September in the Arts: Nadine Feinson

Thank God it's September. After the barren month of August, when the London art world went into summer hibernation like some funny little hedgehog, we're now back with a bang. All over London, galleries are stretching tired limbs, blinking open sleep-clogged eyes and welcoming visitors once more. Plus, all the Private Views mean I can stop paying for drinks again, which is something of a relief.

The biggies are pulling out all the stops: Francis Bacon at Tate Britain is my pick of the year, whilst the Auction Exhibition at the ICA, Rothko at Tate Modern and the London Design Festival all look pretty ace. That's not to mention the annual Turner Prize, but I've written my piece on that already because we're so far ahead of the game here at Spoonfed.

The smaller galleries are doing some great things too: there's a light show called Illumini in the crypt of St Pancras Parish Church, a kind of art/boutique trinket exhibition at Rupert Sanderson, and Charles Avery's amazing project over at Parasol Unit.

But the thing that's really caught my eye is 'Travelogue' at Vyner Street's One in the Other, primarily because the show contains work by Nadine Feinson. I saw some of her paintings at Standpoint back in January and they were truly brilliant: large mystically swirling abstract pieces that draw you in with a hint of figurative promise, before thwarting the eye and remaining resolutely indecipherable. I've pretty much spent the intervening months waiting for the chance to see more.

Nadine completed a BA in Fine Art Painting at Brighton University in 1999, did her MA at Goldsmiths and is currently doing an MPhil at the Royal College of Art. She divides her time between her studios in London and Lewes in East Sussex, where she lives. I caught up with her to find out more.

Tom: First up, I'm interested in the role of painting today and in the future. Is there a worry that amid a wave of conceptualism it'll go the same way as heldgelaying or dry-stone walling or something?

Nadine: My interest in painting is rooted in a belief in painting as a specific mode of thinking or awareness, one which allows the free play of both conscious and unconscious intellect. From this point of view painting is a process which allows me to 'think' through contradictions. As a mode of 'thinking' it would be hard to see how painting could become defunct. In the same way that you would never suggest that say, humour, could become defunct.

Tom: What attracts you to a particular painter or painting?

Nadine: That there is something going on beyond the image; that the paint is 'activated', whether figurative or abstract. It's not easy to say exactly but I guess I look for an integrity to the work, a sort of gravitational pull.

Tom: So which painters (past and present) do you admire or feel have influenced you?

Nadine: El Greco, Frederic Church, Max Ernst, Francis Bacon, Daniel Richter, David Thorpe, Albert Oehlen, George Condo, and, of course, Rolf Harris.

Tom: One thing that strikes me about your work is its technical virtuosity. Could you say something about the specific process involved?

Nadine: I work with oils, laying the paint down, moving it around, trying to find a point where the paint forms an image, or has the illusion of being something, and yet collapses back into being paint. At one level the paintings are an expression of this fascination, what paint is capable of, its ability to seduce through illusion, to be something other than itself and yet simultaneously be paint/matter. I move across the surface networking these 'surface events'.'

Tom: So, the interaction between the reality of the medium and the more theoretical aspects of intention seems to be important.

Nadine: I'm not sure 'theory' is the right word, but I do draw on ideas, specifically Henri Bergson's concepts of duration and virtual perception, medieval theology and philosophical negation... Even so, the painting always makes its demands despite what I may be thinking about.

Fascinating stuff. At the heart of Nadine's work is the unstable relationship between intention and process, and the way in which paint is always both itself (solid matter) and something other (a half-discernable sign or symbol). It is this, partly, that makes her work so engaging; this and the fact that paint can never be put into words.

I have to confess that when I read the press release for 'Travelogue', I had no idea what they were talking about. Apparently, 'the exhibition has emerged out of the artists' prioritising of and commitment to a framework for reflexive dialogue and the active engagement of the viewer'. If anybody can explain what this actually means, I'd be most grateful. Nonetheless I urge you to go, if only to check out Nadine's work: it really is that brilliant. Now I only have to persuade my boss to give me an office art-buying allowance...