While installing the Intervals show, Charlie Cook stepped out of the gallery to talk about how he tackles ‘painting memory’ and his new approach that challenges his sense of when a painting is truly complete.

Could you talk to me about the show’s title, Intervals? Does this word have a specific connection to your artwork?

A lot of us have made reflective work, so the title reflects an interval of our life that we are thinking about in each of our projects. For me, I’m seeing each of my paintings as a segmented version of a memory of my life; I’m splitting it into intervals of things I can and can’t remember. The idea of splitting things up, to reflect in chunks, is what really fit for me. It’s about breaking up profound ideas into illegible little chunks on canvas… It completely obscures it. That was a part of my goal: to zoom so far into some of these memories that they become partly illegible.

With the display of Intervals, your paintings are hung in between the other artists’ works. Was this intentional?

[When installing] we left the wall pieces until last to see where the other artworks were going to go, mainly because my work could fit around everyone else’s. My work is obviously more versatile in terms of display, but also thematically, I always wanted my work to be harder to read. It’s mainly about memory or not being able to remember things. I don’t mind if [my paintings] are spliced about and you have to do a bit more work to read or see them.

Would you say memory is a fundamental intention in your work?

Definitely. It’s not just memory, but I enjoy where and how it can be obscured. Whether it’s focusing on how I remember things wrong or going back to a memory over and over and over again until it’s not what it was anymore. I’m not interested in making something true to life; I’m interested in how memory messes things up.

What has that making process looked like for you in simple terms? How do you approach painting a memory?

[The process] has definitely developed as I was going. I’d started with these illustrative pieces that did just end up as an illustration. It wasn’t quite what I was going for. There are some pieces where I’m focusing on the inconsistencies of spaces. I overwork those by adding overlapping maps to try and make it overstimulating to look at. Again, this is to obscure it. There are two ends of the spectrum for this project. There’s either barely anything for you to look at and make of, or there are pieces that have been so overworked that you still can’t tell what you are looking at. I’ve been jumping back and forth between these two.

I imagine both of these styles come with their own challenges. Now that they have been completed, how do you reflect on your time as a resident here?

The thing I was worrying about the most during the residency was whether these pieces were going to be cohesive. I had a list in my head of memories I wanted to show in these paintings and I don’t think there is a way to curate the thoughts in your head so that they look nice on the wall. I was hyper-focusing on these very small segments of my life and I was thinking, ‘How are these going to come together as one finished piece?’ I’m a lot happier with it now. As soon as I got to a place of knowing when to leave the paintings alone, the whole collection started to look more balanced. Now we’re at the point of installing them downstairs [in the Main Gallery] and mine will be on the wall with maps drawn between the paintings. I want to draw physical links between these places. Fingers crossed it all goes well; I think it will make these closed-off, separate memories connect in the way I wanted them to.

Charlie painting onto the gallery wall during the *Intervals* installation. Credit: fawning94

Could you tell me more about these lines painted straight onto the gallery wall? Are they an extension of the canvas, or are they there more as a guide for the viewer’s eye?

The lines are there to draw between the works and to complement it. I want to make you wonder how the pieces link together. Obviously, I will be the only person in the room who knows how and why they all relate. I want those lines to begin to pose the questions about how they are all linked. For all I know, people looking may have their own memories that then set off their own links in their head to start answering their own questions which have nothing to do with me.

Would you say your work has always been reflective and autobiographical?

It’s definitely always been reflective, but not necessarily autobiographical. Initially, my aim was to reflect on my own experiences and then anonymise that. I like to broaden it out to make it more relatable for the people looking at it. More recently, I’ve zoomed further in where I’ve thought, ‘I’m going to focus on my own experiences so much that it becomes abstract.’ It’s not like my life is entirely individual. People will be able to look at segments of the work and get something out of it. It’s become more personal and autobiographical, but I’ve done that, weirdly, to make it more relatable.

“You end up building this toolkit in your head with the steps that make work you’re happy with. I think throwing that out was a case of just trusting the process and feeling like it was going badly until the very end.”

Is this new ground you’ve covered during the residency?

100%. My focus has typically been the finished piece rather than the process. Obviously, the process is inescapable. However, it has always been a means to an end, rather than [how it has been] recently when I have those moments where a memory is fresh in my head. I have to go with it as quickly as possible. Now, it’s a case of thinking, ‘Okay, I might not even remember what I’m trying to paint by the time this is finished.’ This means I can’t even predict what this is going to look like, so I have to just keep on painting. The only thing to do is focus on brush to canvas.

This dramatic change in approach must be daunting. How do you deal with change and taking risks?

It’s definitely scary. I think that’s why it took until close to the end of the residency to turn the corner and think, ‘Okay, this is what I have to do.’ You spend the whole of your BA trying to figure out what works for you. When you come out of it with a degree and a body of work that you know works through this set process, trying to deconstruct that and go against what you knew is really scary. At first, it feels like you’re doing it wrong. You end up building this toolkit in your head with the steps that make work you’re happy with. I think throwing that out was a case of just trusting the process and feeling like it was going badly until the very end.

Interview by Orla Sprosen.

You can find out more about Charlie Cook’s work on Instagram (@fawning94).

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