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Roger Thorp: In Fields of Grace
Dr. Virginia Button
In 1668 Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer combined the Greek words
nostos (homecoming) and alga (pain) to create the term
‘nostalgia’ to describe the obsessive longing experienced by patients
living away from home, causing them physical illness, even death. By the
19th century, romanticism had repurposed nostalgia to describe ‘an
emotional state characterised by a wistful reflection for the past’.[i]
Artist Roger Thorp’s multi-media installations are unapologetically
infused with a nostalgic romanticism. His work is informed by a
deeply-felt belief that as a society, and as individuals, we need to
come home, to remember a less rapacious and frenetic way of living, more
connected on an emotional level to each other, and to nature. But if his
work is a protest, it’s an optimistic and tender one.
 Thorp
was born in Chapel-en-le-Frith, a village in the Derbyshire Peak
District. When he was 14 years old a series of films on BBC2 introduced
him to European cinema. He was immed-iately hooked on the medium of
film, which opened up a world of hitherto unknown and endless
possibility, allowing him to ‘discover different ideas and different
places’.[ii] Such radical film-makers of the European new wave as
François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Federico Fellini and
Werner Herzog introduced him to the idea of exploring the ‘poetic of
life’, which has continued to inform his outlook. Interest in the
autobiog-raphical, in memory, the appreciation of beauty and poetic use
of word and image to evoke emotional responses all feature in his work.
After studying film and photography, Thorp quickly established a
successful career in the film industry, working as producer and PM on
music videos for U2, The Clash and Iggy Pop, and programmes for NGOs
such as WWF, ILO, Red Cross and UNEP. Alongside commercial work he also
made both feature and art-house films, co-founding the art-house online
gallery ‘Littlesongfilms' in 2004. In 2010 he was invited by the artist
and curator Jesse Leroy Smith to participate in Art75, a group show at
the art deco Lido in Penzance, Cornwall, which prompted his commitment
to making art. Based in Cornwall, he has subsequently developed a body
of work in which film is often combined with other media to create
immersive installations that set out to speak directly to the heart
rather than the head.
Thorp’s work usually develops from chance discoveries or a particular
emotion triggered by an event or experience. He frequently mines his own
photographic and film archive to assemble and create new works.
Sometimes his story-telling will demand a specific shot, such as the
image of a road cutting through a landscape under a starry sky featured
in Dwell 1.85:1 (2013). Standing in front of this wall-sized
projection the viewer’s eye follows the white markings on the tarmac
towards a distant vanishing point. The image of the road slowly
dissolves,
giving way to a panoramic mountain landscape. Thorp recorded people’s
responses to being alone in a field at night, which revealed the night
sky to be a constant source of comfort, and used their responses as a
soundtrack for the work. Figures superimposed on to the screen turn out
to be images of viewers in the room, who in becoming part of the
spectacle of film share collectively in the wonder of nature.
The lyrics of culturally influential ‘rock poets’ of the second half of
the 20th century, such as Neil Young, The Velvet Underground, Patti
Smith and Bob Dylan, to name a few, have also strongly influenced his
work, which often includes his own lyric writing. Poetry is frequently
integrated into his films, either embedded as text on screen or as an
accompanying soundtrack.
In Fields of Grace (2018) presents wall-sized, grainy black and
white photographs that fade in and out to reveal images retrieved from a
transformative journey made by the artist in 1982. Hitching from Paris
to Tuscany Thorp took photographs and recordings of sites and objects
discovered by chance, things he found beautiful or charged with meaning
– a church bell chiming, a poster of the planets found on the floor in
Rome. These marked his rite of passage, but seen now they suggest
nostalgia for a way of life in decline, about to disappear. Following
the sequence of images, a lyrical poem ‘In Fields of Grace’ scrolls down
the screen, evoking these sentiments. Acting as a visual and aural
anchor positioned in front of the projection is a richly symbolic white
fountain, its gently cascading water providing a constant and soothing
backdrop, connecting across cultures to ancient times, to renewal and
the essence of life.
In another recent installation (2018), Blue in Amber, Thorp’s
romantic yearning for nature – and a life in tune with it – is combined
with a sense of threat. Inspired in part by the recent discovery of a
hatchling preserved in one hundred million year-old amber, this
immersive installation presents a floating, back-projected image of a
sapphire-like globe spinning against a backdrop of flowing water. The
room is suffused with golden light, partly emanating from a glowing,
wall-mounted disc. Eventually, a dreamy sequence of images replaces the
globe – an olive tree caressed by the wind, a script by Chopin, a dancer
on pointe – things that for the artist suggest the beauty and fragility
of the earth and of human life. Thorp believes in the power of images.
His romantic, perhaps naïve
vision deliberately opposes the ‘visual pollution’ he experiences in the
contemporary world, fuelled by inexorable, unsustainable growth, feeding
insatiable and destructive competition and self-delusional desires:
‘Images are all around us. We swallow images. I try to create a calm and
open visual environment’.
As a painter might build layers of paint on canvas he often builds
layers into his films to suggest a sense of time unfolding, of
revelation. His use of layering was explored in a different medium when
he asked painter Jesse Leroy Smith to collaborate on a long term
project. Thorp wanted to create a painterly animation melding religious
iconography. Whilst Smith painted, Thorp – using stop frame animation
and a lengthy editing process – created the film. The resulting work
Bardo 7.08 (2014) is presented as a triptych in which the
mysterious, almost imperceptible transformation of a woman’s face
suggests a continuous metamorphosis between Buddhist and Christian
iconography, and between life and death. Though brought up as a
Methodist since adolescence Thorp has remained agnostic and sceptical of
established religion. But he has faith in humanity: in 2015 he founded
'The Olive Network’ a web platform designed to foster tolerance and
understanding between diverse global communities by focusing on the
positive long-term contributions of charity, the arts and humanities.
Drawing on his experience of writing film dramas, Thorp focuses on
‘taking the essence of film drama and making an art work’. European
cinema remains a key touchstone. His type of nostalgic romanticism
clearly resonates for example, with Wim Wenders’ romantic fantasy ‘Wings
of Desire’ (1987) in which two angels hover over East and West Berlin,
attempting to comfort troubled humans. According to critic Andre Müller,
for Wenders the angel could be seen to embody film itself, and the
purpose of film could be to help others open their eyes to
possibilities, a sentiment that seems shared by Roger Thorp.[iii]
[i] Adrienne Matei (22 October 2017),
https://qz.com/1108120/nostalgia’s-unexpected-etymology-explains-why-it-can-feel-so-painful/
[ii] Unless otherwise indicated all quotes are from a conversation with
the artist, 29 August 2018.
[iii] Müller, Andre (19 October 1987). "Das Kino könnte der Engel sein".
Der Spiegel,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Desire
Dr Virginia Button is a writer and former
senior Tate Gallery curator at Tate Modern 1991-2001 and curated the
Turner Prize from 1993-1998. Her published books on artists include
Christopher Wood, Ben Nicholson and most recently Lucien Freud.
Roger Thorp's 'In Fields of
Grace' was The Crypt Gallery at
St Pancras Church, Euston Rd, Kings Cross, London NW1 4-9 October 2018
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