made them. Many of the objects would have been mass produced at the time.
6. How did you decide what to make? more »As a painter, I knew from the start I wanted to paint a large picture depicting a Polish soldier. It was only through visiting the Museum and researching the Polish in Fife, I started to have a visual picture in my mind as to what I wanted to say with this work.
7. How did you make it? more »I started by collecting all the visual material of all the objects and started laying them out on the board, like a large collage. This way I can start to play with the composition. The board is then sanded and primed. I will put down up to three layers of acrylic primer, sanding each layer to keep the board as smooth as possible. All the objects are then drawn onto the board. This took about six days in all. The next step is to start to lay down the first washes of colour, just using the faintest of pigment. The main purpose of this is to knock out all the white of the primer; then I can start to build up the layers of oils, gaining more and more detail with each layer. Once the painting has dried, I give the painting a layer of varnish. This is to protect the painting, but the varnish also helps to bring more of the colour out. In all, the painting took three months to complete.
8. What do you plan / want to do next? more »My work will be in the London Affordable Art Fair with the Leith Gallery in October. I am also booked into two gallery shows over Christmas, including the Leith. My life is my painting and my aim is to get my work out there into galleries and exhibitions. I have been quite fortunate over the last year to have had my work exhibited in venues across Scotland and northern England. This commission has allowed me to be a bit more adventurous, in that I have painted a figure in my work for the first time. This is something I will continue to do.
