Interview with the artist Donna Huddleston

Emily and Daniel caught up with Donna in her studio to deliver one of her editions, to talk framing and the process of making ‘The Hag’, the latest of our FRAME Editions, a series of artist collaborations in which the frame becomes part of the artwork. (Available to buy here now).

ET: How do you come to a decision about framing generally, how does the work tie in with the framing?

I think a lot about the framing of a drawing when I am making it. The coloured pencil works are a very slow and methodical process, so I think about a lot of things and framing is one of them. I think about what materials would work best, with the world that I'm in as I’m making a drawing, and as I take months...some of them take many months. I usually just sit thinking, is it wood? Is it metal, are there any colours?... and I often have a strong idea of a material but then the great thing is that we can have that conversation too and then I can see what you feel when you see the work so that’s what has always been great about working with you on the framing because then it becomes this conversation about what will work best. Making drawings, framing them is an important aspect of how they will be seen. That’s an obvious thing to say but when you see the difference between a mount and not having a mount and what kind of glazing is needed, what sort of wood or metal. I think alot about it when I am making, which is also when I think about the titles of the work. It is really important and I think in this show that is coming up at White Cube, all of the framing styles are slightly different which doesn’t ever bother me that there’s differently framed works because it feels like the frame is very much about that particular work and that world and the colour palette and the composition . It feels to me very much like part of the composition.

ET: When you end up with the framed work is it very much what you envisaged when you framed the work? Or have you found that you've gone to a different place than what you imagined?

Yes, it can surprise me...but never in a bad way! (laughs) It can surprise me because the drawings are in pieces on my wall and until they are mounted without magnets which I do see because sometimes I come and check joins between these. But also there's ‘remove’ which is really nice because it is framed and it has become an object. So you can be a bit more objective about it. It feels finished which is nice. There can be surprise in terms of sizing and that’s more to do with spacing, whether it's bigger or smaller, you don’t expect this but now I’ve been framing for a while this is less of a surprise. I like that you can get some objectivity from seeing it presented in this way; the formality of the frame and the materials and hopefully that conversation we’ve had about the material is the right choice. I listen to your opinion at FRAME too as you see things that I don’t see.

ET: And there’s also practical considerations, limitations ie: sometimes choices are limited.

I’ve always been surprised at the lack of choices in colours for (conservation) mount-boards. You would think that there would be lots of colours. I’ve always wanted a salmon coloured mount! But there’s also a wider scope with the way you can frame something too. Everyone was asking when I was installing this show about your mounting process. They were interested in it and how it was done. The tab system etc.

ET: How did you find the process of making the edition?

It happened really seamlessly, didn't it? It felt like it wanted to be made very easily. Even from the very beginning when we were talking about it I was very happy to be asked to make an edition with frames. The whole process of designing a bespoke frame, when we started talking about it, we both had the same image in mind of the hag. Straight off the first meeting the first time you came round with all of the materials and different ideas. I think one of the last things you got out was carved corners samples. I have always really loved that ‘Witches house’ aesthetic, that dark wooden hand-carved almost ‘black forest’ element of it was perfect, so it felt like it wanted to be made. It felt very rewarding, like a very easy collaboration.

DL: Explain the significance of the Hag in the edition

I played the Hag in my year six musical. I think that was part of the appeal.In year 6 when you are 12-13 playing the evil queen. I played the character in my year six musical -my first and last big performance! That definitely came into it as a memory which is what comes into a lot of my drawings, some sense of autobiography. In my last show Donna Huddleson: In Person all of the drawings I saw as roleplay -an extension of a performance of myself playing different roles. Every drawing in that show was a version of myself in character. The Hag became one of those characters. All of the singular figures were myself playing roles and none of them looked like me but that was the idea that it was role playing. It was like my performed self, and the Hag was one of those; she was another version of myself.

A lot of the imagery is quite artificial and looks quite staged but it’s tied to personal experience, it’s filtered through a personal aesthetic.There is almost a psychology of the compositions of the subjects usually come from some autobiographical memory entwined with lots of things; formal concepts, with drawing, or with things I am thinking about with the subject of the show; it all kind of marries in the drawing it becomes. But usually there is a biographical element that comes into it or some kind of memory of something, especially when I work with the coloured pencils because the quality of light in them seem to to attach itself to memories in Australia, something about the saturation of the pencil the particular colour, the way it works on the paper that brought in ideas of using autobiographical elements within the theatrical world I was presenting.

I have always found the printing process quite rewarding because again you can be objective when it becomes a different medium and you get a bit of distance from it. With somebody else printing, their process allows me to see it with fresh eyes. I do find objectivity, which is really hard when you are making things. I don't, for sometimes years after you can see something without the emotional attachment of making it. You are questioning those things all the time when you are making it. Formal things. The printing process is a great one...watching Simon making it, you can see the work differently- in someone else’s hands.

Donna Huddleston Company is open 6-28th September at the White Cube, Mason’s Yard

You can read more about her unique Frame Edition here.