ROVING REPORTER: VES 25: Non-Observational Painting

Non-observational painting or paint therapy? VES Lecturer Drew Beattie asked his students to dig deep and throw everything they found onto canvas. The results were displayed at the VES 25: Non-Observational Painting open house on January 9. Roving Reporter showed up to admire the artwork and bother people.



Drew Beattie, Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies



RR: What is your middle initial?

DB: I don’t really use it.

RR: Sure, but it’s The Crimson’s style to attribute people using their middle initials.

DB: No.

RR: Okay. So what were you trying to get your students to accomplish in this class?

DB: Well, it’s technically a beginning class, so I’m trying to get students to use an alternate language to engage with painting. It’s non-observational, so you’re dealing with imagined structures.

RR: And everyone was on board with that?

DB: I give a big spiel during shopping week, so I tend to draw people who are into that sort of thing. [Rudolf Arnheim Lecturer on Studio Arts] Nancy Mitchnik also teaches a foundational observational painting class.

RR: Do you guys have a rivalry? Non-observational versus observational?

DB: No, we’re buddies. Sometimes it’s useful to pretend that we do, but we don’t really. I think it’s important for Harvard students to practice speculative making, doing as thinking. It’s about thingness, not theory.



Ian R. Merrifield ‘12



RR: What do we have here?

IRM: Well, we started out with ten little paintings that were inspired from a list of like, 200 phrases. Then for the final painting we were supposed to loosely combine them into one big painting, somehow synthesize them. Conceptually it’s incredibly difficult to go from something so small to something so large...I had never worked with oil before this painting—the other paintings were in acrylic. Acrylic is cool, but oil is much more seductive. You get to sit there and play with it...I’m dealing with some pretty loaded imagery. One of the first things our professor said in the final critique was that there aren’t many more loaded images than Christ on the cross. I wanted to ask, “What sort of modern world needs to be saved with another round of crucifixions?” That’s the conceptual idea I started with.

RR: Is this going home to mom and dad?

IRM: I live in California, so it would probably be pretty expensive. Plus, I’m not sure they would be happy with a painting with a lot of crucifixions. I’m not sure they would want to put it up in their house.



Eamon F. Fleming ‘10



RR: What do you think of your friend’s painting?

EFF: I think it’s great.

RR: What is it?

EFF: It looks like a guy in the street.

RR: Why is the guy’s head so small?

EFF: Probably, because it’s the farthest thing away.

RR: Has he grown as a painter since you’ve known him?

EFF: We don’t really know him as a painter. He’s always sitting around drawing, sketching with paint markers and stuff. A lot of it is hip-hop inspired. Straight gangster rap.



Sophie R. Wharton ‘11 and Madeleine A. Bennett ‘11



RR: What do you think of the paintings?

SRW: I’m very impressed. Our friend has practically lived here, so it’s nice to see the end result.

RR: So was she successful?

SRW: Of course! She’s a dancer, and I can see a lot of the same talent in her paintings.

MAB: All of the paintings here are so different. There’s a lot of self-expression. Cartoons next to big splotches.

SRW: I like the monsters. They’re cute in a freakish way.

RR: Do you think people are exorcising their Harvard frustrations?

MAB: More of this would be pretty healthy for the school.

—Staff Writer Jillian J. Goodman can be reached at jjgoodm@fas.harvard.edu.