BiographyPast Exhibitions
Available Works
2 Dec - 24 Dec 2003
There is one moment when dusk ends and evening begins when, if you make a
wish, They will grant it. Quantocks 1905-25
From Somerset Folklore by Ruth Tongue.
I first met John Caple about ten years ago. At the time he was painting a series of small pictures with tiny, anonymous figures, pavilions and solitary houses set in large, empty landscapes. Even then, there was something immediately compelling about the directness of his work, particularly his ability to convey a sense of atmosphere using refreshingly simple compositions and the minimum of colour. His style was already recognisable, but with a subject-matter so neutral that his paintings took on a strange, surreal quality. That he had begun with the bones of something original, there was no doubt. There was already a rhythm to his work, a fascinating, wonderful, hypnotic beat that only needed the simplest of ideas for him to create something extraordinary.
In about 1998 he began to paint his family and their home in the Mendip Hills of Somerset. Suddenly from the shadows, those anonymous figures from the earlier paintings emerged as tender portrayals of his father and mother, his grandparents and uncles. Not strictly-speaking portraits, rather they were descriptions of these family members, their clothes, jobs and their homes. That they were descriptions was emphasised by the little labels, always added in the corner: 'My Father, Gardener with Zinnias'; 'Grandfather, Albert Caple Milk Round'. And because these were not portraits, because their faces were half-hidden, it gave John Caple the liberty of painting relatives of which he knew little save from family tradition- his great grandfather emigrating to America, Old John Caple and Old Granny Biffen.
Then he began to paint the collective folk memory of the Mendips, the festivals that still lingered on in certain villages, the healers and their cures, fortune-tellers, witches and 'cunning men'. His neighbours still knew which house 'Cunning Beacham' used to live in, a relative might remember the traditional cure for a sick calf; that ash sticks repel an adder bite and how to use a heart charm to bring love. His paintings may seem historical records, but in reality they are concerned with a living tradition that has survived the censure of the law, the church, 19th century reformers and missionaries alike. You are still as likely to find a magic charm as a bus ticket in a Somerset pocket.
Yet, whatever interest we may derive from these stories and traditions, the immediate impact of Caple's art comes from the painting itself. It is his raw skill and originality as an artist that has brought his work to an international audience and few people who have fallen for his work, could claim to have any initial interest in Somerset or its folk-lore. That is not to detract from his remarkable skill as a story-teller, but first of all Caple has always been judged as a twenty-first century artist: a unique painter with an extraordinary vision.
