Three new environmental paintings by Michael Madden

Michael Madden, local painter, sculptor and former campaigner, talks with HOT’s Chandra Masoliver about his recent work, where, as before in his triptych ‘The Weighing of the Souls’, he paints animals with haloes.

CM: I haven’t asked you for an interview about your work for some years, nor have I seen any. What work have you been doing?

MM: I’ve only ever been a part-time painter because I’ve either been working or have found that life gets in the way. The past four years have been mostly spent dealing with family health issues.

CM: I’d like to start with a reminder of the triptych you painted five years ago. Could you tell us the essence of that powerful painting?

MM: It was based on Egyptian and medieval Christian iconography and was about the deteriorating environment and how human behaviour is responsible for it. So the animals were weighing our souls and finding us guilty.

CM: And here are three more paintings of animals, two with haloes and one without. What are they telling us?

MM: These three panel paintings are my own versions of medieval icons. They are, once again, all meditations on global warming. They’re around a foot in diameter and made of oak panel, gessoed, then painted with egg tempera and decorated with gold leaf, using the old methods. They’re as close to original icons as I can manage. But I’ve tried again to make a contemporary point in my own style.

CM: Can we start with the penguin lying back in the arms of a Madonna? They are looking tenderly at each other, with love. Behind is a sea of breaking ice and there’s red in the sky.

MM: Sure. This is the first one I painted – my version of a 13th century icon painting of a Madonna and Child. But where the Madonna usually cradles a supernatural baby Jesus, here she cradles a penguin. They both have haloes, indicating that if a person is seen as having divine grace, so should a penguin. It’s called ‘The Madonna of the Antarctic’, and the red in the sky is a stylised tornado or hurricane, another symbol of global warming, like the breaking ice.

CM: In the second one, again with ice cracking, a huge polar bear holds her cub tenderly, but it looks desperate, clinging. Please tell us your thoughts and feelings.

MM: It’s called ‘The Madonna of the Arctic’, and is another Madonna and Child, featuring another stylised version of a tornado or hurricane and broken ice sheets.

CM: The third painting is different: a lion on a sheet, a veil perhaps , looking straight at us, close, with blood dripping from something in his mane. Behind, the land is on fire. What is he telling us?

MM: Yes, it’s a veil. And yes, this one is different from the others. It’s called ‘Saint Veronica’s other veil’. Saint Veronica was, according to the Bible, a woman who offered Christ her veil as he carried his cross to Calvary, so that he could mop his brow. When He gave it back to her, and when she looked at it later it had the perfect image of his face – supposedly a miracle. This kind of image verges on kitsch to our eyes, but became common in the late Gothic and early Renaissance eras. I have reimagined it, not with the King of the Jews, but with the King of the Animals: a lion. Instead of a halo, he is wearing a crown of thorns as Christ usually did in such images, in order to convey sacrifice. The savannah behind is on fire due to global warming.

CM: You have used holy images, are animals holy then, or sacred? Is that why you use icons, haloes and a veil?

MM: Yes. As William Blake said: “All of life is holy”

CM: In your last interview you quoted George Orwell, “The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political statement”, Why?

MM: Well, I think he meant this: the idea that artworks should not comment on the critical issues of the time in which they are made is a political viewpoint, and I think he said that because he was aware of being a political writer, but of being an exception in that respect. I think he felt that more writers should dare to comment on their own time, or to warn of bad things to come. I agree with him because I find that most visual artists, even today, fail to engage with the most urgent issues of our time. Perhaps the biggest existential threat to our own species right now is man-made global warming. Donald Trump is banning any American research establishments and censoring those who mention it. Which shows how right Orwell was. America is becoming like 1984. And in the UK I can only think of one artist who dares to make political art, and who does it really well: Banksy. Very recently Anish Kapoor designed a visual statement that Greenpeace put up and sprayed. So it’s becoming slowly more common at last. I’ve tried to make politically relevant work since the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001. But as I said, life often gets in the way, so it’s only been seen now and then, but at last I have the time to correct that.

CM: And I always remember you quoting Chief Seattle, who said that if we let wild animals die out, then we will suffer a great loneliness of the spirit. Are we too human-centric?

MM: Yes. We’ve painted Gods in our image, while saying that we are made in His image, but without any proof. I believe in Evolution but also in the idea that we and all living creatures share one great Mind or Soul. So I make these pictures in the hope that other people might see this, if they don’t already.

CM: I think I should ask you if you’d sell them?

MM: Well, as I told you before, I don’t sell via galleries because they usually take 50% of the sale price, which I think is totally unfair. But I sold the triptych for £7k after your interview, which was great. Thanks again. In fact I got two offers, but the first person just wanted to use it as a kind of space-filler at the top of her staircase. Anyway, I gave £1K to Greenpeace. So I’m hoping to sell these and give more money to Greenpeace. But also I think I may have a one-man show coming up, so I think they will sell there, if I can agree on the terms of sale etc.

CM: Thank you for sharing these paintings and your ideas Michael.

MM: Thanks for the opportunity.

Michael Madden’s Weighing of the Souls article can be seen here

 

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