Communing with the World

It has been suggested that the test of a good painting is whether one could imagine living inside it, communing with the world that the artwork creates. Understandable enough when considering, say, Botticelli, this notion becomes tricky when one turns to abstract art. Would you give up the contingencies of accepted reality for a lifetime spent within the ecstatic structural certainties of a late Mondrian, or the bubbling slip-and-slide of a de Kooning? (Two-dimensionality should present no real problem; one might read Edwin AbbottÕs Victorian proto-science-fiction novel ÔFlatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsÕ as the story of someone existing upon the surface of a post-painterly abstraction.) The notion is a perversely seductive one; its downside is that such aesthetic otherworlds are fixed and finite.
Could one live in a David Leapman painting? Well, letÕs see.
Imagine that one rainy morning, you swallow something strange (its label did say Ôeat meÕ) and spiked. Instantly the surrounding atmosphere turns rainbow-hued and infused with fizzing ions. Dizzied, you pass out. When you awake, youÕre splayed on a narrow flight of stairs, unsure of which way is up, in an open-plan, neo-psychedelic boudoir suspended in a colourful, empty space which refuses to conform to known perspective; the planes converge wackily. The colours in this place Ð and it is a riot of colour Ð are shamelessly luscious, saturated, yet somehow nauseating at the same time. The walls are in constant oscillatory motion. You feel slightly exhilarated, slightly sick. Looking down, you can see an acidic green spume departing glacially from beneath the house, or maybe itÕs what passes for a shadow out here.
You might as well get up and explore. The stairwell is rubbery, giving way beneath you. ThereÕs also very little gravitational pull; you discover that you can easily float off the building into space. Also underneath the house (which is now spinning like DorothyÕs Kansas shack) you see fiery little jets. Or perhaps theyÕre oversized pencil crayons, or entrails. ItÕs a little like dreaming; stare at something too long and it changes its form and import. While floating breezily across the picture plane, you look back. The little house, you now notice, isnÕt a house at all but a fortuitous combination of discrete planes, each of which look simultaneously organic and architectural. The composite object looks secure in its duplicity, effortlessly smarter than you. Yet itÕs a bald thing, composed of simple, deft strokes in pure matter, and its very formal straightforwardness makes it all the more maddening. This dimension is one which, you imagine, must have its defined limits, but it would take someone greater or more patient than you to discover them.
This is not to suggest that LeapmanÕs paintings are specifically lysergic in tone. They are self-contained enigmas (in a moment of candour or double-bluffery, he titled one of them ÔEnigma ProviderÕ) offering a mask of straightforwardness as a cover for natural complexity. They would be perfect dinner guests so long as one didnÕt discuss metaphysics. Each one of LeapmanÕs forms plays on a kind of alchemical visual confusion, never resembling dramatic symbols or loaded objects but, rather, figuring the basic warp and weft of the everyday Ð albeit modulated into hyper-ambiguous combinations, with tricksy reversals of perspective and rug-pulling slippages of scale.
But the primary thing one notices about a Leapman is its zinging visuality. That is, one is led into the pleasures of misapprehension trailing the happy scent of toasted eyeball. Often drawn towards the exact opposites on the colour wheel, Leapman occasionally verges on bad taste and kitsch in his colour combinations, which at such moments take on the quality of a regurgitated visual memory rather than a qualitative aesthetic statement, much as the forms themselves have a sedimentary or winnowed quality. The colour-choosing process has a brazen, cantankerous edge Ð ÕI shouldnÕt do this, so I willÕ. But most of the time, what LeapmanÕs use of unmodulated, contrasting colours does is prioritise unabashed directness, so that his paintings become immediately dialectical. ItÕs the art of saying something multi-associative in monosyllables, predicated on the contiguities of post-cubist perspective, tonal recession and advancement, and an exploration of the shaky ground between figuration and abstraction.
After a certain point, even monsyllables relent to the drift of the non-verbal. English art may be traditionally literary, but LeapmanÕs paintings are Ð in a positive sense Ð almost illiterate. They are pre-cognitive and intuitive. There is a syntax Ð if one sees enough of LeapmanÕs work one notices the same building blocks occurring again and again Ð but there is little narrative, save the meta-narrative of the painter in his world, recombining his strangely atomised elements in hermetic ways Ð ways which are, perhaps, mysterious to the painter, also, who yet keeps any pat resolution at a distance.
This might be a key to their fascination: there appears to be something in the human mind which loves to have a quest set out before it, a sense that there is more out there to discover and, as a result, more to be made of the self. In one painting, a pair of elongated, composite forms are placed eccentrically on a green ground. Since we naturally infer relationships between forms in empty space, it is not hard to read them as transmuted figures, sitting pretty in another dimension. Inevitably, they soon distance themselves from such a straightforward reading, but something of this humanism lingers. Remaking themselves at will, LeapmanÕs constructions offer a schematised vision of the lure of infinite possibility, and the implication that we could someday become as self-assured and effortlessly complex as these glowing objects in these bright, bright spaces.

Martin Herbert
London, October 1999

A helpless fascination

On a recent visit to David LeapmanÕs studio, we had a conversation at the door. I asked him if he had just arrived and he asked me if I was coming or going. Neither of us could answer the otherÕs question satisfactorily because we had just spent several hours looking at his paintings. On one level, both questions were very straight forward, but on another, the questions seemed more problematic. Things arenÕt always what they seem.
There is an idea that contemporary painting is an attack on reality in its attempt to create something new. This may indeed be the case, since it is at least attempting to inform or reveal meaning in what we see and experience. Even reportage, which seems to merely recall or repeat, still makes new meaning simply through its inevitable bias or angle, or through the nature of its selection and expression.
There is another common idea that presumes that works of art are immediately accepted as a part of an art discourse and that they simply need to be translated into words to achieve transparency and accessibility. At worst, commentary that surrounds art has the effect of neutralising its power in proposing this simple translation. We know that language has to be pushed to its limits in trying to do what it canÕt quite do, which is describe the experience of being with a work of art. I have a notion that if I can say what the experience is, then the experience is not worth having. If I can have it, but not describe it, then maybe itÕs worth pursuing. A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable *.#
LeapmanÕs paintings defy attempts to decode them, because the way they are put together is often unfathomable anyway (even for those of us who have known the work over a long period of time). But they are beautiful and beguiling, so it is hard to resist trying to unravel them a little. Their harnessed images offer a tender experience of recognition and like bad drugs or good sex, they are both addictive and redeeming. The paintingÕs openness set a trap which hurts the eye with expanses of harsh, bright colours and bruises the mind with complex and subtle meanderings of form and line. With a little time though, one recovers into a kind of helpless fascination. What is compelling is the order, the certainty, the inevitability of Ôeverything in its placeÕ. As you become intoxicated by the paintings, you notice that things seem to morph and meld. The (nameable) objects, such
as boxes, wings, doors and dwellings Ð often objects made of objects Ð arenÕt quite what you thought they were. Maybe itÕs a case of mistaken identity, a trick of camouflage, or a matter of a multiplicity of meanings and ambiguities? It is probably all these. Things start to feel provisional. What at first seem red herrings, become vitally important. Images flatten or pop into three-dimensions, or wander off into another strand and animate some journey or narrative. There is often the difficulty, when making a journey to a new destination, of relating your experience to the map. With the paintings of David Leapman, territories are mapped, journeys described and places and actions made manifest. All these are superimposed, one on the other.
He is stoic, obsessively committed with trying to come to terms with the world. At the same time, he makes individual constructions out of recurrent motifs. To complicate things further, the same form of object suggests one thing in one painting and then in another painting it suggests something else. He pictures an interior world, intensely private and idiosyncratic. He is also an unreformed composer of formalist ÔabstractÕ absurdities Ð seemingly well-defined and confident ÔsignsÕ converse with one another in a private language which only they understand. The saturation of colour serves to confirm their delight in themselves and is also a kind of branding. It is not a case of green for grass and blue for cold. (A recent survey of students revealed that a clear majority thought that the colour red symbolised not blood or danger, but coke.) They make manifest LeapmanÕs awareness of some of the dominant styles of painting today, but signify nothing but themselves. These are twenty first century ÔLeapman coloursÕ filling joyful constructions that are humanised and teasing. Is there a key to their construction, some piece of knowledge that we need to enable us to unlock their internal logic in order to understand what is going on? Or can we risk letting ourselves be seduced without that key? If a double entendre is easy to understand and a triple entendre is sort of cubist and confusing, then the twisted forms of LeapmanÕs paintings must propose an abundance of entendres. The paintings appear to be rigidly designed, whilst at the same time created by happenstance, as if in the mood of serendipity. There is a suggestion of computer-generated, three-dimensional design that seems to have the potential to rotate. This slick manoeuvrability, occupied with a kind of stumbling complexity is underpinned by a playfulness and the fact that the forms often look like toys or sweets. When scientists get excited about fractals, itÕs not just because of their appearance, but because of what they mean. They are looking at the building blocks of the universe.
In an age where notions of the importance of time dominate all areas of cultural exchange, there is inevitably a sense of anticipation and not a little neurosis. Culture is accelerating, values are shifting and meanings are changing rapidly. There is an impulse for artists to look for the easy solutions, to retreat into making eclectic or shallow gestures Ð both residing in a state of hermetic reflexivity. Encountering LeapmanÕs paintings is rewarding, though not always easy. They ask much of themselves and of the viewer. In his search for understanding, Leapman looks at the world and then paints it. He also paints in order to see it, and in this, his work is illuminating.

* King Lear. Act 1, scene 1

Roy Voss

Selected Bibliography

1999
Young British Artists Ð The Saatchi Decade, Booth-Clibborn edition,
Arts Council Collection Saatchi Gift
1998
Domaine Public 10, Medamothi Artistic Cockpit
Lynn MacRitchie, Jerwood Painting Prize Ô98, Jerwood Foundation catalogue
1997
Mark Gisbourne, WHAT catalogue
Martin Herbert, Time Out, No.1401
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 20, NMGM catalogue
1996
Martin Coomer, David Leapman, Todd, Flash Art, February, Vol XXIX No.186
Mel Gooding, Being There II, Centrum Beeldende Kunst, catalogue
Jane Burton, The East Wing Exhibition, Courtauld Institute, catalogue
1995
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 19, NMGM catalogue
1994
Giodo Curto, Landscape, Flash Art, 11/94
Shark Infested Waters, The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s,
Sarah Kent, Zwemmer
Kim Sweet, Terra Incognita. The green, green grass of home, LandEscapes exhibition folder
Christopher Bucklow, Footnotes for an Unwritten Text, LandEscapes, associazione culturale VELAN-Spazio 9 ARTE catalogue
Sacha Craddock, The Times, 1/11/94
Sarah Kent, Time Out, No.1264
1993
David Lillington, Time Out, No.1154
Sacha Craddock, Moving into View, Arts Council
1992
David Lillington, Time Out, No.1054
Michael Bracewell, Mapping the Soul, Todd Gallery catalogue
1991
Devorah Knaff, A Delicate Balance at Art Works Gallery, The Press-Enterprise, 20/1/91
Jean-Charles Agboton-Jameau,
Hyunsoo Choi, David Leapman,
Forum International, No.9
1990
Aperto, Venice Biennale catalogue
Inland Empire, Los Angeles Times, 1/4/90
David Lillington, Time Out, No.1055
Robert MacDonald, Time Out, No.947
1988
Sarah Kent, Time Out, No.917
Jon Thompson, Pilgrim in the Land of Disbelief, Journeying in Search of Hidden Treasures, Ikon Gallery
Stuart Morgan, Figura; Rhetoric in Contemporary British Painting, Artscribe, No.72
Tony Godfrey, Figuring out the 80s, Laing Art Gallery catalogue
1986
Jerome Binde, Small Scale,
Lidewij Edelkoort Gallery catalogue
Between Identity/Politics, A New Art, Gimpel Fils catalogue
1985
Joanna Littlejohns, Impulse 8,
Gallerie Lohrl catalogue
1984
Marina Vaizey, Sunday Times, 9/9/84
John Russell Taylor, The Times, 4/9/84
Sarah Kent, Time Out, No.806
Sarah Kent, Artscribe, No.48
Sarah Kent, ÔThe Problems of PicturingÕ, Serpentine Gallery catalogue
1983
Marina Vaizey, Sunday Times, 23/4/83
John Russell Taylor, The Times, 26/4/83
Sarah Kent, Time Out, No.664
Nina Dimitryevic, Flash Art, No.113

Selected media coverage
1999
John Ellis, Our Internal Monologue,
CD Voiceprint
1997
John Ellis, Acrylic, CD, Optic Nerve
1996
Artists in the Open,
Whitechapel Open video
1995
John Moores Exhibition 19,
NMGM video
David Leapman

1959 Born London
Education
1977-78 St. Martins School of Art,
London
1978-81 Goldsmiths College,
University of London

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2000 Beaux Arts, London
1998 One in the Other, London
1997 Hales Gallery, London
1995 Todd Gallery, London
(also 1994, 1992, 1990, 1988)
1993 Galerie Raph Debarrn, Paris
1988 Journeying in Search of
Hidden Treasures, Ikon
Gallery, Birmingham

Selected Group Exhibitions
1999
Work on Paper, Stalke Gallery, Copenhagan, Denmark
Simmer, Beaux Arts, London
Recent Acquisitions, Beaux Arts, London
1998
The Jerwood Painting Prize, London
Leapman, Mullins, Cohen, Stalke Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Art Works, Riverside, California
1997-98
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 20,
Prize-winner, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1997
WHAT, Trinity Buoy Wharf, London
1996-98
The East Wing Collection Courtauld Institute of Art, London 1996
Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (also 1990,1986, 1980)
Being There II Centrum Beeldende Kunst, Rotterdam
1995-96
John Moores Liverpool
Exhibition 19; First Prize-winner,
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1994
LandEscapes, including Callery, Gussin, Leapman, Winstanley
Ex Lanifico Bona Cariganano, Turin
XXVIe Festival International de la Peinture, British Council, Haut de Cagnes
1993-96
Moving into View: Recent British Painting; Arts Council Collection, Royal Festival Hall, London Ð touring as New Painting
1993
Strictly Painting, Cubitt Street Gallery, London
In House Out House; Unit 7, Camberwell, London
Pet Show, Union Street Gallery, London
Hyunsoo Choi et David Leapman,
Galerie Gutharc Ballin, Paris
Glenn Brown, Suzy Willey, David Leapman, Todd Gallery
1990
Aperto 90; Venice Biennale
1989
New paintings by David Leapman and Roy Voss, Curwen Gallery, London
New Contemporaries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and
touring show (also 1981)
1988
Figuring out the 80s, Laing Art Gallery & Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
The Athena Art AwardÓ, Barbican, London
1986
Between, Identity & Politics Ð A New Art, including Hiller, Leapman, Spiro, Gimpel Fils, London and touring to The Arts Centre, Darlington, Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer, New York
Unheard Music, including Chadwick, Leapman, Wallinger, Stoke-on-Trent Museum
Small Scale, Lidewij Edelkoort Gallery, Paris
Nature Morte; Edward Totah Gallery, London
Impulse 8, including Goldsworthy, Leapman, Mach, Galerie Lohrl,
Monchengladbach
1984
Problems of Picturing, including Bevan, Leapman, Milroy, Toren,
Serpentine Gallery, London
1983
Young Blood - Leapman, Mach, Milroy, Opie, Riverside Studios, London

Collections
Arts Council of Great Britain
Victoria and Albert Museum
Contemporary Art Society
The British Council
Saatchi Collection
Stoke-on Trent Museum and Art Gallery
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Unilever