1 If you weren’t an artist, what else would you be?
I’d have to have some sort of creative outlet one way or another.
Maybe a piano player in a brothel or something.
2 Name 3 of your least favourite artists.
Ambivalent feelings towards Andy Warhol even though I do a lot of screen printing and he’s credited with popularising screen printing in Art. A lot of artists work isn’t to my taste but I don’t really have least favourite artists, he said diplomatically.
3. Anytime, any place which artist’s body would you most like to inhabit?
Leonardo da Vinci would be a bloody good start.
4 What is your favourite ‘ism’?
Is Beerism a word? Actually, that would make a good print.
5. What was the most intelligent thing that someone said or wrote about your work?
Nothing springs immediately to mind but people have been very kind, generally, which is nice.
6. And the dumbest?
I don’t have the time or space to go into that, but it would be about one of my typefaces.
7. Which artists would you most like to rip off, sorry, I mean appropriate as a critique of originality and authorship?
If I was inclined to rip people off it would be the people who I’d have to spend 15 years trying to learn how to rip off because they’re working at such a sophisticated and utterly brilliant level with paint or pencils or something else. Wouldn’t be much point in doing this.
Too many pale imitations around already.
8 Do you care what your art costs? State your reasons!
Yes. I’d always like to have some of my work available at prices that are affordable to most people. It’s a shame when artists get really successful and their work is no longer affordable to the people who got them there in the first place by buying their work.
9 What are the three big ideas that you would like your work to express?
Beauty, originality and craftsmanship.
10 Are you a political artist?
No, although some people would argue that everything is political
and it’s not possible to create apolitical art. I generally want my work
to have an immediacy about it and be beautiful, uplifting and positive.
I like humour too.
11 How do you start the process of making work?
Bottle of Jack Daniels.
12 What next?
Interesting new directions and angles.
Image:Self Potrait
13 If Moma and the Tate and the Pompidou wanted to acquire one of your works each, which would you want them to have?
I’d want Moma to acquire a watercolour self portrait I did when I was
doing my A’Levels twenty years ago. I put my heart and soul into it, like I do with my work today. The painting is an important little personal milestone and represents lots of powerful emotions and ideas to me. To everyone else it’s just a painting. I’d like the Pompidou to have one of my new ‘Dreams’ prints.
14 Complete the following sentence ‘Blessed art the artists, for they shall…’ never be bored or have nothing to do.
15 Complete the following sentence ‘Blessed are the curators, for they shall…’ often make visiting galleries more fulfilling.
16 Complete the following sentence ‘Blessed are the art critics, for they shall’often confound. But can I just say, while we’re on the subject, I think Andrew Graham Dixon often talks a lot of sense.
17. What is your favourite cheese?
Smoked cheddar.
18. What’s next for you?
Hoping to have a solo show in London this year. Big and exciting client projects. I really want to produce some very good art in 2011.
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