7.5 Questions for Rachel Lumsden

2. Obviously, the burning question of chapter one, "Can I paint a tree with birds?", you answer with "Doh, course you can!" So that’s why we really want to know: Which is your favourite painting with a tree-bird motif?

The "barnacle goose" illuminations! In the Middle Ages it was believed that barnacle geese grew from so-called "barnacle trees". This is why it was permissible for them to be eaten on fasting days, because their origin meant that they were not considered poultry but – believe it or not – fish. You can see in such illuminations how a tree grows out of a body of water, which in turn gives rise to these black and white geese hanging upside-down from its branches like feathered fruit. Very strange. But the British botanist William Turner (a good friend of Switzerland’s Conrad Gessner by the way) was so convinced of this life cycle that he elaborated on the phenomenon rather persuasively in his 1544 book "Avium praecipuarum".

3. In spite of following of Bob Ross' brilliantly simple tricks, I have never been able to produce a halfway decent painting. What would you advise? Is there still hope, something I can do to improve? Or would I be better off investing my money in new hiking gear?

I presume you have already tried the frizzy hair-“scumble” technique and the BR-certified red-sable brushes? And of course, the Bob Ross toaster is an absolute must if your goal is to bite into crunchy little pictures. Once you’ve got all that in place, then all you have to do is whisper "these happy little trees, these happy little trees" under your breath and you, too, will be delighted by a serene landscape in oil. And if all fails, don't forget that Bob Ross videos are mainly there to help you get to sleep and to wander off into the realm of dreams.

But actually what you really want to know is whether painting can be taught and learned? Of course it can. But it only becomes interesting when the student uses what they have learned in such a way that it becomes a personal visual language. That’s when painting really starts cooking.

4. England or Switzerland? Of course, with reference primarily, but by no means exclusively, to art and the art world. (Please justify your answer, and "let's call it a draw" is absolutely inadmissible).

I’ve spent three years writing a book that tries to bridge the art scenes of the UK and Switzerland. So your question is a right bummer, if you don’t mind me saying. I visit London regularly to soak up the diversity and internationality there. I then bring that back to Switzerland and, thanks to an astoundingly generous funding system, make it visible by developing my work in the studio. The UK art scene often seems top-heavy, as if art only seems to count and be taken notice of if you make millions of bucks from it. In Switzerland, art is much more democratic, more assured in its position and valued, also as a contribution to local identity. Artistically and biographically, I am clearly an "in-betweenie" and as such my favourite food is alpine cheese with Marmite. Satisfied now, huh?

5. In a feature in the Thurgauer Zeitung you are quoted as saying, "Sometimes I also think: What the fuck am I doing with these large-format pictures?" To be honest, that's something we'd be interested in as well – what’s the answer?

Large formats are immersive. The dialogue with them is not only visual, but also physical. When all exhibition opportunities are eliminated for ages – as happened in the lockdown – and a gridlock of paintings occurs in the studio, then I really have to ask myself what I actually think I’m up to with such large, cumbersome formats. They need an audience, other eyes on them in order to live on outside the studio. Fortunately, exhibitions are now back up and running again. And of course, I'm happy when the paintings don't all end up back in the studio, but in public or private collections.

6. Picasso said, "There are painters who turn the sun into a yellow spot. But there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, can turn a yellow spot into the sun." What does Rachel Lumsden say?

I’ll leave the grand cosmological proclamations to the deceased painter princelings, if you don’t mind. I'm anyway less interested in the brightness of the Mediterranean sun than I am in murky twilight, where forms appear to merge together so you can't tell where one thing ends and another begins.

7. The worst (in the sense of most absurd, stupid, embarrassing etc.) question you have ever been asked at an opening?

Can you please introduce me to the artist? I saw you come in with her earlier, I think?

And half a question: Igniting Penguins probably won't land at number 1 in the non-fiction bestseller’s list but it will ...

... become a standard work of educational literature that bashful parents press into the hands of their precociously keen artistic offspring with the words: "Everything you ever wanted to know about the creative urge, er, art establishment, darling, that we’d rather not tell you ourselves ...".

Questionnaire and transcript: Thomas Wyss