Jonathan Freemantle

Hunted Projects: A Banquet for Charles is described as an elegy and a symbolic meal. What drew you to the idea of framing this tribute to Charles Hardaker through the structure of a banquet?

Jonathan Freemantle: I loved the idea of presenting the paintings as a celebration of life, of living well and as a kind of joyful visual poem to celebrate this man who has meant so much to me. There’s something both humble and simultaneously grand about a great meal and this perfectly echoes how I saw Charles, both humble and grand. Although he painted many subjects over his long career, he returned most often to the still life, usually painting the same collection of objects in his studio. So it seemed appropriate that this tribute took the form of a series of still lives too. I painted these works with him in mind, in fact I felt his smiling, gently encouraging presence throughout, I still do. 

HP: Each course in the exhibition corresponds to a specific memory or shared moment. Could you talk about how you selected these particular dishes - oysters, monkfish, cheese, Tarte Tatin - and what each one revealed to you during the painting process?

JF: Yes, each dish came from a meal at some point over the past 6 months or so where I had Charles in mind. The Oysters were the starter of a meal at Cafe Royale in Edinburgh, with my wife Anna. The Monkfish main was also with Anna, shortly after Charles’ passing. It was a beautiful meal full of the memory of dear Charles. The Tarte Tatin was at The Ivy in London, the day after his funeral. I wanted to celebrate the love he had for his French wife, Annick and I knew that he was a big fan of desert so the two combined nicely. With the cheese course I wanted to evoke Giorgio Morandi, one of his favourite artists. So the staging of this painting evokes Morandi for me. The final painting presents the final act of the banquet, the aftermath. This image comes from the aftermath of a magnificent meal with my family in Athens earlier this year. In many ways it was my favourite meal ever, so it felt right to have this here. I love the chaos of a table after a wonderful meal has finished.

HP: You describe Hardaker as someone who taught you to ‘refine the looking and refine the looker.’ How does that teaching manifest in your practice today, especially in these new paintings?

JF: I would say that this simple practice is at the centre of everything I am trying to do. When I first met Charles he taught this approach with such clarity that is has stayed with me ever since. He taught us to look without naming, to remain open to the magic and the unknown, to leave the door open to a new possibility of seeing that continues to offer glimpses into a great and unfolding mystery. I have a daily practice of meditation which serves as a still point in life as well as a force that refines my ability to look with an ever increasing openness. Charles had the same meditation practice and I looked to him as a guide in this too.

HP: There is a strong sense of ritual in these works - both in dining and in remembrance. How do you see rituals of eating connecting with rituals of painting or seeing? 

JF: A meal is a kind of ritual, as is the act of painting and yet both are so ordinary too. This for me is where the magic lies, in the simplicity. The banquet is presented in Charles’ honour and I painted with him in mind, bowing at the feet of the master. This is the spirit in which these paintings were made. By offering the works in this way, there is a sense of ritual perhaps. I’m glad you see it. 

HP: Hardaker’s studio wall carried the words ‘Silence. Stillness. Space.’ How did these principles guide you while creating this body of work?

JF: Those words act like a mantra for me, elegant and simple. Although painting is an additive process, where something is conjured out of nothing. Layer upon layer of paint building up the image. Yet there is also an inverse process happening at the same time, where through the act of painting, looking, seeing into the subject, seeing the space between the objects, experiencing the silence that fills the studio and the stillness that is the result of this; this inverse process, like the peeling of an onion, creates a sense of space. Somehow by painting in this way, the result is simultaneously the production of a painting and yet also the opening up of an inner space, filled with silence.

HP: As some of these paintings emerged from meals shared in the wake of Hardaker’s passing, how did loss and remembrance guide your hand in the studio?

JF: Painting these paintings brought Charles into the studio with me, in the most tangible sense. He was with me. I felt blessed to have spent this time with him, sharing a stillness that he knew so intimately. 

HP: Morandi’s influence appears in the cheese course, linking your shared admiration for him with Hardaker’s legacy. How do you see your work in conversation with both Hardaker and Morandi?

JF: Morandi was able to depict in his paintings of his humble collection of objects a kind of transcendental, elegant, timelessness. Looking at his paintings you truly feel that time stops. The brushstrokes are direct, unfussy and clear. He looks, sees and then applies the paint with a singularity that is so rare. You don’t see embellishment or even flair, it is as if Morandi himself is absent, his ego is so quiet. There is no doubt and yet there is no bold claim being made either. So the result is that the paintings are luminous, set free of ego. They exist in the same way as his objects do, silent and beautiful but never shouting. They are simply there. Charles saw this in Morandi and taught me to see it too. In many ways Charles’s work followed the same path and in my work I am seeing this same resonance, although I know I have far to travel.