Matthew Macaulay (MM): Why painting?

Tom Robertson (TR): I think its a fascination for material—paint as a physical substance. I was never keen on working with canvas. I hated the springiness and the way it would sag. It didn’t have the dimensional stability I needed. I wanted something I could carve into, something that would hold up under constant reworking. That led me to experiment with different supports over time.

MM: And in terms of influence, was there a moment or figure that shaped your thinking?

TR: Resnick. Milton Resnick. He taught in New York and had this incredible commitment to painting. He’d work on something for six months to a year without moving on. I never saw the work in person, but just reading about that kind of dedication was revelatory. It made me think about painting not just as an image or a gesture, but as an object with a history.

MM: What was your art school education like?

TR: When I was at university, there weren’t many painters. Students were mostly making installation and abstract sculpture. Only about three of us were working figuratively. Ruth Sumner was a big influence. She never imposed abstraction, but she made me think about paint—what you’re bringing to it, how you're handling it. It was about developing a dialogue with the material. That really stuck with me.

MM: That idea of commitment comes up a lot in what you say.

TR: Yeah. Commitment to the craft, to the tradition, even to the process of figuring it out. I never go in with a clear plan. Not even a colour scheme. It’s all about exploration. That tension—between intention and material resistance—is where it happens for me.

MM: What are your thoughts on the way painting is taught today?

TR: I think we’re losing something vital. There’s not enough emphasis on technical knowledge. A lot of students don’t know the difference between pigments, or why you might choose a single pigment over a hue. And often, the people teaching them don’t know either. That commitment to paint as a material—as something you respect and learn to use properly—is getting lost.

We’ve got students using bone black, or boar bristle brushes, and they don’t know what they are. There’s a real disconnect from the materials. They think because it’s on a shelf in a shop, it’s safe. But some of these things are toxic. And if the staff don’t know either, that’s dangerous.

MM: In some places that I have taught there seems to be a fear of focusing on technical proficiency and it seems to be seen as being anti-intellectual or exclusionary.

TR: Definitely. It’s like knowing your craft is a dirty secret. Like, if you know how to manipulate paint, you're somehow less of a thinker. But it's the opposite—understanding materials gives you freedom. It lets you make choices. I’m not saying everyone should be a technician, but if you want to work with paint, you should respect it.

We’re not giving them the tools. Students come in wanting to learn, but the system is underfunded, and they’re often left to figure it out on their own. Even something simple like an underpainting—they don’t know why they’re doing it. They've just seen it on TikTok. There’s no critical framework.

MM: You’ve spoken to me about material refinement in your own practice in the past?

TR: Yeah, over the years I’ve phased out most modern materials. I don’t like synthetic gesso—it feels artificial and expensive. I want transparency and control. So I’ve developed my own system. I suppose I called it “tinkering”, but really, it's about refining. Finding a way to work that makes sense.

I think a lot of what we see now is disconnected from the material history of painting. And yet, the conservators and scientists are going back to that history to understand how to preserve these works. Look at Pollock—they’re still struggling to conserve his house paint. The tradition matters, and not just because it’s old. It has knowledge embedded in it. I want to be in conversation with that.

These days, people buy materials like they’re just any commodity—walk into a shop, grab some paint, and expect to make something constructive without knowing what they’re working with or where it comes from. There’s no connection to the history or process.

MM: So you focused more on reexploring historical alternatives?

TR: I did. I started questioning why we ever settled on canvas as the standard. It was chosen for ease of transportation, not longevity. During COVID, when I had this strange lump in my neck and couldn’t go anywhere, I started making these meditative, folded paper constructions. I used cotton rag paper and saturated it with glue. It became a kind of sculpture, born out of anxiety and the need to occupy my mind.

MM: So it was partly therapeutic?

TR: Absolutely. I was stuck inside, unsure about my health, and doctors didn’t know what the lump was. The process became about control and transformation—simple materials, repetitive action. It was something I had to do.

MM: And that influenced your material choices going forward?

TR: Yes. I became fascinated with traditional materials that had been largely forgotten, like rabbit-skin glue and cartonnage. The Egyptians used cartonnage—layers of linen or papyrus soaked in glue and plaster—to make mummy cases. Some are over 4,000 years old and still intact. The longevity of that material astounded me.

MM: And yet, it’s not widely used anymore?

TR: No, because it’s heavy and not easy to work with. But for me, it was a revelation. I experimented with it, using canvas saturated in rabbit-skin glue and layering it with plaster. I settled on a type of hard plaster—Crystacal R—that allowed for structural integrity. I wasn’t replicating ancient methods exactly, but adapting them to see what was possible.

MM: It sounds like an act of recovery—reviving lost knowledge.

TR: Definitely. I started researching these materials deeply. There’s so little information available on cartonnage, and most of what exists is written by archaeologists trying to dissolve the glue to access the texts inside. But I was interested in how the materials behaved—how you could let the glue dry fully before adding plaster to create structural cohesion.

MM: So this research becomes a driver of your studio practice?

TR: Completely. It’s the curiosity that drives it. There’s a real joy in discovering how different materials interact. For instance, I’ve been using genuine flake white—stack process lead white—and it behaves completely differently from any modern alternative. It aligns with the brush marks. You get this subtle, metallic sheen that you just can’t fake.

MM: Isn’t flake white banned now?

TR: Yes, in most places. But it’s not because it’s inherently dangerous—it’s because people don’t understand how to use it safely. Historically, painters knew how to handle these materials properly. Now it’s been banned because the infrastructure of knowledge around it has been dismantled.

MM: There’s a frustration there.

TR: Huge frustration. It’s criminal to lose such an irreplaceable material. We’ve become too dependent on convenience. Instead of educating people, we just remove things from use. It’s the same with painting education. The technical foundations aren’t being passed on.

MM: And that links to your critique of contemporary art education?

TR: Yes. In many institutions, the focus has shifted so far towards concept that the material understanding is ignored. There’s a kind of arrogance in thinking you can make meaningful work without understanding your medium. I’m not saying concept isn’t important, but the balance has been lost.

MM: Do you think this is changing?

TR: I hope so. There are still people out there who care about the materials. And there’s a language—between painters—that isn’t being catered for in academia. Students want to learn that language. They want to understand how paint works, how light plays on a surface, what makes something durable. Exactly. Too often, students are fed conceptual frameworks without being given the tools to situate their own practice materially. It becomes abstract for the sake of it. There’s a real value in craft—just making something beautiful, something that lasts.

Break of a few months…

MM: So, last time we spoke, you were frustrated about not being able to get the paint you wanted. You’ve ended up making your own now, haven’t you?

TR: Yeah, I do complain a lot—but the main thing that really frustrated me as a painter was not being able to make the marks I wanted to make. That was primarily because I couldn’t get hold of lead carbonate, the traditional white pigment in the history of painting. It’s got a particular quality that modern pigments just don’t have.

My painting isn’t about colour. It’s about the physicality of the mark—the material quality of the paint. Titanium white just didn’t handle the way I needed it to. It was a barrier. With EU REACH regulations, you just can’t get lead anymore in the UK. So I became a bit obsessed with finding an alternative.

I started making my own paint so I could make the kinds of marks I wanted to in the studio. Lithopone was one of the first alternatives to lead white, used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s not perfect, but it’s semi-opaque and warmer than titanium, which can be too overpowering. With lead, you get a beautiful transition of shades. You can use techniques like scumbling or velatura—a milky glaze technique used in older paintings. You can’t do that in the same way with titanium.

Eventually, I developed two versions of my own substitute: Substitute S and Substitute R. The S version is like an everyday white—shorter handling. The R version is ropey and lets you do much more extreme things, like sculptural impasto effects. Think of late Rembrandt—he almost sculpted the paint.

MM: So is there actually lead in your paint?

TR: No, not at all. But I’m not going to say exactly what’s in it. It’s proprietary. I can say it’s based on lithopone and some other things I’ve worked out.

MM: Can you describe what lithopone is like?

TR: Lithopone is semi-opaque, mixes well with linseed oil, and gives you a stronger paint film than titanium, which has a very soft film. Linseed oil does yellow, which is why some people prefer poppy or walnut oil—but they’re weaker. Manufacturers often add zinc white to titanium to improve the paint film, but there’s growing evidence zinc can cause delamination. Some think it's about how the paint interacts with acrylic grounds. I’m suspicious of modern acrylic emulsions—there’s not enough long-term evidence. I prefer traditional methods like rabbit skin glue and chalk.

MM: You make your own gesso, don’t you?

TR: Yeah, and it’s easy. One of my goals is to help painters understand they don’t need all the commercial products. You can make gesso yourself cheaply and effectively. It’s about empowering people with knowledge of materials—something you often don’t get taught in art school. Historically, painters had deep knowledge of materials, and that tradition helped their work last.

MM: And colour—you were saying modern paints overemphasise colour?

Tom: Definitely. Modern titanium-based paints force people into using more colour because it kills everything underneath. With lead white, you get subtlety. Many people think they can’t achieve certain effects because of skill, but often it’s the materials holding them back.

Also, many student-grade paints are filled with extenders and fillers. That’s not inherently bad—if you know what’s in them and how to manipulate them, you can get great effects. But now, most of it’s a mystery. Even some premium paints are getting thinner. I’ve noticed newer tubes from respected brands have more oil, less pigment. And you don’t always know what’s in them.

MM: I’ve noticed my students are obsessed with putting sand and stuff into their paint to give it texture.

TR: Exactly. That tells you something’s missing from the paint. Rembrandt knew how to modify paint to get physical effects. That tradition has been lost. Modern paints are so standardized they’ve lost their character. Pigments used to vary wildly. You buy a modern Venetian Red—it’s just okay. But get a raw, unrefined pigment, and it’s visceral, powerful. There’s a huge difference.

MM: There’s also this obsession with realism. Like photo-realism.

TR: And that misses the point. Velázquez painted with long brushes so he could stand back. He wasn’t trying to make things photo-real. He wanted to create the feeling of something seen from a distance. And yet students now paint like cameras. It becomes lifeless. There’s no spirit in it.

MM: Yeah, like with Goya. There’s often a rawness—some areas are just loose brushwork, but the faces are precise. It’s about atmosphere.

TR: Exactly. And people forget the human eye doesn’t see like a camera. Photography flattens everything. Painting used to be about space and time—Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series, for example. Each one’s different, same subject, different light, different feeling. That’s what painting can do.