1 When did you start to make art?
I have been drawing for as long as I can remember.
When I was younger it was mainly cowboys and Indians, birds, comics. I was only aware of ‘art’ in the later years of secondary school.
4 Explain your inspiration?
I draw influence from thinking about my work in relation to what I see every day. Furniture, products, cars, rubbish, architecture, shop fittings and interiors, building sites, scaffolding, I look at industrial processes too. I look at what other artists are doing.
Alvar Aalto
James Lee Byars
Charles and Ray Eames
John Dewey
Donald Judd
James Turrell
John McCracken and the Californian Light and Space Artists.
Peter Zumthor
Boy-Racers
Japanese dry gardens
Enzo Mari
Martino Gamper
Miroslaw Balka
Karla Black
Claire Barclay
John Keats
5 In what way does your inspiration transform into ideas?
6 From Ideas to production of art – how? And why?
Its sort of instinctive – it feels obvious. Like that’s the only way of doing a certain thing.
12 When does your art become successful?
There are two stages really: I know the work is successful when I can stare at it for ages and not get bored of it. Then when the work can be experienced by someone other than me – that’s important. Its like I set it up in the world and then leave it alone. I want it to be autonomous.
14 How do you start the process of making work?
I try to be more informed every time I start, I look at a lot of very general images, I read a lot – a wide variety of things. Which helps form and solidify my ideas. From Victorian carpentry manuals to Japanese aesthetics.
I find myself planning future works when I’m making current work.
Raw materials are also an important part of it, I go to timber yards and reclamation centres. I look at wood, objects, finishes, colour, stone, fabric, metal, joints, tools. Everything leads on from the last thing, I can see what I want to make quite far ahead, but I don’t stick to this rigidly. More like a starting point.
16 What is your next; move, project,show etc?
The Woodmill. A gallery and studio complex based in Bermondsey. I will be working there from the start of December, There will be a programme of exhibitions and projects involved with this. Its really exciting, theres some really amazing artists involved with the project, a massive variety of practices, positions and stages. We will be working with an exciting Curation team too and the program for the year ahead is really interesting.
19 Any routine in making your artwork? If so what?
I have quite a strict process in the studio. It is very physical and repetitive. I think about words like ‘fabrication’ and ‘finishing’ and ‘treatment’ about industrial processes that are processed by hand. I find that really interesting, the idea of a production line that is made up of highly skilled craftsmen.
20 Who has been the biggest influence on you?
When I was in school I had a teacher who was massively influential. Definitely the single biggest cause for me to take art seriously. He taught me some basic principles of being an artist. Before that it was all about ‘you hold your pencil closer to the point, you will have more control’ etc. but he was the one who related it to a way of seeing things.
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