Yes, sure. My name is Tristan Pigott, and I’m an artist based in London, where I studied Painting at Camberwell and also Sculpture at Royal College of Art.

I found lockdown creatively quite difficult because of the lack of input. It revealed just how important being able to escape and go to a museum or gallery is. There’s a bit of a sense of treading water this year… Optimism has turned into fatigue.

I think there’s always an element of escapism when it comes to making work, which can be cathartic. I don’t use my work as an outlet for anxieties. I think I’m always trying to hold onto and reveal some reality. I had planned a lot of the work before Covid-19, but the lockdown brought a new context to certain paintings which maybe removed some ambiguity.
In the show, I wanted to explore how our gaze is constantly interrupted, creating a space where objects and people are given the same agency. One example being a boot, traditionally an object to represent the work/life experience of its owner, in the show I’ve imbued it with the same personality and tension I would with a sitter (if not more).
Really what I’m interested in is exploring how we look and engage with space all around us. How often the physical world is interrupted by images placed to pull at our ideas of desire, and how this impacts our gaze and can leave us with both a literal eye strain from overexertion but also a philosophical eye strain that leads straight down the optic nerve leaving us with a sense frustration and confusion over what reality is.

I always paint friends or friends of friends. I want people that fit a role; it’s less about a specific person’s identity than a theme that can be tapped into.

Most things have been thought out and planned by the time I start painting, although things often change when I start painting. I tend to be quite open about what I allow to spark an idea – often it’ll come from books, films, the news or museums. I like this cut and paste way of threading a narrative together as it allows for different veins of interpretation.

Painting has such an overwhelming history, it can feel redundant to try and add to it, but I think there’s plenty more to be said. One of my favourite painters is Avery Singer, who uses computer programmes to help design her work. I also use technology whether it’s the Internet for source material, or photographs and playing with ideas on photoshop. I lean into this digital crutch by painting in a way that is as clean and tight as possible, a nod to the screen and the disembodiment evoked by virtual worlds.

Painting is a way of layering time that can only be experienced in the flesh, seeing how it interacts with space. I think it’s great that so much can be seen online – I certainly get a lot of inspiration seeing what other people are up to –, but it will never replace making a trip in order to see something physically.
Spaces like Alice Black are so important in nurturing artists. It has allowed me to think about painting in a less two-dimensional way, which you can only experience once installed. This in itself is a working process that will lead to new ideas and ways of working. Physical spaces also encourage a more organic interaction with the public and peers, which again can be extremely useful.

In the same way as seeing painting as time layered, I find it interesting to layer art historical references with more contemporary events or ideas. One painting in the show, We Lay Waiting (The Sword of Judith and Holofernes), explores the highly depicted story of Judith and Holofernes. My version places the sword with its two faces as the protagonist. The choice of this story, which has a sword as a focal point, came about from wanting to give objects the same agency as people.
A sword has natural agency through years of tales of swords choosing their owners and having personalities of their own in video games. This all makes the sword the ideal metaphor for understanding and thinking about the world in a different way, whether it be more ecologically or simply thinking about the limitations of perception as something evolved in order to function.

There’s an underlying humour to the show. The fence, for example, is oversized, with bars that don’t keep anything in or out. The Murals as well are meant, in their looseness, to act as antidotes to the cleanliness and tightness of the oil paintings. The waterfalls almost attempt to wash over the viewer in a hydrotherapeutic sort of way. The installation of the show is meant to feel hectic on one level, your eyes are encouraged to keep working and moving. It also hopefully encourages one to slow down.

I’ve got a couple of group shows in the pipeline, but otherwise, I’m just going to spend the next few months researching some ideas for the next show.