How do you describe your own art practice?
Well, I do graphic design, of sorts – I trained as a magazine art director, and everything I do is really based on that, but when it is purely my own work, I also do the writing, the images … the whole thing. So it’s really all the result of the frustration I felt as an art director, I think.
What was your first experience with art?
The very first thing I remember, from when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, are some paintings done by Chimpanzees; these were in an enyclopedia that my mum had bought. They were very beautiful – abstract, obviously – red, blue and yellow daubs. After that it would have been record sleeves, I think. I used to design my own record sleeves in pencil crayon.
What is your greatest source of inspiration?
The grey area – or rater the nuclear neon pink area – between ‘high art’ and pop music.
What do you need in order to create your work?
A deadline or some kind of external fear.
What are you working on at the moment?
The show I did at Studio Voltaire, ‘Welcome to Saxnot’ is going to Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin soon, as part of their Wassermusik event, and their’s a version of this show going to Firstsite in Colchester in June … so I’m doing that. I’m also doing a record sleeve for the new album by John Grant … which is looking great so far… and I’ve just designed the facade for a building in London, something I’ve never done or expected to do, before.
What work or artist has most recently surprised you?
The best thing I’ve seen recently – though the work is far from recent – was the Robert Filliou show at Peter Freeman Inc.
