A wide ranging talk about light, structure and inspirations with artists Lindsey Lavender and Greer Ralston. Apologies for low sound quality.
Summary
This conversation features Lindsey Lavender and Greer Ralston discussing their artistic journeys and creative processes.
Lindsey Lavender transitioned from a ten-year architectural career to becoming a professional artist after taking a career break for her children. Her work focuses on urban structures and built environments, particularly post-industrial spaces and brutalist architecture, capturing how light transforms mundane structures into dramatic compositions.
Greer Ralston followed a traditional art path from childhood, focusing initially on figurative work. After art school, she made her living through portrait commissions and spent 25 years teaching before committing to full-time art. Her work has evolved from figurative and equestrian paintings to large-scale flower paintings that she approaches with a sculptural sensibility.
Despite their different subjects, both artists share similarities in their methodical processes—beginning with extensive sketching and studies before creating final works—and both listen to music while working. Their influences include classical masters and contemporary women artists, with Greer particularly interested in the history of women artists like Artemisia Gentileschi, while Lindsey cites Jenny Saville and Marlene Dumas as inspirations.
Both artists emphasize the importance of artistic integrity, expressing skepticism about artists who attach their names to work they haven't personally created.
TRANSCRIPT
With a degree in Fine Art, she's exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London and has received several portrait commissions, including a commission from Christie's of London to raise funds for a major charity. Her figurative work is extremely popular. It's been purchased by collectors in the UK and abroad, including well-known business and sports personalities. I don't think it's wise to ask who they are on camera, so I'll do so over a glass of wine later. In the last few years, Greer's interests have shifted from figurative and equestrian paintings to large-scale flower paintings, taking her down a new path of color and expression, influenced in part by artists such as George Roukès and Rachel Whiteread. So that's Greer.
So, Lindsey, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about your experience with art, and I wonder if you could tell me a bit more about what first inspired you to become an artist.
I always loved drawing and painting, and I was good at it at school. I really enjoyed it and wanted to pursue art as a career, but I was encouraged to study architecture instead, as a more serious job. I don't regret it, but it wasn't my first choice.
Okay. When did you discover that—I know, partly through architectural practice, partly through the art you were doing in your spare time—when did that shift from being more of a hobby into, "I think I can actually do this professionally"?
Probably after my career break to have children. I started taking evening classes, really just to maintain my sanity. I'd always done art in my spare time, but I continued to do that, and the staff were so supportive. They suggested I submit work for exhibitions and always talked as if we would exhibit the work, not that it would just stay in a drawer. I think getting my work into one of the RSA exhibitions was a real turning point for me.
Yeah, good. Okay. I'm going to deviate from the agenda a bit now because I want to bring Greer in at this point, because I still think there's a lot more in common between you two than might be obvious from the types of work you do. So Greer, I have a similar question for you. You've had more of a traditional art career, going through the degree route and then into painting. Is that fair?
Yeah, pretty much straight from school. I did something else for a year or two, so I could start a bit older, rather than at 18. But I've enjoyed it since childhood. Someone gave me a watercolor set when I was about five. I preferred it to what I'd been given, which was fantastic to use. I've always drawn a lot as a kid, and around 11 or 12, I became obsessed with Michelangelo—a strange thing for a teenager, but from then on, I was really obsessed with figurative work and drawing all the time. I won prizes and realized this was something I was pretty good at, so I was quite focused from a really early age on going to art school. I think your work is more of a thought process.
So I think we've spotted one parallel there between the two of you, which is a degree of dedication. I understand if you want to do something, you have to really go for it and press forward. And also, to a degree, Greer, you were expected to move into what was, at the time, a rather well-known business, and Lindsey, very much architectural practice because you were set on that then.
Yeah, that's right. So Greer, tell me a little bit more about, having gone through art school, when did you realize that, okay, now I've done the educational bits, I've done some of the technical bits, I know that I've enjoyed painting and drawing beforehand, how do I move from getting a degree to selling work?
I don't really regret things, but of course, I ended up painting portraits after I left school. The problem with that is you're getting lots of commissions and making a living from it, but you're ending up in people's houses, and no one really knows who you are. So I was making a living, but it didn't involve the gallery system. Looking back, I think I'd rather have concentrated on figurative portraits and the commissions. So I ended up, by default, getting into teaching. I've lectured for 25 years, at college and in different groups. It was wonderful, but I remember, when I hit 50, a few years ago, sitting in the staff room thinking, "That's it, I've had enough." I was on my computer and my phone all the time. I'm going to do this full time because I felt like I was exhibiting and teaching, and I just got to a point where I have to make a living, to be brave enough to do it.
Yeah, so I guess another parallel in terms of bravery, giving up one thing and starting another. Lindsey, perhaps you could shed some light on—tell us how you felt when you finally made that decision and said, "Stuff this, I've enjoyed—mostly enjoyed, I hope—doing that architectural practice, and then appreciate the career break you've had the opportunity to think again, but describe what it felt like when you said to yourself that that's it, I'm not going back to the office. I know what I really want to do."
Yeah. I'm not sure it happened as smoothly as that. I think I realized I didn't want to go back into architecture, which was terrifying because I'd spent ten years training. Then I was at home with the kids, and I started doing art classes because the kids were really messing with my brain. I felt I needed to be drawing again, and I just started exhibiting. I didn't really plan it, so it just built, and then I thought, "This is what I'm doing instead." But it was quite scary.
Yeah, but it was a bit of a leap into the unknown for you then. So Lindsey, I want to take it a little bit onto structure. This is a question I've been looking forward to talking to both of you about because I do think there's a lot of similarities in how you put your images together, how you put your paintings together. So I want to start with you. So obviously coming from an architectural background but painting really quite everyday objects in the built environment. I appreciate with an architectural background someone might be attracted to lines and perspective and structure. How did you light upon the idea, the concept of combining your love for drawing with your architectural practice and thinking, "If I like painting this then maybe other people will like it too?"
Well, I think I'd always drawn buildings because I was in architecture and was sketching them as we'd go on tours and visits. I would sketch the buildings I was in, but when I started painting, I was really determined not to drag architecture into it because that was kind of behind me. Structures would just creep into the pictures. There'd be a landscape and these really strong fences, and eventually I just thought, "I can't deny this. It's just what I'm interested in." I love those repeated lines and the shadows. So I just got into it.
But here's where I see the parallel because the way you build up your paintings is quite interesting. I think you could talk a bit about that with reference to structure and detail.
I think drawing is key. I was drawing a lot. I tend to sketch something first and then do more detailed sketches. But with bigger oil paintings, I tend to be pretty traditional. I'll put the figure painting on, and then, after that's dry, I can put as many as 20 or 30 glazes on, using lights and darks to make it three-dimensional.
The flowers are a bit of a safety thing. I didn't really want to say I've never painted flowers. "Oh, don't be stupid. Far too twee for me." But what Keith does is she puts them on a big scale which makes them quite monumental. I did also study sculpture as well as drawing and painting. I preferred drawing and painting, but I did a degree in different world sculpture. So I wanted them to be bigger than sculpture and not twee and not domestic and actually more feminine. I wanted them to have power, so it's almost like getting an insect crawling through them. In that sense, they're quite structured.
Yeah, in the same way that you're taking something like a building and actually isolating it makes people just stop and look at it. I'm going to go out on a limb here. It's probably a very tenuous link, but George Roukès was a sponsor and a big supporter of the early—some of the Summer, I think—and obviously the Summer structure—the lines and dots, mainly the dots, bold dots, and interest in the ways in which objects were put together and how they related spatially to each other.
Do you see any link between your interest in Roukès and her life and her interest in Summer? I think the biggest problem I've got with Keith is I have a tendency to—as I mentioned earlier—I'm moving back out to old stables and used to be torsos and such things. So we were brought up in the country; it was quite isolated, and of course, I've lived in Glasgow and lived in terms of cities, and I think with power, I always feel that I need to get away from people. I'm quite sociable and I do run classes and chat to people, then it's something I need to just disappear. So I'd go and look for figures as the main thing for my work.
The flowers are like a sort of meditation, a safety thing that I can go back to. But I see in the structure sense. I'm desperate to move back out to the country, and I'm in the process of building a cabin, and a friend of mine was a painter who died at that time, and I've got all these dozens of huge big skulls, and she liked the skulls, which is brilliant. It's like a switch. So I'm doing this sort of collage thing looking up from my studio, and Lindsey has been painting skulls as well. So I think it's a kind of little isolated brutalist Scottish version.
Let's talk about lights and shade in your pieces because they're not only about the structures that you see in the built environment but also there's very specific applications of the ways in which the light moves through those structures, and it's not just the light itself, it's the absence of the light. So very interesting to know what you're trying to achieve through that. What's your process there?
Well, I think I love the drama of seeing some kind of structure that you pass every day that's banal, nobody looks at it, and sometimes I just stop in my tracks, and everybody's walking past, and there's this bit of something lit up, and I'll stop and take pictures of it and sketch it. I can't resist that. I get ambushed by these things, so it's kind of wanting to get that across in a painting—these little glimmers of something positive or sometimes something negative. It just depends how I'm feeling and how the light's falling, but yeah, just things that people don't seem to necessarily enjoy—the poetry and drama of something.
Now, would you be particularly attracted then to post-industrial environments, where there's a degree of urban decay, where perhaps the environment is moving from one state to another—maybe it's an old factory where that industry is defunct?
Definitely, yeah. I kind of love that history aspect, places that were bustling and busy and now derelict, or sometimes they've been repurposed for artists' workshops. I quite like that a building stays the same through time, same with the concrete structures from the sixties that we're still using every day. They haven't changed, but the people and surroundings are all new and different.
So if you were to choose different styles of architecture—say from Georgian townhouses in Edinburgh to the more brutalist concrete realism of the South Bank in London—where would you—what is your inspiration for the particular styles of art? It doesn't have to be handsome.
Probably this brutal concrete stuff is more appealing to me. I really like the way it gets transformed, the way you can just see something differently. Georgian architecture does it as well, but that's pretty to look at anyway, and people appreciate it, whereas the concrete road bridges, nobody looks at them; they just pull their collar up and trudge past and don't notice the light across it. I'm mesmerized by it, so yeah.
And I think one of the things that's always interesting to do when you're walking down a street, or certainly somewhere in an urban environment, is to look up. And one of the challenges, particularly today, is shopfront signage. We see these beautiful shopfronts with fabulous displays designed to attract attention, to draw you in. And I think what's interesting about your work, Lindsey, is that you're asking us to say, "Yeah, forget the shiny stuff over there; there's more interesting stuff up there, or around the corner, or down that particular lane."
I think that does come from architecture as well, because we were always told to stop and look up. That's what architects do. They notice things that everyone else misses—the signs above eye level. That was drummed into us very early on in architecture: look up. One of my best friends is a building services engineer, and I have to tear him away from any building with ductwork on the outside.
My friend is a geologist, and taking him to the beach is ridiculous. In any case, Greer, could you tell us a little bit more about how you create your composition with the flowers? You spoke a bit about layers of varnish, getting in depth through the ways in which you construct them, but take us back a step to the beginning. How do you choose a particular subject, and then how does it evolve from that initial impression to the final finished piece?
I tend initially to use sketches, maybe watercolors, and then I'll just draw for a bit and like the shapes. I like going in and adding bits of detail, sometimes having a burst of energy at the beach. So they're almost like pieces of sculpture themselves, and I try as much as possible in the initial stages to work from the flower as it is. Obviously, by the time you're painting it, the flower might die. But in the initial stages, I'll do watercolors, loose watercolors, charcoals, and then move onto some oil sketches, just trying to capture the light. I make sure the color is there initially, if I can, and then take some photographs and then move onto a big canvas.
So I might do it from different angles and different lights and want to just play around with light and dark because then I'm able to get the drama. So I'll do maybe sometimes three or four studies and then onto a big canvas afterwards. Sometimes I try just to do a quick struggle, but if you've got something that's going to last a couple of weeks or something, your pictures are going to start falling. But as much as possible, just to get the feel of the flower to begin with, almost like an insect falling into it, and I like getting the spotlight and might decide even on painting just to do studies so I can literally see inside it and get a view for it.
Could you talk us through your process, your composition process, once you've found something that you think is a very interesting subject?
Yeah, usually I'll take a lot of photographs and do some sketches on site and then look at it from all different angles and just see exactly, test out different sorts of things. I draw it at different scales and do study size paintings just to test out whether it works or whether the composition needs to be different and then take it up to a general, so yeah, similar sort of process really.
I'd like to turn our attention to slightly different forms of art now and talk to you guys about music. So do you listen to music? Do you get inspired by other forms of art before you or during your process of creating art?
Yeah. Great question. I listen to music. I think it depends what I'm feeling as well. Sometimes you're able to blend it from the studio. And it's good background. The music's a bit dramatic at times, and other times I just play really cheesy country western Johnny Cash crazy stuff, or a friend in the States whose folk country I like. Hers is all about new situations and new people and what's happened to them. There's a lot of stuff to do with refugees, things like that. So I really like that stuff and we've met up. So it's quite eclectic. It just depends on the mood and honestly it can be very light, and I do like listening to classical music when I'm working. I think music does affect you quite a bit.
But really it's down to your mood. I like painting into the light as well. I tend to paint into two, four in the morning. It's quite nice just to have something playing. It does affect you quite a bit. I think if I'm happy it's going okay then it's fine, but if something's really cheesy, it's not going to help. It's kind of heavy classical. It just depends. It depends what the work's about. So on a scale of Beethoven's fifth to the very cheesy stuff. Just upbeat stuff. It just depends on the artwork, what you're doing.
There's always music on in the house quite often, not mine. So my husband has the workshop next door. So it's quite often I hear music that's on quite loud. So I listen to stuff, but if it's up to me probably some ambient house. If things are going wrong, I have all switched off. So yeah, different.
Before we go any further, I'd like to open the chat up to you guys.
You don't have to think of something on the spot, guys.
Yeah, I've got a question for Greer. Have you ever thought of moving from paintings to sculpture itself for flowers?
Yeah, I have thought about it. It does pull me quite a bit to be honest. That's some pieces. Once I moved to this place in the countryside, I've got ideas for sculptures in the garden and things. So I kind of see sculptures as more therapeutic. That makes sense because it's more physical.
So I get less intellectually caught up in it. I think I get too intense when I'm painting. So it would be nice to go back to sculptures, but I have also got less intense in my paintings. But I think when you're painting, especially if you're painting smaller pieces, it can actually be worse. I mean big pieces are quite physical. But smaller pieces, you can feel your shoulders getting up and you can get quite too intense and too tight with it. So maybe sculpture's a relaxation.
And looking at yourself, do you see yourself experimenting with other art forms, considering from an architectural background you'll have all that experience?
I've never thought of doing sculpture, but I do enjoy looking at other people's sculptures. So really that's something I should probably do more of. Yeah, modeling I loved when I was a student, but didn't do much of that in practice either.
Really? That's a shame. I could certainly see something quite interesting in terms of models of some of your paintings.
It's interesting stuff, yeah.
Can I just ask a similar question? Have you ever worked with software that you probably used from your architect career for your paintings as well?
No, I didn't really use them that much. It started to head that direction. That's one of the things I didn't really like because there was no interaction. But I had drawing and all those. Yeah. Just flat drawings. I didn't really get into software.
Would you want to?
I sometimes see your features and architecture keep coming into your painting. Do you want to change completely or are you quite happy with that?
I think it changes gradually over time and it kind of shifts from one sort of thing to another. And I'm quite happy with that fluidity, that it does move and it'll switch over from one subject or another subject and it is quite dynamic and it moves itself. So I'm not really wanting to stop and do a different sort of subject at all. I'm quite happy for it to evolve.
That's interesting. Constantly perspective over painting a different way or different things but the same things coming back. This is me. This is what keeps coming back.
I've just got a couple more questions left for you guys and then what we'll do is we'll take a break at that point and if you want to talk to Lindsey or Greer, one-on-one, please feel free to do so. Let's ask you about your inspirations, your art heroes. Let's start with you, Greer. Who inspires you? Who do you look to?
I think I've had so many different people over the years. As I said, as a kid I came from a very artistic background into figure drawing and was really lucky before I went to art school. I had some people to model for me and so when I went in with a portfolio, I already had life drawing under my belt at the age of 17, and I think that's something that's kept going. Bacon, people like that. But then over the years it's changed quite a bit. I jump about inspiration wise. I look back at the old masters, and I'm quite cautious of what contemporary artists I follow because I think sometimes as an artist producing work, you get too much of what's happening. It can jumble your head and you can lose your vision of where you want to go.
Much as I love seeing other people's work, sometimes I tend to look back. I got a huge interest in women artists because when I was about 19, 20, I was in Paris and discovered Camille Claudel and I did a dissertation on women artists. So I do a lot of talks on women artists. I'll go back to Gerda Taro and these people. I'm quite passionate that, especially when I was teaching at college, young women were aware of this history of women artists behind them because so much of it still isn't taught.
That example—when I was studying it, it was quite difficult but even back then in the eighties, I had to really search to get a tutor from Warsaw University to help me because there was no one in the art school wanting to teach women artists. It wasn't even included in the women's artist curriculum. So I had to go looking for it, which is vastly different today. But people, in general, are still not aware if you ask someone to name a woman artist. So that's something I'm quite passionate about. So I do look back historically. So I'm quite inspired by people like Artemisia Gentileschi, and I kind of like to go back and look at their techniques but try and do them differently. Because I'm cautious of being too influenced by other artists as I can directly emulate them, and I think you can just start to think too much like other people. So I keep looking back but looking back to women.
Lindsey's inspirations?
Very similar actually. Caravaggio obviously, that very sort of dark chiaroscuro was always something I loved. And Vermeer. Looking at art history but more modern things. I absolutely hear what you say about avoiding doing the same thing as others. And my kind of heroes are probably Jenny Saville and Marlene Dumas who paint bodies. I'm really interested in the way they handle paint and the way they tackle those big surfaces. But the other thing is if you look at that kind of work, it can just make you give up because it's so intimidating. But yeah, there's a nice current here.
Just finally, this is a much more general question about artists. I'm curious about what the level of ownership of a piece of art is depending on the degree in which the artist is involved. So I'm thinking a little bit of the Young British Artists, particularly the likes of Damien Hirst and some other artists as well who have added their name to a piece of work but it hasn't necessarily been created by that artist. This is not a new thing. It's been going on for a very long time. What are your views on that?
It's quite a peculiar thing really. I mean I guess you'd have to be quite well known to have that sort of brand and be applying that to work that you haven't even been involved with. For me, I've got to do the work. It's got to be me that does it. Otherwise it's not really interesting to me. So if I go to see people's work, I'd like to see what they've done, not what their studios produced.
Yeah, totally agree. I don't think it's authentic. I don't think it's an authentic response. I think they're driving market rather than actually creating something that you've seen—something genuine. I completely agree because there's that story relatively recently about some Damien Hirst pieces where they've been misattributed in terms of the year and they were a lot more new than the dates actually put on them. The explanation keeps being, "Well, I had the idea in 2007. It doesn't matter it was realized again in 2018 as another edition."
When you see people that are making so much money because of the marketing and you're working away, working hard to do something that has some kind of degree of integrity, it's frustrating.
Right. I think integrity is a good point to finish on. I think there's a nice synergy between the integrity of the art, the integrity of the structure, the integrity of the compositions that you both create. They're beautiful to look at. So thank you very much for sharing your time with us today. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Thanks.
Sorry, just a quick—there's a question from someone who's online. I think Claire Deb and Gedin say hi from NYC. And we've got a question from Amy. How many hours did the thistle painting hanging just behind you take? It's really lovely.
It's hard to work out, having many paintings go on at one time. And I jump from different things. I jump from portrait to flowers. So probably if I was working solidly maybe two to three weeks, but it's difficult to work out because I always try to put myself to do an hour or two on one then stop just to keep fresh. So maybe a week to two weeks if I was going to paint it seriously.
Thank you very much for that question. I think that's actually the first one we've ever had from online.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you could just put your hands together for Greer and Lindsey.
Thank you. That's fun. It's been really good. Thank you.
