The Missing Act: In Conversation with Max Gimson

Following its display at Derby Museum & Art Gallery, an exhibition featuring the works of Max Gimson will be showcased at Mall Galleries from Monday 10 March to Saturday 15 March. As the ninth recipient of the Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award, Gimson’s work reflects the people, culture, heritage, and landscape of Derbyshire.

We spoke to Max about his exhibition and future plans. 

Congratulations on being the ninth winner of the Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award! How did it feel to receive one of the largest art prizes for a rising artist in the UK?

Thanks, it's an honour to win the award. When I found out that I'd won I was working a full time job and trying to paint in the evenings in my attic. It can be a bit isolating working from home like that, wondering if they're any good or thinking 'what's the point?' and 'should I pack it in and save the money?'. So to win the Vickers award made me realise that what I was making wasn't complete nonsense after all. Though I am aware some of it is...

Aside from that, the amount of support the award offers is the most incredible thing; the studio at Banks Mill, the opportunity to teach at Derby University, the financial support to actually exist as a working artist, and all the other help with putting on the exhibitions and creating the catalogue. It was a really unique experience that gave me the time and space to develop my work. 

The award brings an artist to Derbyshire for an extended period. How has that time spent immersed in the county influenced your work and practice?

When I moved to Derby I made the decision that I wanted the work to be completely influenced by whatever I could find there; no direct continuations of earlier work. I could never have imagined that I'd end up making paintings about a derelict theatre and I never had any plans to paint faces and people prior to exploring the county. I also tried new materials like priming canvases with concrete and painting on hessian, these weren't arbitary decisions, they came about by thinking through ideas related to the Derby Hippodrome which ended up being the location all of the paintings were about. The colour palette I ended up adopting was also specific to this work. I'm sure the day to day studio interactions with people and walking to the studio most mornings also seeped into the work one way or another too. 

The awards theme is 'A Sense of Place'. What aspects of Derbyshire - its people, culture, or landscape, inspired you the most?

As I ended up making work about the Derby Hippodrome, it's a combination of all those things, people, personalities, characters on and off stage, attitudes in the past and now. How culture has changed as well; the idea of a theatre being this communal site especially during the war, compared to now where almost everything is designed to isolate you from other people. Also architecture of the Hippodrome was a source of interest - or the destruction of the architecture - making it take on this second life, like it's returning to something more primitive and violent. More specifically though, I loved finding out odd bits of information to do with the Hippodrome, like how they used to hold pigeon and whippet races in there as well as things like aquatic shows. It was also the first place Bela Lugosi reprised his role as Dracula on stage; thinking about him backstage between performances, smoking a pipe and reading reviews in the papers inspired the painting that has become a focal point for this exhibition. 

Has this project changed the way you think about your practice or the themes you want to explore in future work? 

Definitely, I'm still trying to work it all out to be honest as my time in Derbyshire changed the trajectory of my work so drastically. I am still interested in painting performers and personalities, narratively but also in a material way, in how I use and apply paint. A very literal next step I've taken is to start painting TV and film, or me watching the TV. I'm not sure where it's going yet but I feel like its got some legs. I finished a piece recently of Jamie Oliver watching Sunset Boulevard, I think it works as a painting but it's got me thinking about a lot of other pieces i can make so I'll run with it for a while, see where I end up. 

Your exhibition draws inspiration from the Derby Hippodrome. What was it about the building's history that inspired you?

It wasn't the history that first interested me to be honest. I spent a few weeks wandering around writing down ideas and making sketches when I first came to Derbyshire but the derelict Hippodrome was the first thing that stuck in my thoughts for some reason. It feels quite imposing to walk along Green Lane and to be confronted by this vacant hulk of a building. All the windows are boarded up, there's weeds growing out of it and it seems like people are sleeping rough in there. Kids would also sneak inside on the weekends and you'd see them up on the roof, drinking, vaping and chucking things off the side. It was the first impression of it being a slightly intimidating location that led me to find out about its history. I didn't end up making paintings of kids vaping on the roof though, it was after discovering archived news articles and theatre programmes at the local histories library that the ideas to make work started to hit me. I ended up thinking about it like the BBC film 'The Stone Tape', as if the variety acts and events that happened at the Hippodrome are somehow recorded in the rubble of the building. I tried to explore the idea of painting something that isn't accessible to me other than through old photos and written material to see if I could describe something of the atmosphere. 

The exhibition also includes an audio description with Bloomberg Connects to increase accessibility. How did this collaboration shape your thinking about how audiences experience your work?

I work as an audio describer for TV so due to there being enough money to have the exhibition described it just made sense to make it accessible to a visually impaired audience. Obviously painting is a visual art form, so it must be instantly written off as something to enjoy for people who are blind or partially sighted and it would be good to change that. The voicer of the descriptions, Mo Pickering-Symes interviewed me about the collection; she accurately portrays each piece in her descriptions but she's also included some information that one might not pick up from just viewing the work - so it's worth having a listen to. 

Do you have a favourite piece you are exhibiting in The Missing Act exhibition? 

I tend to work quite quickly, both in terms of actually painting but also moving through ideas, so it's hard to pick one piece. Each painting came out of whatever happened to be spiralling around in my thoughts at the time, and those thoughts either become more pointed or more confused. The paintings are like condensed experiences or memories. That being said, as I've had a few months away from seeing the paintings I can view them a bit more objectively now and I think 'Cinderella' is a piece that has a strange autonomy to it that I could never have planned. 'Backdrop of Genteel War' is another one that I like, it feels odd and charged. 

Finally, what's next for you after 'The Missing Act'? Any new ideas or projects on the horizon? 

I'm back working full time, making paintings in my attic again so I'll continue doing that for now. If anyone fancies buying all the paintings in the show at Mall Galleries, who knows, maybe I could get a proper studio built in the garden!