Interview conducted by HRL Contemporary – August 2010

How would you describe your development as a painter over the past three years?

I have left ‘traditional’ portrait or figurative painting behind. There must be something more than just a portrait or a representation of a body. I often refer back to the black and white photographs of family members who were killed at Auschwitz/Birkenau, Majdanek, Stutthof and Theresienstadt. No longer are these photographs just portraits; they become more, something overwhelmingly nauseating. I’d like to think that I could achieve a similar effect in my paintings but I do not know how.    The work, for the first time, is severely abstracted in places. It’s strange because I do not know if they have been taken too far or if they have not been fragmented enough. It’s even harder to tell if the images are successful or not. The flesh has now lost its subtleties, is rawer and even a little garish in places. I am question the work relentlessly and I can see an awkwardness or tension building up somewhere within it all. I do not feel overly comfortable or content with what I am producing and consistently find myself in a state of utter confusion. I wholeheartedly believe that, actually, I do not know what I am doing at all. I like to think that this could be a positive thing. I guess I have become more of an intuitive painter.

How do you choose your subjects?

There was a time when I solely painted people I knew and were close to me. I felt that the painting would be successful if I understood the person, was familiar with their features and recognised the way they move and hold themselves. Now I prefer to choose subjects I have never met before or have met only a handful of times. Being detached from the subject allows me to see the body objectively, as flesh, form and colour and to be able to negotiate it freely. I simply want to see the figure as an armature.  I have very recently used multiple subjects to create figures in a rather crass ‘cut and paste’ manner. I have taken body parts from photographs, sketches and the internet. Using images from the latter really helps me to distance myself from the subject in hand and, in a strange way, I can see the image more clearly and with a vital freshness. I do not want to convey how a subject ‘looks’ and have no desire to do the subject justice.

Considering that your subjects are almost exclusively male, what is it about painting the male figure that appeals to you?

I enjoy the severity of the male body. There is a certain inelegance or awkwardness about the male figure that appeals to me, and when painted with crude, suggestive marks, a malevolent tension develops physically on the canvas.   The penis is another important reason why my subjects are generally male. The recurrent use of the penis anchors the images. It is used as a vessel to pin the figure down and add an essential weight to some of my paintings. Even on the odd occasion when I do use a female figure, I have opted to substitute the vagina with a burdensome penis. This is purely for aesthetic reasons.
Do you see Study of a Body as a self-portrait? What made you want to address your own image for the first time?
No, it is definitely not a self-portrait. I was simply using my body as a framework upon which I could steal and then hang other people’s body parts. I could think of nothing more boring than to purposely produce a self-portrait: there is nothing intriguing about the way I look that would lead me to do so. I struggle to digest or process what I actually ‘look’ like and so I can only really see my own image objectively.   I merely used my own body in the first place because I had no other subjects and I was looking for a fast image, a ‘quick fix’ if you like.

How do you understand the relationship between figuration and abstraction in your paintings?

Vision is imperfect and irrational, so I want my figures to rupture and be irrational. Yes, my figures are heavily abstracted in places, but to me, they are closer to ‘reality’ or realism than a photorealist painting. I want my paintings to ‘feel’ real, not ‘look’ real. When I’m working on a figure I can’t seem to make any sense of it until it becomes abstracted; occasionally, only for a split second, the whole painting comes together and makes sense. This is sadly lost at a second glance.    I want the figures to be caught on the verge of movement, to be pinned down yet still flicker like something that catches your attention in the corner of your eye. I guess the use of abstraction in these paintings is a way to search for something that is more than just a representation of a body or a face. I must admit, however, that I do not know what this ‘something’ is yet. It’s possible that I’ll never know or find what I am looking for.

Given your inclusion in a number of high-profile portraiture exhibitions (the BP Portrait Award 2008 and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2010) do you regard yourself as a portraitist?

A few years ago, I would have called myself a portrait artist, especially before and during the BP Portrait Award. Now I regard myself as a figurative painter. I believe portraiture is a ‘closed’ form of art. Some of the artists I admire the most, however, were and are portrait artists, and its essential that I do not forget my early influences.  I felt restricted by just painting the face, and there was very little chance for something ‘interesting’ or ‘unseen’ to evolve through the paint. By painting the figure and the surrounding space, I felt that the image may be susceptible and open to other possibilities. I purposely neglected the head. I didn’t want to obsess over the tone of someone’s nostril or the shape of an eyebrow. It became incredibly monotonous and, at times, pointless.

What or who are your main influences?

The greatest paintings in the world are those that make you question how they were made and how the image came about. In this respect Velázquez, Goya, Giacometti, Auerbach, Kiefer and Bacon are huge influences. It can perhaps be argued that some of my work is a little too close to Bacon’s and I think it is obvious to see that Bacon has had a distinctive impact on my practice. Picasso is another major influence for me; he was one of the first to take figurative painting one step further and turn tradition on its head. Without Picasso’s reinvention of the human figure I think artists like me may not have had the courage to do something similarly unorthodox. The denigration of vision in twentieth century French thought has also played a substantial role in my approach to the work.   As I mentioned earlier, the Holocaust and those photographs of my family inevitably must have shaped me as a person and as an artist.

How do you address these influences in your work?

Nelson Diplexcito and Colin Smith, both of whom I admire, taught me that ‘approach is everything’. This rationale has undeniably played a significant role in both my thinking about painting and my understanding of the processes involved. This knowledge encouraged me to look at the techniques of both Bacon and Velázquez extensively, as well as those I learned at art school, and to try to put it into practice.     How do I address these in my work? It’s not easy. Great artists, theorists, playwrights, poets and composers have reinvented not only the way we see and think, but also the way we approach and make our own individual art form. These individuals have reinvented the figure and shown that, for figurative painting to move forwards, it must be relentlessly remodeled time and time again. I hope that my efforts within this ‘reinvention’ are evident in my practice.

Where do you see your practice going from here?

My practice is not based around a specific concept and so I cannot say what the next logical step will be. The act of making must come first, and then maybe something will arise from that. If I knew what was going to happen next then I would have no desire to keep painting.