KH: It was totally thrilling. You go to work every day, and the same paintings are lying on tables or are on easels and they are paintings by Masaccio and Raphael.
TM: Do you remember any painting you worked on in particular that was especially exciting?
KH: I worked on The Alba Madonna by Raphael. I worked on one of the blue Picasso paintings. It has a man, a woman, and a child in it.
TM: The Tragedy from the Blue Period?
KH: Yes. There was a Netherlanders exhibition, so I worked on paintings by Memling. Some of the drawings underneath the paintings were phenomenal.
TM: Did you have varied tasks or one special area of focus?
KH: My job was mostly doing the examinations, so I was the person doing the x-rays and the first to see drawings underneath paintings.
TM: That must have been exciting and changed the way you perceive painting forever forward.
KH: Yes, and the most exciting painting to see was the Masaccio, to see the progress.
TM: Seeing the painting being reconstructed by way of the x-rays?
KH: There were other people there cleaning and taking off varnishes and repainting. Seeing the whole evolution of that painting was pretty amazing. I saw Eva Hesse works lying on tables that were amazing. Seeing her work that way…it is hard to come back from that point. It’s like trying to forget something. It’s really hard for me to go to a museum now and come back and not reconstruct…
TM: Reconstruct what aspect of a work?
KH: Reconstruct what it looks like outside of the frame, reconstruct the surface. I see changes. I see the history of it in a more physical way. It is hard not to deconstruct it.
TM: A professor once told me that when you look at a painting at an angle it can reveal more. I think that’s true. When you see a painting lying flat and see it at a forty-five degree angle, compositions look different, light reflects differently. His point was that the strength of a composition is revealed. Perhaps it is because the painting does not know you are looking at it. In Switzerland, seeing the van Gogh frameless and flat was a shock because it did have something different to say.
KH: Were they showing this work like that on purpose?
TM: I saw the painting through a window walking around the outside of the building. The room was obviously the conservation room. The lights were off, but the window was large. It was one of the field paintings, which are 50cm x 101cm. Those are my favorite paintings by van Gogh because of the proportions. That was my only experience like that, but I imagined some people having an opportunity to be close to work like that every day.
KH: One of the nice things about the National Gallery is that anyone can take a tour of the conservation labs.
TM: Remembering your description of removing varnish made me think of that process and your use of gum arabic. Damar varnish is actually a gum sap from a tree. Gum arabic has that quality of varnish and that feeling of being a residue of an art material. How do you use it?
KH: Gum arabic is so versatile that it is easy to suspend heavy particles in it.
TM: It seems like you have deconstructed art materials, using them separate from one another. Watercolor is essentially dry pigment mixed with gum arabic and a little glycerin. You use the elements independent of one another.
KH: Yes. The gum arabic absorbs nicely into the paper. It does not have the surface tension of something thicker. There is usually a series of gestures that go into both the paintings and the drawings. With the drawings the charcoal leaves its history visible, working with the charcoal alone. In the painting the oils will cover the history of the work. I did not specifically work from the drawings in paint. Much of that charcoal work on paper is about visual acuity: looking at other artists’ work and re-drawing it and seeing where I end up. Now I intend to continue this in painting.
TM: You will work on canvas?
KH: These will be paintings on panel. I would like to work on canvas because there is something seductive about it, but I prefer a harder surface.
TM: I always found working on canvas difficult because it gives when you touch it. It is almost as if that has to be factored into the equation. The roughness of the surface was also a problem.
KH: Yes, I know. I am even thinking of working on metal to be as close to the wall as possible.
TM: You have a way of working and thinking that comes from an authentic response to your experiences. Hearing your ideas and thoughts directly adds to our experience of your work. Thank you.