Cave painting…trying in a very basic way to capture something desirable but relatively alien. Bringing it into existence and closer to my world. I find painting very primitive in that sense. Visually naming an unknown species.
2 What do you intend your work to convey to an audience?
Desire, Fear, Ecstasy, Repulsion, Trash, Class, Unnatural selection, Hierarchy.
3 Why do you work in your chosen medium and format?
See number one. Also painting is the least worthwhile practice I could think of, I find it quite decadent and self-indulgent, which appeals in terms of the subjects I’ve been painting.
4 Technically speaking how do you go about constructing your work, that is the image or object itself? What devices do you employ?
I build the paintings through a mixture of chance and control. I like them to slip between being a sloppy mess and a finished recognizable whole. I use thin glazes, layer after layer, trying to retain the original under painting. I like to show that the painting has come from nowhere. It makes the subjects of the portraits seem ephemeral in their existence. I like that.
5 Which period(s)/artists/specific works of art are you influenced by and how directly? How does this manifest in your work?
I like to take something from everything. I find really awful art very interesting. I also like all the big guns, Leonardo for serene beauty, Titian for violent beauty, Carravagio for deviant beauty, and so on through a long list of artists that everyone else loves too! All the big names with fat Phaidon books written about them are generally excellent.
6 What stimulates/informs your work from the world around you?
Other people. People I love and hate. The evolution of the species through abstract terms we’ve applied to the success or failure of our species. Fashion, money, celebrity, power, religion and beauty.
7 What stimulates/informs your work from your own personal experience?
Late nights taking drugs in unfamiliar surroundings with despicable people who seem to be surviving on purely reflex defence systems, like wounded animals.
8 From where do you derive your other visual source material (i.e. non art historical) and how do you implement this material within your work?
Photographs mainly. Heat magazine. Vice magazine. Photographs of bands I love. Icons. Rasputin. Bowie. Prince album covers. Images of people who seem to have displayed some sort of charisma, despot or not. Photos of make up from women’s glossies, excellent for high gloss faux brush marks. Images of injuries, mutations and deformities.
9 What are the main problems that you face in making your work?
Over and under polishing. Copying myself. Total embarrassment.
10 Where do you intend to take your work from here?
I’d rather not go into it.