"Tango in Art

Art in Tango"

~ Introduction ~

 Andrew Fitzpatrick...

...came to my class to learn tango about two years ago. Always amazed at his tremendous skill and ability as an artist, I was thrilled when he told me of his wish to make tango the theme of a series of paintings he was planning. His increasing interest and passion for tango has served to create a bridge between his creativity as an artist and his perception of tango as another form of art… this time using the floor as his canvas. This interview provides a revealing insight not only into an artist’s mind, but into an artist’s mind and its artistic relation to another art… the creative art of tango.

~ Dani Iannarelli

Conducted by: Dani Iannarelli

Thursday 25th August, 2005 Sheraton Grand Hotel, Edinburgh

 

So, Andrew Fitzpatrick, how long have you been an artist?

 

 

I’ve been painting, as a career if you like, since I graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1988.

 

 

Ok, and was it always your intention to be an artist? Didn’t you, like many kids, want to be a fireman or an astronaut or something like that?

 

The idea gradually formulated when I was young; from my mid-teens actually. I was also very interested in writing but I knew deep down that becoming an artist was what I really wanted.

 

Andrew, what’s your definition of art?

 

Hmmm, that’s an interesting one! My definition of what art is – and I’m talking about my kind of art – would be something along the lines of ‘an expression of emotion in a sensuous medium’. In my case, a sensuous medium would be oil painting, so fundamentally what you’re doing is putting your emotion into the medium of oil painting, through the brushwork and so forth.

 

 

What style of art have you been guided into, and are there any particular painters you could say have served as inspiration to your own style?

 

Well, I’ve always favoured what I’d call ‘traditional painting’. There’s a line of painters running from renaissance – starting, say, from Giorgione and going pretty much right through Titian , Velazquez, Goya And Degas into the late 19th Century really; ‘peak Picasso’, if you like, focusing on human beings. It’s a very humanistic approach. This is what I find so intriguing about tango; it brings together a lot of elements that interest me as a subject matter – especially when I started studying tango with you, Dani. From the perspective of its application to my painting, I strongly believe that some experience in the subject matter helps a great deal. It took me about a year of learning the tango before I really thought to myself, “yeah, I’d actually quite enjoy doing some paintings with a tango theme” – while, at the same time, trying to understand a little bit more about tango culture.

 

 

Insofar as your own art is concerned, have you always been interested in the application of art in movement rather than in still-life?

 

I wouldn’t characterise it as ‘movement’, it’s really about the elegance of human beings performing, if you like. In the case of tango, what I would characterise it as ‘the harmonious interaction of two human beings ’ …a man and a woman. This is what I really enjoy seeing.

 

 

And as what do you perceive tango? Do you perceive it as art, purely a dance or do you see an interaction between the two?

 

I think it must be the great dance form. In this respect, it certainly can be art. Probably when I dance the tango it’s not art (!) :-) However, when I see some people dancing the tango, I’d describe it most definitely as art. They’ve been able to touch the soul of the dance and make it into an appreciable form of art. It’s like the art of poetry in motion, the phrasing, the beauty, the meaning, the colour, the interaction. It all develops as a mystery, the mystique of harmonious interaction and sensuousness between two (perhaps lonely) people who may have only just met at a salon and might not previously have known or even spoken to each other. Such ‘Strangers in the Night’ may blend and pick up, through the common language of tango, a mutual unspoken understanding of the incredibly beautiful things they can paint on the canvas of the tango dance floor… the ‘Art of Emotion’, perhaps?

 

 

So you see hidden depth in the dance in a similar way to the hidden depth, the under-text perhaps, that you see in people’s paintings? What about your own paintings?

 

Yes, I see a mystery there for me. I see an incredible elegance to the dancers, the way they hold themselves, the shapes they make with each other. When I’m painting, it’s not so much the movement on which I’m focusing; it’s actually shapes the dancers are making. My perception is that there is a cessation of time in which I analyse the variety of postural interrelationship that the couple can paint in their tango. I’m intrigued by depicting the seemingly endless possibilities of tango moves. When I’m depicting, for instance, two couples in one scene (that I’d describe as a salon on canvas), I find that there’s an enormous relationship variety to enable me to develop a composition extracted from reading their tango; in watching good tango dancers relate their moves, there are endless permutations for the canvas. Having said that, it all comes together also in realising the interest of the dancers themselves as human beings, as individuals; what they’re saying not in words but in feeling just as importantly as what they’re physically doing. There’s also something of an erotic – or at least implied erotic – content to it. This adds another very exciting facet, another brushstroke or hidden colour to the palette. I do have to admit, though,

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that when I’m dancing the tango that’s not what I feel. In my case, it’s because I am too busy using my brain to lead…! L Watching is a very different story; particularly if watching excellent dancers.

 

 

How far has the dance form itself influenced your particular art, and how far has your art influenced you in your tango?

 

 

That’s an interesting question. My girlfriend says that learning tango has given me more confidence and better poise. I really do agree with her that tango is responsible. I think also that it’s given me more confidence with people, perhaps simply because you have to develop confidence to ask someone to dance. Personally, I’m still working on the confidence factor. Oops! I may perhaps have lost track of the question – what was the question again?

 

 

Tango in Art -vs- Art in Tango?

 

Oh, ok.I think there may be a symbiotic thing going on. I want my time with paintings to look as though they haven’t been created with a lot of trouble, haven’t caused me a lot of hassle. I want them to look as if they’ve been created coolly, in the moment, and not appear as works done with a brush as elegantly as someone who can dance the tango. I want my tango paintings to be as earthy and real as the beginnings, the roots of tango. It’s giving the impression of not having worked; the work being all underneath the surface. You know, my learning, my experience just in the way you have taught me, Dani; that there should be no effort… just smooth and easy. I’m not saying I have achieved that, but that’s where I hope to be, what I hope I put into my paintings. I’m constantly striving to impart a sense of not having tried too hard, but nevertheless achieving a decent result.

 

 

And how do you compare between the two the element of creativity?

 

I think I’d probably say that tango is activated differently. I think the tango or movement part of my brain was dormant; it had never really been used. Seeing and learning the visual movement, learning to be able to move in harmonious interaction with someone, as I characterise it, is similar but, in a strange way, different. I feel as though I didn’t have that when I started your tango lessons, Dani. No doubt you noticed that it took me a long time. I still am quite slow to learn moves, and I don’t watch and learn the way perhaps a natural dancer does. I think tango has added something to my mental ability, the ability to see, analyse and effect movement. I suppose as a painter, creating a painting is about looking at things that aren’t moving; taking in the detail through drawing. It’s about being able to read the world and translate it into two dimensions and to be able to look and mix colours on a palette. To see a green, you know enough about what pigments you have to be able to mix two or three colours on a palette to get the green you want. It’s then a case of using a handful of skills to place them, to create a two-dimensional illusion of a three-dimension image. I would say that these are probably differently honed skills. What’s important for me at my age – coming through from my late 30s – is to pick up new skills. I started tango when I was about 35/36, never before having actually utilised those kinds of skills. It’s exciting for me to take up a new activity; it’s actually quite exhilarating! Although I keep saying that I’m not by any means perfect at tango, I do see myself on a journey towards reaching a mysterious place in order to get inside the music and dance – a world in itself.

 

 

And tango… how long have you been dancing tango?

 

I started taking tango lessons when I joined the Glasgow Art Club. At first, I believe, the class was organised by John Thompson. He had a couple, Paul and Clea, who had to move up North. Then you came in, Dani. That was when I really started in earnest because up ‘til then, to be honest, I think I’d only fooled around with it. You were a serious sort of tango master, and you took your art, tango, seriously. You’d been to Buenos Aires so many times, you’d learned the craft, you’d learned the skills – you knew what people were doing and I could see that right away that you knew what you were talking about. What you were teaching us was quite different from what the other couple had been working on, more of a kind of experimental style and, from what I know now, I would say that they weren’t necessarily doing tango. I was in a state of ignorance then. I didn’t know anything about tango when I started. I didn’t know anything about tango culture. I didn’t know about how it was danced, or where it was danced. It was just a word. It was just a cliché. So, until I started taking lessons from yourself and Laura, Dani, that’s when I really started to learn.

 

 

Have you had any lessons from other teachers, Argentinean, art masters or whatever?

 

 

One or two workshops and a Fabian Salas video you lent me have all been very helpful. I’ve had occasional classes with Ricardo and Jenny through in Glasgow . Unfortunately, the times of those classes didn’t work out for me very well and, really, I prefer your classes Dani. Other than that, there have been one or two workshops that I’ve participated in when people have visited. There’s a couple from Leeds who came to Glasgow, again doing just basic tango moves, and that’s quite helpful. I suppose at this point in the journey I should be looking to see where I can go, to see where I can step up my game. I’ve got to admit, I’m quite happy learning from you, because I feel you’ve brought Buenos Aires to me. Having a small income and a small son I can’t travel so much, so I think that’s been great.

 

 

You’ve done a whole series of very successful tango paintings. From here, where do you see yourself going as far as further steps are concerned with regard to tango in your art?

 

I’ve outlined why I started a series of tango paintings; that it was purely because there seemed to be so much variety in the depiction of tango and it would therefore lend itself to being continually interesting. Also, I was interested in seeing the outcome of those variations through trying out, by experimenting; using two couples to balance each other out in different tango moves and positions incorporating different parts and aspects of tango moves. Just playing with it visually to create those atmospheres around tango I think are very attractive to people, simply because of how successful, having already sold a considerable amount, my works have already been. I’ve actually sold most of the tango paintings I’ve done of you and Laura. That gave me the confidence to continue with the tango theme. I think I’ve already said that it’s a theme I find particularly empathetic to my artistic interests which have always been about human beings, the human figure. This allows me to work with all the kind of plus and minus similarities within tango that can be put into the painting, thereby constantly adding new interests and ideas. What I’d like to do in the future is to continue, occasionally, doing a tango painting; perhaps, if I see a couple I like, I may ask them to come and pose for me. In this way I can still, in terms of the existing material I’ve got, continue adding until I’m, basically, exhausted with that theme.

 

 

You’ve highlighted the dancers’ interrelationships, postures, poise, moves and feelings as being of particular influence. What about tango music? Do you see it as having an inspirational bearing on your tango art?

 

I can’t really say that the music affects the visuals so much because when you stop a scene to depict it, you almost stop the music as well. What I would say is that the music is obviously an element of paramount importance in tango. Particularly as I’m going to dance the tango, I realise that there’s this thing about getting inside the music and it’s almost like you and your partner as one become the music as you dance it. I’d like to get that across in my paintings. I don’t know how I can do it. I can say that if people look at my work and feel that they can almost hear the music, then I’ve succeeded. The dancers, in their connection with each other, should be conveying a feeling for the very reason they are so well connected; that reason being the music. It’s about the bare bones of tango, the way two dancers coming together relate to one another as individuals dancing as one; the way they impart info rmation to me by stealth about the music they’re feeling. For me, as an artist, the first impression is really about the visual relationships in their dance. If my viewers appreciate a feel for any musical interpretation in what their seeing when they look at the painting, then I have further succeeded in imparting yet another quality… bringing reality to them through influencing their mindset to subconsciously appreciate as they themselves see fit. If I can impress a lateral inner interpretation into the eye of the beholder, then my art has achieved another level of awareness.

 

 

So would you say that somebody who’s looking at your paintings should be able to interpret the painting in their own manner, by applying their own music to that, to what they see? Do they take from it the type of music ~ the style of music ~ happy or sad?

 

I think people – viewers – will bring what they will to a painting, unlock the business, laying it out exactly what the painting is, what it means to me and subsequently what it means to them. I think there has to be room for interpretation because the viewer will enjoy doing that, otherwise there’s no mystery in a painting. If there’s no space for a person to fill in their emotional response, then it’s dull. Hopefully, a painting can be there for people to look at for years and years and never quite fully get inside it, never quite totally understanding it. For me, I find that’s the case with tango, how it relates with me. I’m not a natural dancer, and so for me it retains a bit of mystery. This is what intrigues me. It’ll keep me coming back to it. I feel that if I solved the mystery of tango or became like a top dancer, then for me, personally, I’d possibly give up.

 

About using brushstrokes to paint, to compose a picture, to build up a picture, can you see moves in tango as brushstrokes developing a picture of a dance, a composition of a dance?

 

Yes, I feel perhaps that would be for another artist to do, but there is certainly a lot of scope in using gestural brushstrokes to follow a move. Some of my friends paint in that style and they can capture a sense of movement, but you tend to lose the clarity. This is, in my opinion, a very interesting and important thing – the analysis of the human figure. One can look analytically at people’s faces, their arms, their torsos, their legs, and always want to get in. It’s very difficult to do this if you’re trying to capture movement. I feel that movement in realistic painting (although not a non-starter) is actually an improper use of the form because it is a still form, it’s static. That can sound contradictory when trying to depict the dance.

 

So, are you saying that ‘Tango in Art’ has an opposite or similar agenda to the ‘Art of Tango’?

 

I suppose, if I can be further contradictory, both opposite and similar.

 

 

My head hurts…! Can you elucidate?

 

 

This may sound surreal but what I’ve been trying to say all along, really, is that it’s not so much the movement and creativity in tango – although it’s wonderful to watch as the move unfolds – it’s also wonderful to temporarily arrest this movement and pin it down to stop time. What we then get is something which relates back to the visual.

 

Is art, then, in capturing the subjective essence of the dancers?

 

For the artist… yes. This is one of the things that always intrigues me about tango, the way people put so much into the visual side of it. You can’t enjoy the visual side when you’re dancing because for the dancer it’s subjective. All you can enjoy is that subjective feeling in your dance. In effect I suppose you’re giving someone else in their objectivity (and in this case the artist) a pleasurable view, thereby portraying a perception, a sense perhaps, of not ‘showing off’ but of putting a lot of effort into something not really giving any real personal benefit; it becomes something for the admiration of other people. In a painting, every thing exists all at once. As an artist, my goal is to reach inside the participants and their tango creation and display a depth, the feeling of that specific moment in their creative harmony.

 

So the aesthetic value of what you’re doing is not for you, as a dancer, but for other people who may be viewing it?

 

Yes, that does seem to be a little bit of a contradiction, a wrong choice of words but to give it that visual flair in the first place… well, I guess it might just be to impress your colleagues, your fellow dancers in some fashion. Performance, I suppose.

 

If you hadn’t been dancing tango, learning it, would you have been able to put as much into your painting of it?

 

Definitely not. I feel you have to experience your prospective subject matter.

 

There’s more of an understanding of what you’re doing.

 

Yes, otherwise I think it would show immediately. If I see one or two tango illustrations or tango paintings, it seems to me they portray a certain cliché about tango; not showing the clinch or whatever. Because of what I’ve learned about tango through you, Dani, I’m more interested in the reality of what the dancers are doing. That’s very important because it’s a thing about practice coming before theory. I’m only beginning to have some kind of concept of what tango is. I’ve only been dancing for a couple of years, or learning to dance for a couple of years, and suddenly one day a light-bulb pops into your head “oh, that’s why we do it that way…!”. And now I can understand how this relates to the overall picture, how it all ties together. You can’t do it at first, so you don’t really understand it. Being now more empathetic to the dance, I know what to bring into my paintings. I know what a move is because without the practice you don’t understand it in the same way at all. I think it’s a very big and important factor.

 

Are you working on anything at this particular moment?

 

Well I’ve just finished some tango paintings for exhibition. I’ve shown some paintings in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh International Festival August/September this year (2005) and I’ve had some tango paintings also exhibited at The ‘Affordable Art Fair’ in London in October 2005 . I’m still working through some ideas and I’m hoping to add new models – good tango dancers. I’ve had yourself and Laura, Dani, whom I found fantastic models as I’ve always considered you together to be, in my mind, the archetypical tango couple and wonderful subjects for my work. Then we had Sarah Marc (from Paris ) who gave me an interesting squash of colour and exoticism. There was also a painting I did of John with Aniese.

 

 

What’s your next step?

 

 

I think what I’d like to do next perhaps is a little series of paintings perhaps illustrating specific tango moves. I’m not sure how I would do it to make it interesting enough – each stage of a move for instance. I could maybe do it impressionistically so that each picture was on a definite title, for example doing sacadas or boleos or something. It would have to be technically correct with regard to the tango mechanics. I’d also like to do maybe three or four pieces involving colour as the main protagonist, introducing new elements to the theme of tango. Whether people within the tango community would find these ideas interesting… well, we shall see…

 

 

Andrew, thanks. See you at tango class on Saturday?

 

 

My pleasure. Yes, I’ll be there painting the floor…!