“Giving yourself to painting is easier if you don’t live with someone. Get a cat instead.” Chrissie Hynde.
Without formal training musician Chrissie Hynde began painting in her later years. As with many women in the arts, she started when her children left home and a space in her life opened to accommodate time for the genre. Having been enthused by art from an early age, Hynde recalls that it was her saviour subject at school. Her life, however took her down the route of music with her band The Pretenders as she became a pioneering and iconic female figure in the post punk, rock scene.
Adding the Blue is a newly created book featuring a collection of oil paintings created by Hynde in recent years. Displayed chronologically, this includes numerous still lifes, nudes, landscapes, self-portraits and portraits of friends and family, in addition to a host of abstract works painted by the artist in both her London and French studios. While attractively displayed in colourful full-page presentation, what defines the book is not only the quality of the paintings-and it is certainly quite a vibrant talent that Hynde possesses, but also the insights provided by her own accompanying texts.
While sharing anecdotes relating to her artworks, Hynde’s commentary states she approaches her painting as she created her music, with unpretentious enthusiasm.
“It’s pretty much like writing songs. I might know what I want to write about, but generally I just dive in and see what’s down there” – Chrissie Hynde
Hynde expresses feelings of being outside the world of art and artists. Considering her incredibly successful survival in a hugely male dominated music business where women have always been treated as ‘outsiders’, she does not fear rejection in her current role as painter however. Within her appealingly pragmatic and insightful statements within the book, Hynde claims her earlier life encompassing menial jobs gave her a humble perspective and gratitude for her present creative life.
Her work presented here at times recalls the flat modernist organisation of Picasso combined with the colour palate of Matisse. In terms of female artists, the flower studies of Georgia O’Keefe and the still lifes of Suzanne Valadon come to mind, with suggestions of the expressionist figures of contemporary artist like Nicole Eisenman. What the book reflects is how Hynde’s work has progressed with an authenticity mirrored in the honest reflections of her accompanying commentary. Hynde’s nudes are created, for example without the need to beautify, while reflecting a refreshing awareness of real humanity in their vulnerability and awkwardness at times. Her abstract work, in turn, has evolved in boldness, with a uniting of geometric and organic shapes incorporated in increasing balanced compositions.
“Art is a way of connecting to the divine”-Chrissie Hynde
Her portrait work is especially expressive, created with thought to character and mood which avoids sentimentality or fawning. The painting of Hynde’s friend, dancer Michael Clark, for example, reflects a heartfelt intensity perhaps only conveyed by someone close to the subject. Her self-portraits such as Thursday Self 1 and 2 created with sharp angular, chiselled features and stretched pink muscle sinews, likewise present an intriguing impression of the artist, devoid of any sense of self-aggrandisement or vanity.
Conveyed in a book that is both a visual and informative treat, Hynde clearly enjoys her paintings, creating a body of work that communicates in a candid and meaningful way.
Most importantly Adding the Blue not only offers an intriguing insight into the development of the work of Chrissie Hynde as an emerging painter. It provides an accessible approach that thankfully avoids the usual language and clichés of the art book, appropriately reflective of the artist herself…. certainly worth our attention.
More information
https://www.genesis-publications.com/book/9781905662531/adding-the-blue
#womensart ♀ 