Why do you make Art?
I make Art today because the practise has become integrated into my sense of self and the expectations I have created. Making Art becomes the way I relate to the rest of the world.
Who do you make it for?
It’s a combination of factors, myself in that you get a trajectory that you want to follow, the momentum pulls you along, so it’s a personal desire in that sense, and you want to make a worthwhile contribution, to be taken seriously, so you need others.
Do you have heroes?
Not big on heroes. Artistically, I just admire anyone who I think produces interesting work and does their best to live the kind of life that they feel they are meant to.
Do you plan out a piece or do you wing it?
Both. I always have a plan on what I want to do, I can’t start without one, but then the work almost always changes and develops in the making. That process is the most satisfying to me.
How do you know when you are finished?
I’m not sure I always do. I suppose the work gets the right look you are after in terms of the mood and then you decide if it feels that any more would be superfluous. Compositional and tonal aspects need looking at as well.
What was the first exhibition/artwork you saw that blew your mind?
If I think about the primary images that affected me from the earliest age, say 4 or 5, they weren’t “Art” images as such but stuff from the popular culture that made an impression that I still carry to this day and influences the Art I make and respond most strongly to. Generally strange, transformational imagery like a Marvel comic cover in a newsagency showing the character The Sandman in a process of disintegration/ transmutation, or the weird early Gumby television series that I could not quite get a grip on with the plasticene characters merging into and through solid objects and abrupt changes of location. So I suppose my mind got blown early and I always respond best to whatever can do it again with a sense of directedness, not just arbitrary imagery.
Name a recent exhibition that impressed you.
Although not as recent as some other shows that I have liked, in terms of the scope and consistency of quality I would nominate the Louise Hearman survey at the City of Glen Eira Gallery in 2008. The means fused well with the imagery to produce a distinct sensibility that transports the known somewhere else.
If you could have any artwork in the world what would it be?
I couldn’t answer that question in absolute terms, because it might be a different answer next month, but right this minute I’m enjoying looking at the work of the painter Lari Pittman, I saw an exhibition of his in Berlin, and admire the formal complexity, technique, social commentary and delirious sense of desire. I’d find room for one of his works.
