Annabel Dover is interested in ephemera. The kind of stuff we gather and carry with us through life: photos, knickknacks, heirlooms, small personal treasures of little monetary value. Each one carries a story that means something to us and says something about us, something which may or may not be embodied by the object once we’ve parted from it. And it’s from these objects that Dover has formed a body of work consisting of delicately luminous oil paintings, colored pencil drawings, cyanotypes, and films, each one emanating with an intriguing nostalgia, a hint at the deeply personal bonds we create with objects which, once turned into two dimensional artworks, become a desirable object to a wider audience. For her new show at Transition Gallery, Dover draws on imagery of the belongings of Anne Frank as well as old family photos and ultra-short films to examine how, as young people, we construct a narrative for our own futures filled with the idealism and glamour of the movies. During an interview at her home, Dover shared her inspiration with me, and talked about some the personal experiences that had helped form her artistic practice. She began by showing me some photographs that inspired her paintings…
Annabel Dover, photo by Laura Bushell
AD: It’s related to family things, which is like loads of my work really. These are copies of some of Alex’s [Pearl, Dover’s partner and an artist] family photos. His Mum and Dad are really nice, really normal and sensible kind of people, the total opposite of my family! These are photos of Anne Frank’s wall, which I took on the sly, that are like her imaginary, exotic fantasy family. She had pictures of lots of people like various royals and lots of actors. You’d expect them to be really grim because it’s Anne Frank, quite depressing, but they’re really hopeful. I don’t know if you were like this as a teenager but I would always fantasize in my head, different lovely fantasies about what my life would be like, daydreaming in my bedroom. It made me think like that when I went to Anne Frank’s house, that she was just a normal teenager that’s been turned into this iconic figure. Her diary is amazing as is the fact that she hoped for this fantasy world.
It’s amazing given the situation that she was in.
AD: And maybe that’s it, maybe because she was in a really horrible situation, her mind focused on hope. And then later her life was turned into films, which seems weird as well, that that’s what she wanted and then she got it but only after her death. So that’s the idea behind the exhibition. It’s called National Velvet because Elizabeth Taylor was in that film and it’s just the idea of another young teenage girl and the glamour and potential.
And you’re using this imagery in a series of paintings for the show. How would you describe the way you paint?
AD: I use oil paints in the way that you’re supposed to use watercolors, in thin layers starting form the lightest to the darkest, as opposed to vice versa which is how you are supposed to use oil paint traditionally. I like the idea that they are disappearing and pale and translucent and more akin to traditional Victorian crafts that were acceptable for ‘ladies’ rather than big, macho thick paint.
What’s your attraction to working in 2D? Especially since you often turn 3D objects into 2D artworks.
AD: With the 3D objects what I often do is scan them in first to make them 2D as I find it easier to draw from flat things. I think that I also wanted it to be a bit removed maybe, one step removed from the object.
It’s another step back from the actual object, like a memory being a step away from the experience.
AD: That’s true. It’s going through another filter that I’m adding to it.
And you’re working from analogue photos. I think, although I know that this is not necessarily true, that they’re more truthful than digital photos.
AD: Yes, I was reading recently that when photography was first invented people thought they couldn’t use photos in court because they believed that the sun had made them. Because the sun couldn’t swear on oath, it was made by nature, so they couldn’t use it as evidence. So for about twenty years in the beginning of photography they didn’t use it because it wasn’t thought of as reliable enough. It was only after people could see that it could be manipulated by human touch that they then believed it. It’s definitely the opposite of how we think about it now.
You often use other people’s photographs don’t you?
AD: Often they’re taken from house clearances. I used to collect other people’s stuff so their photos, their Christmas cards, birthday cards. So it’s often creating this imaginary family a bit, or trying not to forget things that might have been thrown away otherwise. It’s like the moments you choose to film, just little things that other people might not see.I suppose it’s just things that look funny or sad, or sweet. There’s so many amazing beautiful things all the time you can’t ever take them all in.
Your films are like little sketches.
AD: Yes, I think so. I think that’s it, just a compilation, an encyclopedia of really tiny little things, things that I notice and it’s nice to communicate them. It’s also the childlike joy of nice things and I suppose also, I like the little stories.
There’s a lot about remembering, recreation and stories behind objects in your work. How does this relate to what you’re doing in your PhD?
AD: Have you heard of Anna Atkins? She was the first person to make these albums of botanical specimens using cyanotypes, so I started doing some cyanotypes of people’s objects. I did my stepfather’s sock as his leg was blown off in the Second World War and his scarf that’s got shrapnel damage as well. Then recently I’ve been using weeds and saying that they’re my father’s weeds from his garden, which they’re not at all, they’re actually from around the studio but I’m saying that they’re from my father’s garden and I will explain in the thesis that they’re not. It’s just the idea that they could be, but they’re not. Are they the same?
I guess sometimes the narrative around something can be more important than the truth. This subjectivity idea came out in your Psychometry piece too [in which participants talked to a psychic about a precious object, then Dover used a transcript to draw the object]
AD: I think I’ve changed my opinion about whether it matters or not because I think I used to believe this [Psychometry], the psychic woman who people brought objects to, who talked to the person and sensed what it was about. I used to believe that much more and then weirdly since actually meeting my father I don’t believe that really as much, the whole thing has changed. I think the reality of meeting him was quite banal in a way and the fact he still existed.
What happened?
AD: I hadn’t seen my father for about 20 years and then I did this project where I was trying to find out if he was still alive – someone said that he’d killed himself because he was always threatening to do that. I looked him up on this great thing called Tracesmart where you can find out where people live and he was registered as being in Cambridge. It was about 5 years out of date so I thought he’d be dead by now.
http://www.saatchionline.com/annabeldover
So I drove really early in the morning and rifled through his bin. He used to set crosswords for The Times and he was obsessed with that, so I knew if he was there, there’d be papers with crosswords. And there was, so I knew he was there. Then I saw him in the garden, even though it was about half six in the morning and he never used to get up before about midday, he was thrashing weeds. I thought ‘God, it’s him!’
So I had to knock on the door, I thought I wouldn’t but I just couldn’t stop myself. So I knocked on the door and the way he lived was just amazing. I’d forgotten such incredible mess that all the objects are all random… have you heard of the Collyer brothers? It was like that. It made me realize this man is totally crazy.
You believed in the things you’d constructed so much you were disappointed by the truth. Why did the story mean so much to you?
AD: When I grew up I was very religious and then I wasn’t, and I think that kind of thing replaced a religious idea and I really believed it until probably about two years ago.
I think it also shows that there’s always more than one truth, nothing is clear-cut.
AD: Definitely. I think so. What you think or feel about yourself, or what you think you should show the world about yourself, is different to what you say about the objects. It’s like when I saw my father and he was just talking about art and how cultured he was and how he went to Italy, it was kind of ridiculous! All the different ideas about a ridiculous truth. And then also all the different times in your life you have different ideas about yourself. It’s hard if someone has a very rigid idea about themselves. I don’t think I agree with that.
Transition Gallery, Unit 25a Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Rd, London E8 4QN
15 January – 6 February 2011
http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/htmlpages/national_velvet.html
