Becks Futures 2004 preview: Hayley Tompkins

It’s been described as “the hippest, hottest art prize around”. If that’s true, Glasgow must be inordinately hip and hot. Last year’s Beck’s Futures shortlist was dominated by artists from the city, while three out of four of the prize’s winners have been Glaswegian. In this, its fourth year, the £24,000 prize escaped across the border to a London-based Dutch artist, but Glasgow’s honour is upheld by short-listed young painter Hayley Tompkins.

Whatever your expectations are of painting, Tompkins’ work will probably confound them. Doodled loosely on wrinkled sheets of note paper, or brushed straight onto the wall, her watercolours are – quite literally – rough around the edges. Scribbled dots and wobbly lines are spaced around the gallery in no particular pattern, depicting no particular content.

“It began quite figuratively,” explains Tompkins. “When I was at art school I made a lot of figurative watercolour painting, and it developed into a much more personal language. Perhaps if you see it for the first time it’s less accessible than the figurative style that I was using, but there’s been a continuity. It’s just developed over the years really.”

Tompkins is one of only two painters in the shortlist, which is loaded this year with video and sound artists. Accustomed to being in shows full of painters, she enjoys the novelty of being in a minority at the at “the crafty end of things”. It must be a strange experience for a woman who spends much of her time trying not to make paintings.

“When you’re at art school, she explains, “you’re quite conscious of working on art-school materials, using the best paper that you can afford and getting the best paints. When I left art school I was really trying not to make paintings. Of course I am making paintings but in a way I was trying to think about them as things rather than paintings.”

There’s a growing trend in Glasgow for exhibiting humble, hand-made scribbles and doodles, unforced and unframed. Tompkins is in the vanguard. “That crinkled, worn effect almost gives the images a history that they don’t have on a clean, crisp white sheet of paper,” explains Tompkins. “It’s important that the work exists as naturally as possible, so nothing should seem too forced… The way things are arranged should feel quite behavioural, as if someone has been there and done that thing.”

Tompkins is currently doing her thing at Glasgow’s CCA, in advance of the show’s opening this Saturday. Instead of simply relocating her works from the loft of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), she is keen to make something new especially for the Glasgow space. “That’s quite important for me,” says Tompkins, “because it is in Glasgow. My immediate peers and friends will see this show so it’s a nice opportunity to show what I’m currently concentrating on, rather than work that was made even a few months ago.”

The artist likes to arrange the paintings herself, in a quiet space of their own. That’s a tall order in an exhibition dominated by video and sound art, but Tompkins is pleased with the room she’s been given. “I’m going to be in the central area,” she says, “which is nice because there’s nice light in there and just three basic walls, so it’s going to feel quite private.”

The artist used to work as an invigilator at CCA, so she is looking forward to being on the other side of the fence. “It’ll be good fun,” she says. “It’ll be quite strange to be in that building making a show.”

It’ll be quite strange to be in that building seeing the show too, judging by the weird and wonderful range of artists shortlisted for the prize. A few are making brand new work especially for the Glasgow show, so even if you saw it in London, it should be well worth a another visit.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 06.06.04