The Beat January 2003

Andrew Marley is a one man army of art, busy covering the gray city of Busan with explosions of acrylic beauty and hot burning life. He‘s crawled out of factories and hagwons to establish himself as a working class painter in the truest sense. His work wouldn‘t be out of place in any gallery, but these days, you‘re more likely to find his paintings in his local haunts: covering the walls of Crossroads bar, dripping off the back wall at Soultrane, warming the back nook of the Basement Bar and birthing the atmosphere of the Tachyon restaurant chain. He‘s a prime example of a foreigner who‘s chased his dreams to Korea and made a stand, creating his own self-styled niche. We met recently over a beer...

Beat: When did you start painting?
Andrew: I started painting ten years ago. A late bloomer.
B: What got you into painting?
A: I worked in the National Art Gallery in Canberra for five years as a museum assistant. While I was there, I had the experience of all the world‘s greatest art, hanging exhibitions and getting really close to it. But at that time I couldn‘t paint at all because I was just faced with brilliant art works every day. Only after I left the job, I was at a loose end about four years after leaving the gallery, that I decided I wanted to be an artist. So I just joined an art school when I was 38 and all the kids were about 20. I didn‘t think I‘d be an artist because of the age difference. But the teachers were my age and they encouraged me. When I went to university I won a painting prize and that shook me a bit, ’cause I was picked by this judge from out of town. I needed confirmation that I was an artist and that was the boost. The young people around me, my family supported me, but winning that painting prize was the turning point, saying, “Okay, I am an artist.”
B: What was your formal art education?
A: Definitely, I‘d have to say the National Gallery, because there I was speaking to curators and seeing art from all different parts of the world, from different times, and so that was my formal education in appreciating art. But I‘ve always loved art since I was a kid, as a choirboy looking at stained-glass windows on a Sunday was enough of an inspiration to appreciate color. I had a big struggle in Australia to make ends meet, so I left home when I was 14.
B: What were you doing?
A: For a long time I worked as a metalworker, a fitter and turner in a factory. I had artistic notions, even though I was doing this job just to survive, pay rent, buy my first car. Ten years I worked in the factories, and it wasn‘t until I moved to Canberra and this [National Gallery] job came up; that really put me on my path.
B: When you thought about becoming an artist, why did you decide to attend art school? What did you think you would get out of that?
A: When you start late, it‘s hard to say, “I‘m an artist” and not actually paint one picture in your life; you have to make a start. I was painting pictures before I went to art school, just in the kitchen after the factory work, I‘d go home and paint a little. And then this old lady next door saw my first works and said, (squeaky voice) “Oh, it‘s beautiful!” So, I cut an age barrier there.
B: Who are your favorite painters, the ones who influenced you?
A: There‘s been a lot. The American, Jackson Pollock was a big inspiration. David Smith, the sculptor. Some Australian artists and Impressionists. Also Monet, Matisse, Picasso‘s always been interesting. I‘ve got an interest in so many different artists so it‘s hard to say who‘s my favorite. When I went to Holland, I went to see Rembrandt and Van Gogh; that was the only reason I went there. So Van Gogh was definitely, still is…just the way he could put paint down in a really emotional way and not intellectualize about it. Because I‘m not an intellectual, I‘m very much a feeling painter and so was he. Well, I wouldn‘t chop my ear off or commit suicide…
B: Not that emotional…
A: No, but I appreciate what he did, and he really changed things. When I was at university, they basically said that painting was dead, so I hated it, because I had all these intellectuals saying, “Now it‘s computer technology or fetishism and thisism and thatism and whatever.” But at the end of the day, when I came out here and went to Fukuoka for my visa run three years ago, I went to Fukuoka Art Gallery and they had an exhibition of young Japanese artists; Huge canvases, brilliant colors, the tradition continued and painting was not dead, it just hit me then, painting is still very much alive and well in the hands of these young artists. I‘ve always believed myself that it wasn‘t dead, it‘s only university people who said it was dead, and I never believed them, so I had trouble with university and their ideals.
B: What kept you going?
A: These teachers encouraging me to stick at it, and I did. Perhaps another thing in my mind; I was 38, no family, no wife, no career, no nothing, “What am I going to do when I‘m an old man?” I feel like I need to do something, and I hate working for people. Art was a way of approaching old age too and expressing your life without any hang-ups about it, just something that you can develop and get better and better and better. I think if I do my best painting I‘ll probably stop and do something else Everyone does their best work and after that it‘s all downhill. I don‘t think I‘ve reached the pinnacle yet, so that‘s kept me going. And I‘ve sold maybe 200 works now.
B: When did you start selling paintings?
A: I had a solo exhibition at the university, and I sold about 15 paintings. And then after one year in Korea, I went back and had an exhibition and sold 30 paintings at the second exhibition. That sort of encouraged me too, not knocked-up prices, but they were just enough to pay for the exhibition, pay for the materials, pay for the next materials, and keep on going.
B: Are you making a living from painting?
A: No I can‘t make a living on painting. I‘m teaching. I‘m a Sunday painter.
B: What do you like to paint?
A: I like expressing the landscape around me. Busan is just a totally different environment from the one I left. There‘s one mountain in Newcastle and there‘s fifty here. And I couldn‘t see the city, it‘s all in the valleys, I couldn‘t figure out how this city sat or the layout of it. In Newcastle you can go to the top of that one mountain and see the city underneath you and know exactly where the harbor, beach and McDonald‘s is, where here you can‘t do that, it‘s multidimensional. It was only when I lived in Gaegeum, which is near Seomyeon, when I thought I‘d walk up this big mountain and have a look and figure out where the hell I am, and I went up and I could see Nampodong and I could see the river on this side, I could see Kimhae airport, and I could see way out to Haeundae. It was only then that I got a grasp of this strange city. So expressing it…I‘ve been painting mountains for all the while.
B: Has Korea inspired or influenced your painting?
A: It has in a way. I‘m interested in Chinese characters, so I‘ve painted a few paintings with Chinese characters in them and looked up the meanings and put them in my work. I‘ve also looked hard at the most famous Korean paintings. They call this man “Mr. Water Droplet”, he lives in Paris and he paints water droplets, I‘ve looked at his work. I‘ve looked at a lot of ancient Korean/Chinese style of landscape painting, and the main thing that struck me was the use of negative space, so whereas I totally complete a canvas with color, they leave half the canvas free of anything, the ying-yang thing. That‘s of interest to me because I‘ve just done a few paintings where I‘m trying to use that idea. The other idea; we in the West look at color in the sense of a rainbow. Here they have a totally different color theory based on direction: North--black, south--red. North--death/winter, South--red/vibrant. East--green/blue, youth/Spring, West--autumn/harvest, white. The center, gold, representing the king. The center is a direction in itself. That color theory totally blew me out when I read a little bit of it.
B: Have you incorporated that into your painting?
A: Just a couple of paintings I‘ve used the basic color theory. In the center there‘s a gold sun with red to the south. But only in little ways, not in a meaningful direct way like, “Okay I‘ll do this style according to Korean.”
B: You‘ve been in Korea four years?
A: No, three years. I had a year off.
B: Why did you come to Korea?
A: In Australia it‘s very hard to get a decent art-teaching job. After six years of being poor, I applied to China, Japan, and Korea, and Korea was the first on the telephone saying, “we‘ve got a job for you, wanna come?” So I rushed to my atlas…Busan, oh there it is, okay. So they sent me an airline ticket, and I did a hagwon contract for a year. I wanted to experience Asia and get away from Australia.
B: How much do you paint these days?
A: I get up in the morning at five o‘clock and I paint for two or three hours before I go to work. And then I come home and the baby‘s sort of settled down and my wife‘s got a favorite TV show on, I paint for a couple of hours then. So maybe I paint four hours a day. Sunday I paint much the same. About twenty hours a week I suppose. A lot of time‘s been taken up doing Mr. Kim‘s restaurant contracts. One of my paintings, the one in Masan, is 35 meters long.
B: That‘s a wall?
A: Yeah, one long wall. It depicts a landscape. The central feature of it is Sajik stadium, when Korea beat Poland 2-1. I was there.
B: This is a big project, I imagine he‘s paying you well, I won‘t ask you how much, but I‘m wondering if there‘s some sort of conflict as an artist. Are you free to do what you want to do?
A: I guess the main conflict is that he treats me like a day laborer. But on the other hand, being my first patron, he‘s given me…okay, a Korean person likes my art, buys my art. Without his patronage, maybe I wouldn‘t have a reason to do these large works.
B: Does he direct the works at all? Doe she say like “Hey Andrew, I‘d really like you to paint a…
A: Yeah, he‘s directed a couple of changes, mainly the use of fluorescent paint, so he could put the works under black lights because his restaurants are nightclubs too. That was one change. The last one was a very tricky work I‘d done for him. I haven‘t seen it since I completed it. We‘ve had a bit of a clash over it. Yes, I do feel like he‘s bought my soul a little, but on the other hand, without that patronage, I don‘t think I would have done as much work as I‘ve done. So I‘m grateful for him.
B: He‘s your Medici…
A: Yeah. I mean in Australia, no one would give me this opportunity. No one would. So I‘ve got to accept that. And also I appreciate that my work‘s been publicly displayed, in a public place, and Korean people are seeing my art. That means a lot to me, the money‘s not an issue. That‘s the main reason why I accept, “Okay, he‘s a businessman, he makes deals.” That‘s why he‘s rich. You don‘t get rich by paying too much for your paintings, or for your restaurants, or to your staff…
B: You don‘t get rich by painting pictures.
A: Yeah, every artist is poor. It‘s only the top two percent who actually make a living in the art world. It just doesn‘t happen in times of economic uncertainty and fine art is a luxury item. Who‘s gonna buy a luxury item when you can buy a two dollar print down at Mega Mart of a Picasso? That‘s another reason why I appreciate that he‘s hired me to decorate his restaurants. That‘s cool with me.
B: How do Koreans respond to your work?
A: I‘ve had a lot of good response to it, no negative. People think, “You know Korea.” They say stuff like that. I‘ve only been painting here since April, so it‘s not like I‘ve had a full…The man who frames it, he likes my work, and he‘s the first one to tell me, “Oh, he‘s not paying you enough, you should give them to me and I‘ll sell them for a high price and give you fifty fifty and do the framing for nothing. Good deal! Yeah okay!”
B: Some artists I know often observe that as a foreign artist in Korea, they‘re treated in a special way. They‘re invited to these group exhibitions, and some of them feel sort of like the token foreign artist, like there‘s no real interest in their work. What‘s your feeling here as a foreign artist?
A: I read a year ago in the Herald an advertisement for a group exhibition of some foreign artists in Seoul. I thought it was kind of strange how they did that. But the reason they did that was because the formal art world here wouldn‘t give these people any sort of opportunity to display their work. There is in the art world--as in Australia, as in America, as in anywhere else—a closely-knit scene, and of you‘re not in the circle you‘ve got to batter on the door. I‘ve got no interest in doing that.
B: What is your interest?
A: Well, I live in this neighborhood, Soul Trane and Crossroads was my home away from home, I feel very comfortable, so this place is as good as anywhere just to show my art. Simple as that. This is my environment, this is where I live, I paint up the road, I paint scenes that are around this area, so I display them here. I don‘t have to go pay a man five thousand won to have an exhibition space for two weeks where no Korean person‘s ever heard of me—why would they bother coming to see a foreign artist they don‘t even know? Maybe if I‘m here ten years time and you ask me the same question, I might have made inroads, if I keep at it. But I‘m pretty cynical about the professional art world. I guess the foreigners in Seoul are too, that‘s why they banded together to force their way in. “We‘re foreigners, we‘re in Seoul, we‘re expressing ourselves, we want to show this…” I mean, that‘s cool.
B: What interests you about contemporary Korean art?
A: I‘m a bit of a traditionalist. I kind of like the way they keep their culture very intact within their art and use it. The negative space. There‘s a lot of Confucian philosophy behind their art which I‘m not really familiar with but it interests me. And on the other hand the conflict of this Korea rushing into the modern world and leaving behind a lot of old values. I see it in their artwork, that conflict is being expressed.
B: I sometimes hear the criticism from foreign artists that the Korean artists they collaborate with or whose work they‘re familiar with pay too much attention to form or trying to fit a certain type as opposed to more free, emotional expression. What are your thoughts on that?
A: You only have to look at public sculpture in the city to see how conformist artists are in Korea in many ways. They‘ve all got this organic stone form which I see everywhere; it‘s like every sculpture‘s done by the same person. It‘s brilliant work, the way it‘s been polished, but it‘s identical all the way from Haeundae to Seoul. I‘m disappointed in public art. Corporate art, I should say. Maybe that‘s a better word. It‘s got much of a sameness, and it goes back to the fact that they‘re a collective society. It‘s an entirely different philosophy from my society or your society where we‘re all individualists who don‘t want any collective. Not that one‘s any better than the other. In many ways, if this city was in Australia, it would fail miserably. There would be fights left, right, and center. There would be chaos. And here they manage. I think it‘s a good, hardworking, honest city, Busan, so that‘s another reason why I relate to it.
B: If Busan were in Australia, how would it be different?
A: The crowds in the subways, or walking shoulder to shoulder…in Australia they‘re bigger blokes for a start ’cause they drink more beer, and they need more room, and they can‘t handle anyone in close proximity. There would be fights for sure. But here they work collectively, more like an ant‘s nest, to make the city work. I mean, Australia doesn‘t make anything. It just digs and sells.
B: Is there any corporate art, or city-commissioned art that you like?
A: I‘ve seen a few banks that have purchased some very large paintings from the best well-known Korean artists, and they‘re all excellent works. So there is the top ten in Korea; I couldn‘t name them, but I recognize ten styles now anyway, ten individual styles which I really liked. I‘ve seen a hospital with some good works. As I said, only the top two to five percent make a living so these guys, they did a good job. I think, mainly we‘re in the generation now, these guys have gone overseas, they‘ve gone to America, they‘ve gone to Europe, they seen all the world‘s best art, they‘ve come back, and it‘s influenced their own style. I don‘t mean that they‘ve changed their style deliberately but they‘ve definitely been influenced. It‘s actually changing the way Koreans look at the world too. They need to, it‘s a fact of life, because Korea is a globalized nation that sells all their products to different parts of the world, so they can‘t just sort of sit within the Asian framework. The art is depicting that.
B: Where do you see yourself going as an artist?
A: I‘d like to follow in the footsteps of Monet and Turner.
B: In what way?
A: Just keep on developing until your very old age, even into your 70‘s and 80‘s, even on your deathbed. I‘d like to just plod along. That‘s the word.