James Hart Dyke

	James Hart Dyke
Images	'War & Cake'	14 September to 10 October




On perusing snapshots from some of James Hart Dyke’s most recent peregrinations, one cannot doubt the seriousness with which he takes the notion of plein air painting. The last thing one expects to see next to the crossed swords inside Baghdad’s green zone or equally, perched precipitously on a craggy outcrop some 13,000 feet up in remote northwestern Nepal, is a painter, brush at the ready, rapt in concentration on the job in hand, the canvas on the easel before him. ‘You need to be in the middle of the cold and wind. It makes the painting more robust, more alive’, asserts Hart Dyke. The landscape, and the quiddity of our interaction with it - from the quiet contemplation of rural idyll through to the exhilaration of skydiving - is that which he sets out to depict using the language of painting. ‘It is my intention’ he states’ ‘to venerate the landscape; to pay homage to its mighty power and splendour, and in doing so touch on the mystery of our brief existence’. Yet also, particularly in this body of work another thread is quite clearly woven. Throughout his painting career the notion of ‘Englishness’ has persisted. From an early sighting of a small Constable oil study at the V&A at the age of 8, to his more recent work in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was embedded with the Grenadier Guards, the early influence of romantic English landscape painting has exerted a strong and persistent emotional pull. This was quite clear in work following his graduation (in architecture) from the Royal College, when in choosing as subject matter country houses, he was able to combine his training, the vocation to paint, and his love of the English countryside. His first painting sojourn abroad was at the invitation of HRH the Prince of Wales in 1998, to East Asia, and he has been the official artist on 4 royal tours, most recently to West Africa (2007) and the Gulf (2008). Between 2000 and 2008 his work was mainly focussed around numerous gruelling painting trips to remote Nepal. Hart Dyke is a patron of the Nepal Trust, which promotes healthcare and sustainable development in the remote north-west of the country. He has also found time during this period to feature in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery on three occasions, the Discerning Eye (also 3 times) as well as the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition. This body of work draws on many of the artist’s travels and experiences. There are Himalayan mountain scenes, portraits from West Africa, soldiers in the midst of battle, plus that most English of post-prandial sustenance - cake, which has given Hart Dyke the license to concentrate on the business of studio painting, and using paint as deliciously as possible. He combines an architectural awareness of formal structure with a keen eye for the balance between figuration and abstraction. He has suceeded in this collection of work to convey the zest and enthusiasm he has for his life and his work, unmistakably that of a painter of modern method who has not forgotten his classical roots. Aidan Quinn June 2009
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Education 1996 – 1997 City & Guilds of London Art School Postgraduate Diploma in Painting 1990 – 1992 Royal College of Art MA Architecture 1986 – 1989 Manchester University BA(Hons) Architecture Solo Exhibitions 2009 'War & Cake', Beaux Arts, Bath 2007 John Mitchell Fine Paintings, Old Bond Street, London 2005 The High Atlas John Mitchell Fine Paintings, Old Bond Street, London 2004 Everest Painting Expedition, John Mitchell and Son, Old Bond St, London 2003 Painting in the Hidden Himalayas WH Patterson Fine Art, London 2002 Visions of a Travelling Artist John Mitchell and Son, New Bond Street 2001 Paintings from the Alps WH Patterson Fine, London Art 1999 Paintings from Nepal WH Patterson Fine Art, London Selected Group Exhibitions 2008 Art London, Chelsea with Beaux Arts, Bath 20/21 British Art Fair, RCA, London with Beaux Arts, Bath Crossing Over, Beaux Arts, Bath 2005 - 2008 Beaux Arts, Bath 1997, 2000, 2005 BP Portrait Award National Portrait Gallery 2001 Discerning Eye Mall Galleries 2000 Painting and Patronage held at The Banqueting House, London together with HRH The Prince of Wales and HRH Prince Khalid Al-Faisal Al-Saud 1998 Travels with the Prince: A Fiftieth Birthday Exhibition Selected by HRH The Prince of Wales at Hampton Court Palace 1997 The Artist and The Country House from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day exhibition at Sotheby’s Commissions Directors of Perpetual Abercrombie and Kent Asprey & Garrard Provident Financial The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Selywn College University of Cambridge Royal Society of Osteopaths Mater Hospital Dublin Pembroke College University of Cambridge Hoares Private Bank Royal Tours 1998 Invited by HRH The Prince of Wales to be official artist on the Royal Tour to East Asia 2000 Invited by HRH The Prince of Wales to be official artist on the Royal Tour to The Middle East 2001 Invited to paint in Saudi Arabia by HRH Prince Khalid Al-Faisal Al-Saud Radio 22nd Oct 2003 BBC Radio 4. Interviewed by Libby Purves on Midweek 24th Dec 2004 BBC World Service. Interviewed by Rachel Rawlins Selected Press The International Art News Paper (Dec 02, Nov 04) The Wall Street Journal, collecting section (6th Dec 02) The Times (7th Dec 02, 9th Dec 04) Country Life (12th Dec 02, 18th Nov and 16th Dec 04) Apollo (Dec 04) World of Interiors (Dec 04) Daily Telegraph (23rd Nov) The Guardian (24th Nov 04) Daily Mail (4th Jan 03) Associated Organisations A patron of the Nepal Trust (www.nepaltrust.org), a Scottish based charity, working in a remote area of the Himalayas An associate member of The Alpine Club A member of The Art Workers Guild ______________________________________________________________________________________ Article from The Times, September 4, 2007 When Art Goes To War Does a painter have a place in today’s battle zones? This artist just back from Afghanistan, says that he does. When they tell you they’re dimming the lights for landing as you descend into Helmand, they really mean it: you land in total darkness. And not just darkness, either: along with the “fasten your seatbelts” sign is an announcement to don your body armour and your helmet for your imminent arrival on the killing fields of Afghanistan. Once you’re on the ground the lights go up again – and it was at this point that I found myself staring into the face of a squaddie seated opposite. “What a pillock,” his expression said. And then I realised why. I’d done as I was told and put on my helmet . . . only I’d put it on backwards. I’m not an official war artist but no artists are experts at putting on military kit. They don’t know how to use a gun, or how to fire a mortar. As we trooped off the flight, the soldiers around me were tooled up with weapons and flak gear. I was tooled up with pencils, sketchbooks and paintbrushes. I have been on two painting tours to war zones over the past couple of years. Being there is a strange paradox: the first thing you have to get over is a sense of being utterly dispensible. What on earth, after all, is the point of sending an artist on to the battlefield? There I was in Afghanistan with the Grenadier Guards, taking up precious resources: and for what? It seems anachronistic to record soldiers’ lives and experiences in a high-tech, 21st-century war in that most ancient of mediums, painting. But war artistry has a long history. During the Crimean War the artists were known as “specials” and their images were rushed home to be reproduced in newspapers, adding hugely to sales. There was a famous artist called Lady Elizabeth Butler who wasn’t allowed to go to the front, so they used to organise cavalry charges for her in Hyde Park in London so that she could get a feel for the action. And there were many more, of course: I’ve always been very moved by John Singer Sargent’s powerful painting Gassed from the First World War. The tradition of war artistry is particularly strong in Britain, and today British regiments are almost alone in continuing that tradition, and in commissioning artists such as me to paint scenes from their tours of duty. Last November I was in Baghdad sketching under the famous Baghdad crossed swords, and an American tank went by. I caught the look on one of the soldiers’ faces, and you could just tell he was thinking, “What the hell are those Brits up to now?” But painting and sketching is so much more neutral than photography. There’s something confrontational about aiming a camera at someone. It’s far less confrontational to sit there with a paintbrush and an easel. You find, too, that people tend not to pose the way they might for a photographer. Painting is also a universal language: I couldn’t speak to the Afghans, but they understood immediately what I was doing. There have been some scary moments. Last November I flew into Baghdad in a helicopter. They fly very low and fast, making quick banking turns to try to avoid gunfire from below. One moment I could only see the sky through the open door in front of me, the next the violent streets of Baghdad were rushing past. I’ve never thought about having a preference for which direction I’d want to be shot from, but the option of from below seemed particularly unpleasant, and I had a strong desire to put my helmet under my bum. It was frightening: but I managed to keep drawing; and the helicopter vibrations, and my fear, are there in the pencil marks. There have been times when I’ve thought, “What am I doing here – I could be safe in my studio”. But they don’t last long: after all, painting a bowl of fruit might be safe, but it’s pretty dull compared with what I’m doing. You want to get as close to the action as you can, but you’ve got to be realistic. I wouldn’t want some mother to be told that her son died while he was protecting an artist. I was there to record the soldiers’ lives, and to honour their work, not to put their lives at risk. What you’re most aware of is how stressful it is: there’s a lot of smoking going on, and the stress is etched into the soldiers’ faces. The food on the base was great, but a lot of the men and women lose weight through worry: one guy told me that he’d lost three drinking buddies, and four stone since arriving . . . and his six-month tour wasn’t over yet. You’d think the world of art is a million miles from the world of war, but you’d be wrong. There’s a lot of thinking, a lot of reflection about the big questions of life, for soldiers in a war zone. There’s plenty of time for it: you see them deep in thought, as they’re flown in a Hercules into a place they call “Hell Land”, where it was recently reported that one in 36 soldiers is being killed. And there are lots of poignant moments. One that really struck me was after we’d flown into the base in a Hercules. The noise on the flight was deafening. You couldn’t talk to anyone: you were on your own with your thoughts. The plane landed and the ramp door opened – and the desert light was so sudden and so bright, and the soldiers stood and walked towards it, one by one. And it struck me that they were walking towards the light, but into the unknown. That felt to me like a deeply spiritual, deeply meaningful moment. As told to Joanna Moorhead