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01:01 Roman Vaughan-Willams: The Dead Hold the Living In Their Grasp
Last month , October 2022, I visited Roman Vaughan-Willams’s solo show, The Dead Hold the Living in Their Grasp, at the Ex-Libris Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne. It’s a complicated show that engages with philosophy and politics, but the expansive way in which drawing was used is what really appeald to me. After seeing the show, I called and asked him if he would be happy to talk with me more about his drawing process. The conversation we had focuses on one work in the show, The Past-future or a Conscious-Future; Neo-feudalism or Communism; Barbarism or Socialism.
Mark Bletcher,
Artist and co-founder of Minutes.
00:00
Mark
So, what was your process in creating this artwork?
Roman
I can do an overview if you want?
Mark
If it helps, I think for me it would be really interesting to understand your process of how you come up with these images. What, is your process for starting each image, and how did you decide to put them all together? Do you start with one image or an idea, or do you search through a sketchbook, or is this a thing that you pull together all at once and create?
Roman
There are bits I pull together and there's different like links across each work, I don't really know where to start. For example, this part began as life drawing that I did in Belgium of a dancer. In Belgium we had access to these dancers who you could draw, it was amazing, really amazing.
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Mark
So this is the original drawing, you didn’t trace or transfer anything? You drew that from life and then added these puddles that surround the figure in after?
Roman
Yeah, the puddles come from a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe of clouds which she painted from her experience of going on an aeroplane for the first time, I was obsessed by this painting.
Mark
So, you completed the life drawing first and then added Georgia O'Keeffe’s clouds in after?
Roman
Yeah, but the clouds became sheets of ice because I was thinking about polar bears, or detritus on the water. I was thinking about how climate change happens and how the sea rises, and that only place to survive might be on this bit of detritus for these people who have nothing.
Mark
So, this image you created, how did you decide to incorporate it into this larger work? Do you have a big stack of images like this in your studio?
Roman
I had a plan for the larger work first. Maybe? I started out making these drawings on a A4, I started after night out - but then I thought ‘what is this really driving towards?’ I couldn't figure it out - and then it came to me that the drawings were positioned in classes of some sense. The drawings move upwards in terms of class.
Mark
Oh, I see. I can really see that now. These images at the bottom are all hopeless and abandoned. But then as you as you move upwards the images become more complicated and constructed.
Roman
Yeah. This drawing here is a schematic for the whole thing. At the top there is jeff Bezos with a rocket kind of thing on top of him - and he's got robot arms. There’s this meme of him with these robot arms. All of the images here are constructed in different ways.
...
Mark
And what is this top section above us?
Roman
So, this is the dream of a different society.
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Mark
It reminds me an ethereal realm or a heavenly space. Some place beyond.
Roman
Yeah. It’s a bit annoying that we cannot see the drawings at the top. There the most detailed. There all the philosophers at the top. Kind of like the philosopher kings from the republic, but also could be the dream of a different society, a society which contains lots of the kind of philosophers and thinkers I'm interested in. People like Jodi Dean, Fredric Jameson and Chuang Tzu.
Mark
So, lets talk about this drawing next. It looks kind of like a head with bits of its brain seeping out. There are people around it who are tethered or hung from it through the nasal cavity.
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Roman
Yeah. So, I see it differently, because I made the drawing I guess; when I’m looking, I can see that these guys are holding the head up.
Mark
Oh, I can see the tiny little figures, they are really lovely. They are described with very small tonal marks.
Roman
- and they're pulling the head along by their necks, kind of. This drawing shows the existing society, effectively. That’s what I was trying to think through. I was thinking of this line in Marx’s Das Capital where he says, “the dead hold the living in his grasp.” It's this kind of thing happening where the old society continues to extract the wealth from the new society. - and the society doesn't allow new kind of ideas to emerge, in a certain sense. I was trying to think through these ideas in a drawing. I use a lot of formal things to do that, for example, the image of the head itself is from Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher who had his head mummified and is kept at UCL.
Mark
So, when you started this drawing you started with that phrase?
Roman
Yeah, it’s written on the drawing.
Mark
Oh, yeah. I can see it at the top. It’s really tiny.
So you started with that phrase, wrote it down, and then you began to think of parallels to that idea? For example, the mummified head and the people pulling the head along.
Roman
I was using different images of heads. One is from a guy called Hercules Seghers, a 16th century Dutch painter. Amazing, amazing, amazing work. One of my favourite artists of all time. One of the first artists to use etching. I saw his etching of a head and was amazed.
Mark
Is it a mummified or flayed head, or just a head?
Roman
Just a skull. It's a kind of memento mori. Once I saw that I wanted to add the Jeremy Bentham head, and I was thinking through his and a few other heads that kind of floated around. I was also looking at hands, like this Philip Guston hand with its fingers.
Mark
Yeah, it’s a Guston hand. It looks like its standing or pointing down.
Roman
It is from a Guston painting, and it’s placed above the head as a kind of invisible hand.
Mark
I see, the invisible hand of the Market.
Roman
Yeah, Adam Smith’s idea. The invisible hand, the idea of a reduction of consciousness in the world. The idea that it’s hard to think consciously about things because the invisible hand needs you to behave in certain ways.
Mark
Finally, let’s talk about the drawings on the top. They're hard to see because there about a metre above us near the ceiling - but up there I can see loads of creatures in the first two rows of drawings. Some look like angels, or demons, and some look kind of witchy. Like creatures from folklore - like this guy over here with a knife. Is there any specific creature you would like to talk about?
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Roman
Yeah, sure. I guess I was trying to re-imagine a church in which you have the angels, the gargoyles, and all that -and now that I look at it, I didn’t realise at the time, but I must have been inspired by Venice. In Venice you have moments like this in church. There’s so many different things on the ceiling, so many different angels and other things going on.
Mark
It's quite overwhelming. It feels like I'm being watched, judged, you know?
Roman
I guess, interesting.
Mark
Yeah. I feel their presence, you know, those creatures at the top of this pyramid. They've all got weapons, they've all got wings, they’ve all got axes.
Roman
They don’t all! like that one for instance.
Mark
Okay, the one in the middle doesn't, and the other one to the right, but they do look powerful and intimidating. All of them do. Especially when I'm looking up towards them. Compared to the figures at the bottom of the construction which look completely powerless and wretched.
Roman
At the top they are intense. They look like they decide they own future in a certain sense. Yeah.
Mark
If it was a story, like a fantasy world or something, these creatures at the top would be running things, you know? Like that witch over there with the spear, that kind of hag like figure, shes got her own thing going on in that room behind her, and she doesn’t want you to come in. She won’t let you.
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Roman
I was thinking about different figures of Saint Peter. He holds the keys to heaven.
Mark
That's how I feel looking at them. I feel like the creatures on the top have their own domains and they're guarding them, not letting me in. Whereas the figures below, they have nothing. They just try to survive in their own harsh climates.
Roman
Even Bezos over here is being controlled by the invisible hand. They're all controlled by the invisible hand really.
![]()
Mark
That makes sense. Bezos is riding that mech suit - but it doesn't look like he can do anything about it. He's like stuck within this strange contraption. Whereas the creatures at the top, there different. I feel like if they wanted to they could just fly down and really fuck shit up.
Roman
Yeah, I guess they could. If you want me to focus on one of them. I can focus on this. The figure at the very top left. He's on a moth
Mark
Yeah, I see that.
Roman
That is the figure of this Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu. His famous line that he wrote was about his dreams, it goes something like, “One day I dreamt that I was a butterfly flitting and fluttering around. And when I awoke, I could not know whether it was the butterfly dreaming I or I dreaming the butterfly.
So, I was trying to show this phantasmic realm of what the future maybe could be. I'm trying to think through how society can be different, but it's still kind of a dream. It's a dream which maybe has the capacity to change the rest of society.
The drawing is about him really.
Mark
That’s interesting, because now you say the drawings at the top represents philosophers. That makes me think in two ways, the first is that I’m drawn to them. Like a dream that could be. Something to reach towards - but at the same time, it feels oppressive. I'm stuck down here in the pits with all the other wretched figures, I’m forced to look up.
It's that power dynamic. On one hand, they are powerful - they are something to aim towards. I feel like they can grant me boons - but at the same time I'm totally at the mercy of whims. If they wanted to fly down and slice through me with a blade, there’s nothing I can do about it.
Now I think of these creatures at the top as philosophers, you know, I feel the weight of their presence.
So, what was your process in creating this artwork?
Roman
I can do an overview if you want?
Mark
If it helps, I think for me it would be really interesting to understand your process of how you come up with these images. What, is your process for starting each image, and how did you decide to put them all together? Do you start with one image or an idea, or do you search through a sketchbook, or is this a thing that you pull together all at once and create?
Roman
There are bits I pull together and there's different like links across each work, I don't really know where to start. For example, this part began as life drawing that I did in Belgium of a dancer. In Belgium we had access to these dancers who you could draw, it was amazing, really amazing.
Mark
So this is the original drawing, you didn’t trace or transfer anything? You drew that from life and then added these puddles that surround the figure in after?
Roman
Yeah, the puddles come from a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe of clouds which she painted from her experience of going on an aeroplane for the first time, I was obsessed by this painting.
Mark
So, you completed the life drawing first and then added Georgia O'Keeffe’s clouds in after?
Roman
Yeah, but the clouds became sheets of ice because I was thinking about polar bears, or detritus on the water. I was thinking about how climate change happens and how the sea rises, and that only place to survive might be on this bit of detritus for these people who have nothing.
Mark
So, this image you created, how did you decide to incorporate it into this larger work? Do you have a big stack of images like this in your studio?
Roman
I had a plan for the larger work first. Maybe? I started out making these drawings on a A4, I started after night out - but then I thought ‘what is this really driving towards?’ I couldn't figure it out - and then it came to me that the drawings were positioned in classes of some sense. The drawings move upwards in terms of class.
Mark
Oh, I see. I can really see that now. These images at the bottom are all hopeless and abandoned. But then as you as you move upwards the images become more complicated and constructed.
Roman
Yeah. This drawing here is a schematic for the whole thing. At the top there is jeff Bezos with a rocket kind of thing on top of him - and he's got robot arms. There’s this meme of him with these robot arms. All of the images here are constructed in different ways.
...
Mark
And what is this top section above us?
Roman
So, this is the dream of a different society.
Mark
It reminds me an ethereal realm or a heavenly space. Some place beyond.
Roman
Yeah. It’s a bit annoying that we cannot see the drawings at the top. There the most detailed. There all the philosophers at the top. Kind of like the philosopher kings from the republic, but also could be the dream of a different society, a society which contains lots of the kind of philosophers and thinkers I'm interested in. People like Jodi Dean, Fredric Jameson and Chuang Tzu.
Mark
So, lets talk about this drawing next. It looks kind of like a head with bits of its brain seeping out. There are people around it who are tethered or hung from it through the nasal cavity.
Roman
Yeah. So, I see it differently, because I made the drawing I guess; when I’m looking, I can see that these guys are holding the head up.
Mark
Oh, I can see the tiny little figures, they are really lovely. They are described with very small tonal marks.
Roman
- and they're pulling the head along by their necks, kind of. This drawing shows the existing society, effectively. That’s what I was trying to think through. I was thinking of this line in Marx’s Das Capital where he says, “the dead hold the living in his grasp.” It's this kind of thing happening where the old society continues to extract the wealth from the new society. - and the society doesn't allow new kind of ideas to emerge, in a certain sense. I was trying to think through these ideas in a drawing. I use a lot of formal things to do that, for example, the image of the head itself is from Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher who had his head mummified and is kept at UCL.
Mark
So, when you started this drawing you started with that phrase?
Roman
Yeah, it’s written on the drawing.
Mark
Oh, yeah. I can see it at the top. It’s really tiny.
So you started with that phrase, wrote it down, and then you began to think of parallels to that idea? For example, the mummified head and the people pulling the head along.
Roman
I was using different images of heads. One is from a guy called Hercules Seghers, a 16th century Dutch painter. Amazing, amazing, amazing work. One of my favourite artists of all time. One of the first artists to use etching. I saw his etching of a head and was amazed.
Mark
Is it a mummified or flayed head, or just a head?
Roman
Just a skull. It's a kind of memento mori. Once I saw that I wanted to add the Jeremy Bentham head, and I was thinking through his and a few other heads that kind of floated around. I was also looking at hands, like this Philip Guston hand with its fingers.
Mark
Yeah, it’s a Guston hand. It looks like its standing or pointing down.
Roman
It is from a Guston painting, and it’s placed above the head as a kind of invisible hand.
Mark
I see, the invisible hand of the Market.
Roman
Yeah, Adam Smith’s idea. The invisible hand, the idea of a reduction of consciousness in the world. The idea that it’s hard to think consciously about things because the invisible hand needs you to behave in certain ways.
Mark
Finally, let’s talk about the drawings on the top. They're hard to see because there about a metre above us near the ceiling - but up there I can see loads of creatures in the first two rows of drawings. Some look like angels, or demons, and some look kind of witchy. Like creatures from folklore - like this guy over here with a knife. Is there any specific creature you would like to talk about?
Roman
Yeah, sure. I guess I was trying to re-imagine a church in which you have the angels, the gargoyles, and all that -and now that I look at it, I didn’t realise at the time, but I must have been inspired by Venice. In Venice you have moments like this in church. There’s so many different things on the ceiling, so many different angels and other things going on.
Mark
It's quite overwhelming. It feels like I'm being watched, judged, you know?
Roman
I guess, interesting.
Mark
Yeah. I feel their presence, you know, those creatures at the top of this pyramid. They've all got weapons, they've all got wings, they’ve all got axes.
Roman
They don’t all! like that one for instance.
Mark
Okay, the one in the middle doesn't, and the other one to the right, but they do look powerful and intimidating. All of them do. Especially when I'm looking up towards them. Compared to the figures at the bottom of the construction which look completely powerless and wretched.
Roman
At the top they are intense. They look like they decide they own future in a certain sense. Yeah.
Mark
If it was a story, like a fantasy world or something, these creatures at the top would be running things, you know? Like that witch over there with the spear, that kind of hag like figure, shes got her own thing going on in that room behind her, and she doesn’t want you to come in. She won’t let you.
Roman
I was thinking about different figures of Saint Peter. He holds the keys to heaven.
Mark
That's how I feel looking at them. I feel like the creatures on the top have their own domains and they're guarding them, not letting me in. Whereas the figures below, they have nothing. They just try to survive in their own harsh climates.
Roman
Even Bezos over here is being controlled by the invisible hand. They're all controlled by the invisible hand really.
Mark
That makes sense. Bezos is riding that mech suit - but it doesn't look like he can do anything about it. He's like stuck within this strange contraption. Whereas the creatures at the top, there different. I feel like if they wanted to they could just fly down and really fuck shit up.
Roman
Yeah, I guess they could. If you want me to focus on one of them. I can focus on this. The figure at the very top left. He's on a moth
Mark
Yeah, I see that.
Roman
That is the figure of this Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu. His famous line that he wrote was about his dreams, it goes something like, “One day I dreamt that I was a butterfly flitting and fluttering around. And when I awoke, I could not know whether it was the butterfly dreaming I or I dreaming the butterfly.
So, I was trying to show this phantasmic realm of what the future maybe could be. I'm trying to think through how society can be different, but it's still kind of a dream. It's a dream which maybe has the capacity to change the rest of society.
The drawing is about him really.
Mark
That’s interesting, because now you say the drawings at the top represents philosophers. That makes me think in two ways, the first is that I’m drawn to them. Like a dream that could be. Something to reach towards - but at the same time, it feels oppressive. I'm stuck down here in the pits with all the other wretched figures, I’m forced to look up.
It's that power dynamic. On one hand, they are powerful - they are something to aim towards. I feel like they can grant me boons - but at the same time I'm totally at the mercy of whims. If they wanted to fly down and slice through me with a blade, there’s nothing I can do about it.
Now I think of these creatures at the top as philosophers, you know, I feel the weight of their presence.
12:17
Recording Ends
