Maggi Hambling: ‘The subject chooses me, and how I respond in paint just happens’
The artist speaks about the new body of work in her exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, inspired by the song of the nightingale.
A version of this article first appeared in the winter 2024 issue of Art Quarterly, the membership magazine of Art Fund.
Who is Maggi Hambling?
Over a six-decade career, award-winning artist Maggi Hambling has created a powerful body of work in paint, sculpture and sound that combines the personal and universal, through subjects including portraiture, politics, war and nature. Her current exhibition, at Pallant House Gallery, includes new paintings in black and gold, inspired by a nighttime event celebrating the music of the nightingale’s song.
How did attending folk singer and conservationist Sam Lee’s ‘Singing With Nightingales’ event inspire your paintings?
It was a great friend’s birthday celebration, but I had no conscious intention of going along to make work in response. The subject chooses me. Sam led us into the Sussex wilderness in the pitch black of night. When we reached our destination, and as we sank into the rain-soaked mud, we heard the extraordinary song of nightingales.
I was aware that, for centuries, across cultures and civilisations, the nightingale has been depicted as a beacon of both hope and loss. For me, however, it was an epiphany of sorts: a year before I had had a serious heart attack, and, having confronted my own mortality, it had been a fairly bleak 12 months of recovery.
The transitory beauty of the birds’ song in the night sky represented life and hope. I have for decades responded to the decimation of the natural world and our unrelenting ability to destroy each other. These new paintings venerate the song of the nightingale – with luck, that will make people step back and think.
They are also about life and death, of course, as are all my works.
Was gold on black a direct response to the nightingale?
No, nothing as literal as that. As I say, the subject chooses me, and how I respond in paint just happens. The nightingale’s song, the gold, illuminates the dark ground of the night sky. The earliest painting in the show, a portrait of Leonard Cohen’s voice, the memory of his voice that I painted when he died, is also gold on a dark ground. Gold is the perfection and purity of song which comes from the heart and the soul. I’m responding to something that moves me, compels me to paint. Whether birdsong or the human voice, if it comes from the heart, it makes a profound connection emotionally.
How would you describe your taste in music, and do you listen to music while you are working?
Eclectic. Benjamin Britten has a significant place in the universe for me – Scallop (2003), my sculpture on Aldeburgh beach, is for him. The composer Deborah Pritchard has responded to my work, so it can work both ways. The singers I connect to include Nina Simone (who I saw perform in 1969 in New York), Leonard Cohen, Amy Winehouse, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Will Young. That list may appear diverse, but all these artists give something of themselves. I always work in silence.
Could you tell us about the work in the show that has been influenced by Nick Cave?
My painting that shares its title with Nick Cave’s song is called Night of the Lotus Eaters, and is a response to his song and voice.
You’ve said you work in the hope that you might become a little better. Is that still your goal?
The older I get, I try to say more with less: each new work has to be an experiment, otherwise there’s no point.
And do you have projects planned for 2025?
I’m not a project planner, but yes, there is a lot on, which will be revealed in due course…
‘Maggi Hambling: Nightingale Night’, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, to 27 April 2025. 50% off entry with National Art Pass.
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