1 When did you start to make art?
As a child I suppose.
2 How did you evolve into a professional artist?
Have I? I will have to think about that one, if it paid all the bills then I suppose we can talk in terms of profession, it’s a vocation and perhaps even an obsession – I know that much.
3 What drove you to make art as a professional vocation?
Ah, well mainly two suicide attempts, the love of a good woman, and the tedium of the working world.
4 Explain your inspiration?
The world, the, the media, our current society’s icongraphy. I find a story, I find an angle on it, I report it, I report it with art. Art is one of the last freely available expressive weapons that anyone can use to enable themselves, those they love, those they respect, or in turn to tip the balance of power against those they don’t, unsettle the state, oppose the corporate or plutocratic view fed to the masses my the minions of the elite.
5 In what way does your inspiration transform into ideas?
I talk, I talk a lot. I talk to myself, I argue with the television, I debate in forums and blogs, I read opinions, I am fascinated by argument. I predict the future too, I’ve predicted many things to close friends, I’m not pupporting to be a psychic, I just add a lot of events together and find that 2+2 = 4. If this country starves, and that guy is elected, and those tourists keep thinning resources for the locals whilst ignoring the political consequences, then so and so will happen. It’s the same with the cycles of fame and celebrity, who will go crazy, who will be loved, hated, rich, forgotten. Everything is an equation, eventually a formula. I am a miserable failure at maths, amongst other things, but I have an extremely inquistive mind, I use the part of my mind others would use to work out algorithms or algebra for something else, life, culture, events, and the intersection of all the above and the varying factors in between.
6 From Ideas to production of art – how? And why?
It feels as natural as eating or any biological function, the ideas build up, and up, and up. Before long I cannot perform the simplest of tasks unless I begin sketching, scribbling, painting, something to flesh the idea out on a greater scale. I am mostly limited by whatever materials are around me, and the space I have to work in. For the first ten works of the Indoor street art I’m using a Mac and a Wacom tablet to digitally paint, I’m also about to start a series of paintings, some reworkings of the former, some not. Art school always drummed the idea of scale into me, the bigger the better, if I make some decent money I will invest in new mediums, new workspace, new materials, larger works. My best art works are in my dreams. A recent one was of a fake cemetary, I costed it at about 200k including the land and marble, it’s still there, in my brain somewhere, god knows if it will leak out into this reality.
7 Could your ideas be portrayed in any other medium? If so which?
Like I say any medium is worth considering, I’m not too partial to bronze, it has so many military, religious and royalist connotations, but then again that makes it a prime material for subversive works, again it’s down to cost. I work within my means, I do what I can with what I have, the more cash in the bank, the more chance I will blow it all on a new idea, however extravagant or impossible the medium might seem.
8 Which artists would you most like to blatantly rip off?
Art is appropriation, you can’t get around that fact. No man is an island, no creative mind a law unto itself, we are all interconnected, we can’t help “ripping off” everyone and everything around us. I greatly admire certain artists, but deep down I’m not so interested in art as much as the artist, or rather their lives, or rather how their work is an interpretation or personal expression or conduit or coping mechanism for that aggregate of experience, positive or negative.
9 Why is your art made?
Good question. Personally? It’s art or death. I don’t mean that melodramitcally , even though it sounds it. The truth is I’ve tried everything else, and over the years I’ve come to accept that purpose is integral to being, and if I’m going to stay on this earth with the rest of you I have to do what I have to do, with or without your approval.
10 What does being an artist mean to you?
Nothing really. I’m not the sort of guy who thinks he is his only vocation, or career, or that his calling makes him who he is. The truth is I am me, and I make art, I know it’s art because it’s most certainly not craft. In the creative process my mind seems to combine my fears, my dreams, my cynicism, my emotions, my logic, my knowledge and understanding of the world around. That is why I am a person who believes they are creating art, it doesn’t necessarily equate that I am an artist, and if I am, what does that mean, what is an artist in the c21st? It could mean anything these days.
11 Are you happy with your reasons for making art? i.e Are there any trade offs that make life hard?
I don’t think I have a choice. I’ve suffered from some very deep depressions in my life, it’s supposed to be a chemical imbalance, perhaps something hormonal. Art is cathartic, it stops me from locking down my thought processes, and obsessing about a subject, no matter how little influence I personally have over that subject’s outcome. This way I can survive, I can live and create, and lift some of the weight I self-impose on my psyche everyday.
12 When does your art become successful?
When I see it somewhere unexpected.
13 What is art?
An attempt to communicate ideas, emotions, thoughts, meanings beyond the traditional constructs enforced by a society self-engaged and absorbed in its own management and control. 14 How do you start the process of making work?
I think I’ve answered that.
15 Who prices your work? And how is the price decided upon?
I take a very small commission, if my name becomes well known I will probably receive plenty of advice on that, although I’ve always been awful with money.
16 What is your next; move,project,show etc?
Currently I’m talking with someone about a few shows in Paris, Montreal and London for next year, but first I have to put together a collection of paintings, I’m hoping that I will have around 6 by this summer.
17 What are the pros and cons of the art market?
Ask me when I’m in it.
18 Which pieces would you like to be remembered for?
I haven’t made them yet.
19 Any routine in making your artwork?
If so what? This seems rather similar to two other questions. Process has never fascinated me as much as personal reasoning and the logical outcome of an artist’s methodoloy in translating that from idea to reality. Right now I drink tea, smoke cigarettes and have something distracting like music, or Radio 4, or TV, or something mumbling in the background. I think this comes from times I’ve spent in recupuration at various hospitals after a few suicide attempts. Essentially I can block out telecommunications and they block out the world, that way I am under my own sphere of influence, in that space I can work in peace.
20 What has been the biggest break in your career?
I’m hoping there will be a few next year, I don’t think I’ve had any in all honesty.
21 Who has been the biggest influence on you?
Marcel Duchamp’s mind, Andy Warhol’s attitude, and Banksy’s cahunas. Although in a way I think art I hate has been more of an influence. Britain is filled with twee and ridiculous arts and crafts designed to placate the mumbling classes of bootfairing nimby’s who want nothing more than dog portraits and ethchings of catherdrals.
22 How many artworks have you given away and to whom?
A few to people I love.
