Latest Work
Moon cycle, period, full moon. This week, I have simultaneously experienced intense pleasure and excruciating pain28th July 2022 - 7:14 pmPainting 2021 Pigment and spray paint on wooden board 121 x 192 cm
It’s 3am and one of the most intense, spiritual, divinely feminine, creative, sexual experiences just happened in my brain while I slept off the pain (Part 1)28th July 2022 - 6:24 pmPainting 2021 Pigment on canvas 153 x 102 cm
The pain took me to another place with the pleasure and it was a magical beautiful creative womb space28th July 2022 - 6:24 pmPainting 2021 Pigment on canvas 120 x 183 cm
Where my whole body came more alive than it ever has been but only in my mind28th July 2022 - 6:23 pmPainting 2021 Pigment and spray paint on canvas 76 x 76 cm
There is a kind of violence in my desire for you28th July 2022 - 6:23 pmPainting 2021 Pigment and ink on hand-made khadi paper 111 x 162 cm
Softly, gently, slowly28th July 2022 - 6:23 pmPainting 2021 Pigment and ink on hand-made khadi paper 83 x 198 cm
Latest News
Arachne II (enyɔ): Healing Dislocated Cultures. Gallery 1957, London. 30 May 202410th June 2024 - 4:40 pm
Art Money29th April 2024 - 1:01 pm
Adelaide DamoahContemporary And… Constellations – Part 1: Figures on Earth & Beyond – Group Show13th March 2024 - 12:00 am
Adelaide Damoah 202360th Venice Biennale. ‘In Praise of Black Errantry’. Unit Gallery x Courtauld Institute5th March 2024 - 9:48 am
AKADi Magazine: Gallery 1957 to mark 8th anniversary with two-city multimedia art exhibition5th February 2024 - 12:00 am
Art News Africa: Gallery 1957 Presents Constellations – Part 1: Figures On Earth & Beyond1st February 2024 - 12:11 am
Limited Edition Fine Art Prints
In the run up to the launch of my first book about my work, I have released a select few pieces of work as limited edition prints via the Saatchi Online print on demand service.
Art Success. Adelaide Damoah in Conversation with Gerard Quenum
Born in Porto Novo, Benin in 1971, Gerard Quenum is a unique sculptural artist who creates his hauntingly beautiful pieces using recycled, found objects. His work grabs and holds the attention and it is as thought provoking as it is beautiful and mysterious. The objects he creates serve as portraits of people and things he observes in his surroundings. Each comes with its own embedded history and serve as a “lens through which we view Africa.” His latest works, to be exhibited at the October Gallery, London in September 2012 are entitled “Dolls never Die.” The works include various parts of dolls which have been recycled twice… As donated hand me downs from European children to African children and again to be used to play their unique part in the installations Quenum cleverly constructed. Quenum kindly took time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions via translator Gerard Houghton about art, success, life and dolls.
AD: Did you study fine art or sculpture to degree level?
GQ: No, not at all! In Benin where I was growing up there aren’t even schools, never mind such a thing as an ‘art college’ where you could study something like fine arts. There’s nothing at all like that. There aren’t any museums and very, very few places where you’d be able to exhibit what westerners call ‘art’ – let alone sell it to someone. The very concept doesn’t even begin to have much meaning.
AD: At what stage did you decide that you wanted to be an artist?
GQ: It’s not as though there was ever a particular time when I thought that I would become an ‘artist’. When I was younger I worked as an apprentice doing odd jobs, which also included working as a decorator, and you pick things up. How to design, how to draw particular shapes, a bit of calligraphy and so on, doing a wide range of different things in different media – drawing little sketches even portraits of people. There were a bunch of us young guys together and we would talk about what we were doing all the time, passing on little tips or suggesting other ways of creating a particular effect. People would ask us to do different things – special effects that they wanted, which would set us off in new directions. Sometimes it would require that we got together a small studio to work on a special project, people would come by – see what we were doing, like it and maybe a new job would develop out of that. It was all quite ad hoc, but it was a very valuable experience all round. You learned to use everything, wood, metal, paint, plaster, clay – if you like, all those disciplines that other people might go to art school to learn. We became our own artistic movement and taught ourselves; a group of friends who stimulated each other and pushed each other forward – and that’s something of incredible value because you know that it’s based on something you developed within yourself. Amongst this group I was able to maintain my own particular sensibility for material things – for objects – and that’s what I ended up working with the most – and the results you can see today.
AD: What inspired you to use dolls and other “urban detritus” in your work?
GQ: Well, in fact at the beginning I didn’t really use dolls at all – but I would work on old objects that I’d come across, bits of bone, old pieces of wood, things like that – whose shapes would often attract me. One day I came across an old doll’s head that had been thrown away. It was dripping wet, so to dry it out I attached it to a piece of wood with a big nail to stop it falling off. Almost everyone who visited me would comment upon it, and that alerted me to the various possibilities which I then started to explore – and to really cultivate the dolls as an avenue of expression. In fact, any doll I find still inspires me in exactly the same way today – when I see an old puppet or doll, that’s been played with for so long and suffered at the hands of so many others – it still stirs feelings of pity and compassion – and I have to rescue that doll and create for it a safe place from which to recount the stories of the many things it has experienced and seen.
AD: When I look at the work, I feel a mixture of emotions, but most of all, I see pain and a deep, mysterious history. Is there a particular message you are trying to convey in this series?
GQ: Those emotions do exist in my work, but there are also some very positive pieces, and some works are intended to be quite humorous also. Life may be difficult and hard, but it’s never just that alone, and there are moments of illumination that pierce the darkest gloom, and provide humans with the force to carry on regardless.
AD: Could you tell me about your artistic process?
GQ: I have always worked with found and recovered materials. The dolls I find are all old and much-used. They have already served several generations of children as hand-me-down playthings, and have been used to tell the imaginative stories of each child who’s owned them, and by extension of the families amongst which the dolls have found themselves. Little by little, they have been transformed by this process, perhaps by losing eyes or limbs, or by having their hair cut, or pulled out, etc. The wood which I use likewise contains its own ‘stories’ – actually the wood is literally impregnated with history; since all these woods have served – sometimes for many decades – as drums, or mortars to grind food, or as pilings that supported the houses of people living in the marshy regions around the lagoons close to Porto Novo. These woods, too, have been active witnesses to the lives of numerous generations of families. In essence, I juxtapose these two kinds of objects, each with their separate histories and use them to tell the tales of whatever the combination produces. The dolls seem to tell us about the world in which we live, today. They become the focal point for these outpourings of feeling, and I let them try to tell their own tales – tales they have already told me in private – to wider audiences and on a grander stage. Perhaps this mixing of these two contrasting streams is a means of putting together objects coming from uniquely African traditions with something that’s much more contemporary and of the present.
AD: When was your first solo exhibition?
GQ: In Cotonou, in Benin, in 1998. I’d been working with dolls for a while and was asked by a local restaurant in the main city of Cotonou – a place called Maquis Dunya – whether I wanted a space to hang some of my works – just to get them out of the atelier and let more people see them. Although it wasn’t a proper exhibition space and the lighting was not particularly great or anything, it seemed like a good idea and it was a start. I gave the overall title of Interior Voices (Voix Interieurs, 1998) to that first outing – and the clientele who would eat there became the first actual audience for my work. Over the course of a few weeks they were seen by many people, one of whom was André Jolly, the Director of the French Culturel Centre in Cotonou, and he liked them so much that we began to talk about an exhibition in a dedicated gallery space. The following year marks the date of my first real exhibition at the Centre Culturel Français in Cotonou, and from there it all begins, after Cotonou I had a couple of shows in Paris, then London, Brazil and so on.
AD: Did you sell any work?
GQ: I think people went to Maquis Dunya to have a bite to eat more than to appreciate art, so there wasn’t very much happening in that direction at first. But with the subsequent show at the Centre Culturel Français, there were indeed a few sales and after that I’d sell one here and another one there, from time to time. But, as you can see when you look at the work – it’s not necessarily the sort of work that everyone might want to have in their living-rooms! The works can be somewhat intense. You would need to have a particular reason… Maybe you are an Africanist or have spent time in Africa and understand African things, before you would want to provide a vantage point for some of these pieces in the home. This means that, apart from specialist collectors, it’s museums rather than individuals who most often collect my work, although there are some people who find them irresistible and have purchased several.
AD: What has been your biggest challenge to date as an artist?
GQ: That’s a bit of a difficult question to answer because in some sense, the artist is a person who is always encountering challenges of one sort or another. It goes with the territory. If anything, you’re always combating something, overcoming one challenge after another if you are on the right track with an idea. Sometimes it’s the tiny details that can be the hardest to resolve and for seemingly minor reasons, I might leave a work aside for a long time because I haven’t yet managed to solve some issue. Sometimes I can end up feeling dissatisfied with the whole piece and leaving it aside entirely.
AD: How do you overcome that?
GQ: Well, to continue with this last example, sometimes you solve a problem by leaving it alone and not thinking about it. Or again it might be something else that you are working on that gives you an idea. You might try to use another thing you have just solved in a different context and that unblocks the thought process allowing you to surmount the challenge in a different way to what you had imagined. Sometimes quite extraordinary things happen that you never could have predicted. For example, I had been working for about three months on a large piece – The Angel (L’Ange, 2008) – the head of a doll with empty eye-sockets affixed to a large wooden cylinder to which I had attached some ritual metal pieces that, in Benin, suggest the world of the sacred. Although nearly finished, the piece still lacked that vital spark, so somewhat dissatisfied I relegated it to the patio outside my studio. Weeks later, passing by the piece, I was astonished to see that the hitherto empty eye-sockets had been miraculously transformed with bright new eyes! As I examined the statue, I saw a wasp land lightly on the doll’s head and move around on the shining white surface of ‘the eyes.’ This gave me a clue as to what had happened. This wasp had built its nest within the doll’s hollow head, before sealing off the eye-socket access-points using a brilliant white kaolin clay that she could find all around the lagoon close to my studio. Without question the work was now complete. The wasp had deftly added the necessary finishing touches to something that I’d been struggling to achieve. Maybe it’s a collaborative work and the wasp should be credited as an artist too…
AD: What is your proudest achievement as an artist to date?
GQ: I’m not really somebody who is proud of myself or who likes to talk too much about what I’ve done. I’m quite a simple person, really. Perhaps, having one of my works permanently displayed in the British Museum’s African Galleries is something that gave me a real sense of achievement, because, even in Benin the BM is known to be one of the most important archival resources of cultural heritage. To have one of my contemporary works recognised in this way was, for me, a mark of real distinction.
AD: There is a perception that the public has of the “starving artist.” Has this ever been your experience? If so, how did you overcome it?
GQ: We do have lots of starving people – and that’s not something limited just to one particular class of people – and that reality is anything but romantic. My work is about the reality of what I see in the world around me, and encompasses the difficult sides of life as well, including poverty and starvation. Everybody has to work hard to avoid starving, using whatever skills, energies, creativity, chance or good fortune they can muster. In this respect artists are no different to others – we raise our families and feed our children using our wits to survive – just like everyone else does.
AD: There is an almost palpable shift in consciousness towards African art today. You along with artists like El Anatsui and Romuald Hazoumè seem to be leading. What effect do you think this shift will have on African artists going forward?
GQ: (Laughs) Well you’ve put me into a bracket with two major artists from Africa, and it’s a category to which I’m not sure I really belong, yet. I have been in shows together with El and Romuald, but maybe all that demonstrates is that we’ve all been represented by the October Gallery, which has always played a critical role in bringing contemporary African artists to the attention of international audiences.
I would say that El Anatsui has been most important in the sense that here was an artist from Africa who is a recognised master of contemporary art and he still lives and works from his home in Africa. Once the western art world awoke to this shift in consciousness, it was only a matter of time before they found other contemporary artists from Africa whose work displayed the same qualities. Qualities that have always been present in African art but which until very recently the west had been unable to see – or recognise. Everyone talks about Picasso and African masks, but no one mentions the unpaid debt that Picasso and western contemporary art owes to African art, as though it was all to do with his genius and there was no genius in what he found. So, the real answer might be that just because there’s been a palpable shift in consciousness towards African contemporary art, that might not necessarily mean all that much to African artists, who hopefully will continue working as they always have done, and perhaps again show the way forward to western artists as they’ve done in the past.
AD: How is this shift affecting your career?
GQ: Well, it gives me the opportunity to travel to many places and to observe more of the world. That’s all information that feeds into my work once I return to Benin. I learn that there’s poverty in Brazil and lots of crime in London. I realise that the problems my work depicts are to be encountered everywhere – that we share a single planet and we’re all in this together.
AD: What advice would you give to any young artists wishing to follow in your footsteps?
GQ: I only have my own experience that’s guided me to the present and it seems to have been such an individual series of things unfolding that I’m not sure that anything I have to say would be of much use to any other artist. We’re all quite different people, we’re all following something that’s very personal. But, I would say that you first have to believe in what you are doing and then trust yourself to be able to do it over and over again – and always be searching for ways to improve it.
AD: The October Gallery show is starting in September, do you have any other projects or shows coming up in the near future where people can see your work? This can be here or abroad.
GQ: Recently I’ve been preparing an exhibition in Paris for this coming September, and was up in Manchester, in July, for the opening of a new show at the National Museum of Football, Moving Into Space:Football and Art from West Africa. A major exhibition Dolls Never Die, at London’s October Gallery, begins September 19th, and I’ll also have a major piece on the theme of Aido-Ouedo – The Rainbow Serpent –showing at the Afro-Brazilian Museum in Sao Paolo this Autumn. I’ve got quite a lot going on in a few different places, which all keeps me focused and very busy!
AD: Where can people find your work online?
GQ: I have my own quite simple web-site which gives some idea of what I’ve done before and where and what I’m up to and my future plans, but it’s in French and that might put some English speaking people off. Have a look at the October Gallery web-site, where you can see a historical set of images of my sculptures going back over ten years or more. That’s the best place, they know my work well.
Translated with thanks by Gerard Houghton 2012 Director of Special Projects, October Gallery, was born in England. After graduating from Churchill College, Cambridge, he travelled extensively throughout West Africa working as an interpreter for a researcher into African History, before taking his linguistic skills to the Far East. He is currently a free-lance writer, translator with interests in a wide range of subjects both artistic and scientific.
Gerard Quenum Website (French): http://gerard.quenum.free.fr/
Gerard Quenum at the October Gallery,London: http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/exhibitions/2012que/index.shtml
Art Success. Adelaide Damoah in Conversation with Wiz Kudowor
Born in 1957 in Takoradi, Ghana, Wiz Kudowor is one of Ghana’s most respected visual artists. Kudowor’s career as a professional artist spans more than 30 years and he has exhibited in more than 50 group shows and 12 solo shows around the world. Kudowor’s unique works are held in public and private collections the world over. Public collections include Ghana’s National Museum, China’s Ministry of Culture, Japan’s Osaka Prefecture Collection, and a public mural at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park. Kudowor’s style is unique and instantly recognisable. His abstracted figures, faces scenes and shapes are created using a roller brush and pallet knife, creating bold paintings reminiscent of traditional Ghanaian themes while simultaneously referencing cubist and futurist styles. Kudowor kindly took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss his work and his thoughts on success in art with me.
Adelaide Damoah (AD) : I read that you studied art at the Kwame Nkrumah College of Science and Technology. When did you decide that art was in your future?
Wiz Kudowor (WK) :Yes I went to the College of Art of the then UST, Kumasi(now KNUST). I completed my studies in 1981 and specialized in Painting. Art has always been a part of my life. I am one of the few artists from Africa whose story is not based on the system of parents trying to dissuade them from pursuing art as a career. I had been drawing and painting since I was a child and was very much encouraged by my parents to express myself through art. By the end of Secondary School, I knew art was definitely in my stars.
AD: How did you develop your particular technique (roller and pallet knife)? Could you tell me about your process?
WK: At college, I was doing strictly representational work, mostly satisfying the requirements of academic work. The roots of my current technique were however developed after graduation. I was inspired by Sami Bentil’s technique of using dots to create images and actually indulged in it for a while and became well noted for it. Being a restless being and finding the dotting process laborious and a bit too monochromatic, I began to look for new challenges and new ways to do my work with a lot more speed and still achieve the same result. The multicoloured bead-works from East and South Africa began to court my attention. I started to research ways to create the same textures with any tool I could lay hands on. The aim was to achieve the same pointillist feel. In short , the roller brush which came with all sorts of textures became my favourite tool for laying colour areas and the painting knife helped with details and finishing.
AD: What inspires your subject matter?
WK: My subject matter remained quite representational for more than ten years after school. My ideas were sourced from my immediate physical environment. I still source from my immediate surroundings but deal more with the essence rather than the physical .My environment therefore serves as a database for my metaphysical explorations into existence or life. Subject matter is served by my subconscious and experiences. I express ideas derived from what I read, feel, touch and see all mixed up and manifested as art. I Regard myself as a vessel that captures images from the energy fields around me and make it manifest for people to see. I do not reject the promptings that come to me, nor try to understand or explain the results.
AD: African Encounters refers to you as a “transcultural visionary.” Why do you think that is?
WK: I don’t really know what “Transcultural visionary” means in relation to me. I may have to ask Ama De Graft Aikins who came up with that. However,I believe it is due to the fact that I translate, capture or source from any environment or experience I find myself in. I can’t really say!
AD: I read that you have been exhibiting for more than 30 years! Do you remember your very first solo exhibition?
WK: My first solo exhibition was in 1990 at the Centre for National Culture in Accra, nine years after I graduated from school. I was still very much into the “Dots Dynamics” as I called my style then. I had 36 paintings on display and the exhibition was only for three days which was all I could get from the Centre. I curated and financed every aspect myself and it was well worth it.
AD: Did you sell any work?
WK: I sold half of the work exhibited.
AD: What has been your biggest challenge to date as an artist? How did you overcome that?
WK: My biggest challenge artistically is that I am still trying to channel my energies along a defined path and be recognised for that. That is, being able to be selective with the ideas which come to mind to express. I am still stuck in there and enjoying the challenge because it allows me to explore my every whim.
AD: There is a perception that the public has about artists. That of the starving artist. Has this ever been your personal experience? If so, how did you overcome it?
WK: Most artists have had their starving moments especially here in this part of the world where there are limited or non existent resources for artists to access. I have faced moments of stark need , however, this has sometimes been out of choice, because I preferred spending my last resources on materials for work ignoring my own comfort. But, being a creative person, I have found ways of indulging in creative commercial art ventures.
AD: Could you tell me a bit more about these creative commercial art ventures, how they came into being and how they helped you to overcome the “starving artist” situation?
First of all Public perception of a starving artist has really never been directed towards me. People always saw me as doing well. I was the only one who knew what I was going through at all times. However, I did try to keep my head above water by identifying commercial ventures like translating some ideas I had at the time into post cards and general greeting cards… I designed textiles with screen prints for sale and also indulged in fashion. I started producing African print shirts and clotheslines for women.
AD: What has been your biggest achievement in your artistic career to date?
WK: My biggest achievement…. I wonder. I am still waiting for the “aha moment…” Seriously though, I think it will be that I have been able to stick with the art practice in this environment even in spite of all the obstacles. I have worked for 30 years as an artist and achieved some amount of recognition for it. That will be my achievement. I do have a few public commissions to my credit which I consider as a matter of course.
AD: I know one of those public commissions is the famous Relief Mural at the Kwame Nkrumah Museum in Accra, Ghana. What other public commissions have you had? How did you get commissioned to work on these public pieces of art?
WK: The Kwame Nkrumah memorial park relief mural was as a result of my first solo exhibition. The Chairman of the Commission of Culture then saw the exhibition and was so impressed that he pushed for this project which at the time was in the pipeline to be offered to me. Others were the Nestle new head office murals which was through a short-listed competition and the Volta hotel. The Akosombo commissions were just direct commissions.
AD: There is an almost palpable shift in the consciousness of the art world toward African art today with you and artists like the legendary El Anatsui, Romauld Hazoume and Brother Owusu Ankomah leading the pack. What effect do you think this shift will have on African artists going forward?
WK: I have always believed that Africa needs to put systems in place to appreciate value and accept our own art. The practice of waiting upon the Western Art Establishment to authenticate evaluate and validate our art in my opinion is outmoded. I sincerely believe I am one of those artists whose work is watched by the art establishment from the corners of the eye, like an accident waiting to happen. Not completely in the mainstream and not shut out as well. The new consciousness will open doors I believe for a lot of African Artists to grow yes, but how many will be able to sustain their craft when the tide changes(and it will change) is what I dread. The tendency is for a lot of African artist to crave acceptability in the West by indulging in activities or work that lacks character and identity. It is important for an artist to be himself and challenge his conscience every chance he gets. That is the essence and character of artistic practice.
AD: What effect has it had on your career?
WK: In terms of how this will affect me as an artist, I think I have already established myself as Wiz and just have to be accepted as is.
AD: Many artists of African descent are intimidated by the so called Western Art establishment, fearing that they would not accept them. As an internationally acclaimed artist, have you had any experiences that would substantiate that fear?
WK: The Western Art establishment have a right to stick with what they know and what they define as art. I do not see why artists should be intimidated by the spectre of Western rejection. African artists should also be able to define themselves and develop character and identity intimidating enough for the western establishment to desire like the legendary El Anatsui. Yes, I have offered my IP(INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY) on various platforms for appreciation and validation on a number of occasions. I did not get a definite response and therefore decided very early in my career to stick to what I know best, being WIZ. This is where I am.
AD: How would you define success in the art world?
WK: Success- I don’t know how that really relates. All I know is mine will be significantly different from another person’s success.
AD: Would you consider yourself a success?
WK: Having defined parameters for myself from the beginning in terms of being a professional in full time practice, I believe I have achieved some level of success. I will measure my success by how far I have come in terms of stick-ability, quality of work, general impact and level of recognition I have attained. I also affect the younger generation positively.
AD: What is the biggest and most ambitious dream you have for your work?
WK: My dream is to be able to affect the generality of the world more positively with my work and be the ultimate viable investment option for collectors worldwide in my lifetime. I am on track if you ask me.
AD: What advice would you give to young artists wishing to follow in your direction?
WK: For the younger Artists, there is no free lunch. When you want to impact the world,it is important to impact and impress yourself first, then the world will have no choice but to pay attention. Keep working and develop your intimidating character. Hard work,stick-ability and love of your own work. These carry you over any obstacle that will come your way.
AD: Do you have any new shows coming up in Ghana or abroad?
WK: 2012 is more or less a fallow year for me. I don’t have any shows scheduled. I am evaluating what I had at the end of 2011.I do have a few group shows to occupy me till the end of the year.
www.wizkudowor.com
Art Success: Adelaide Damoah in Conversation with Toby Mulligan
Born in 1969,Toby Mulligan is a a rising star on the British art scene. A self taught artist, Mulligan was a 2012 finalist for the BP Portrait award and subsequently had his work exhibited at the prestigious National Portrait Gallery in London. Mulligan is unusual in that he not only taught himself how to draw and paint with both hands simultaneously, he also taught himself how to build houses and landscape gardens, which he did on a professional basis for a number of years to supplement his practice and to look after his family. A full time artist now, Mulligans career has taken on a new direction following the recognition he received from earning a place as a BP Portrait award finalist. He took time out of his busy schedule to discuss his views on success, life and art.
AD: How are you? You sound like you have a cold!
Toby Mulligan (TB): No, it is my voice. When I had my third child, I was so overwhelmed with the whole experience that I lost my voice completely. The doctors said that I have a nerve which stops functioning and then one vocal cord starts moving. It is paralysed and they have never been able to find out why. I have spoken to lots of different people and tried lots of different things, but it is a psychological thing. I don’t know where this condition comes from, but for me, it seems to be due to being overwhelmed by needs and demands that are not mine. I am very sensitive and if you are that way inclined, you tend to take on a lot of what is going on all around you and it is a constant dilemma. I remember not being listened to and being told that I would never make money from painting. I had my first commissions when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. So I was actually making money from painting from a fairly young age. It carried on when I moved to France to be with the mother of one of my children. I taught myself to build houses and built my own, as well as building houses for other people. I devoted myself completely to that. I really enjoyed it. But this thing really affects me. There have been so many opportunities I have had to pass up because of it. I wanted to teach, but when it came down to it, my voice would just go by the middle of the day.
AD: What you were saying about being told that you were never going to make money or be successful…. Those things can become so deeply embedded in your unconscious mind that your conscious mind may be saying one thing, but your unconscious mind, being in the drivers seat, is forcing you to do the opposite.
TB: Yes, that is very interesting. I don’t know about you but I absorb things… I also have a desire to please and I carry other peoples expectations with me. I allow people to have their expectations and I know that I may let them down. Then I spend lots of time working, because their expectations are too high…
AD:You said you were selling paintings from the age of thirteen or fourteen…
TB: I was not brought up in an artistic family. My dad was a farmer and a businessman. He used to travel a lot and work in different countries, so he was not around that much. We lived on a farm in the country. I was on my own a lot. I have got a sister who is a few years older and we did not see each other that much. Most of the time, I was on my own. I did not go to school at all until I was seven. In some ways, I was kind of fully developed creatively, or imaginatively, by the time I was seven. I knew who I was and what I wanted to do. I used to carve and make things. I used to draw all the time and make up stories. I then went to a public school which was very regimented. It was all boys and completely mad! The school was very big on discipline. At that point, I really got split. I did not know what to think because I believed that I was very sure of myself and of what I wanted to do. I was completely confused by this world that I was in. It was full of mad people who made you do things that made no sense! There was no art at all in my family. There was no painting, we did not listen to music.. I am very connected to nature. You could say my confusion came from there. Because all that I was and all that I deemed to be important, had no significance in this world that I had to be in. I just wanted it to finish! When I was 15 or 16, I got thrown out of school. Not because I was bad, but because I just was not doing anything. I literally stopped responding to orders. The trouble was that I was also still trying to please my parents. I still felt as if it was my fault and that I was not functioning. So I tried. I was very good in sport and that got me through for a while. But after some time, I just could not cope with it any more. I did do A levels because they really wanted me to. I studied in my own time. I also started doing gardening jobs. I did get one A level, but I kind of failed them completely. In any case, I was self taught.
AD: There were no paintings around you. People were not listening to music and you attended this regimented school with no art. How on Earth did you teach yourself to paint?
TM: I am very lucky in that I am very instinctive. I remember seeing an article on painting and thinking that it was amazing. My parents are open minded and they were good parents. They got me some paints and I copied this painting without knowing anything at all about it. They got me a book on how to paint and I read it. When I focus on something, when I decide I want to do something, I do it. So when I decided I wanted to build a house, I had no training, there was no one to teach me, but I got a book and I looked around me and I just learned how to do it.
AD: Wow! You learned how to build houses from a book?
TB: Yes!
AD: That is amazing!
TB: I am very practical. When I need to make a window, I work out how to do it and I just do it. But at the same time, I am very easily distracted and usually confused! It is like when I wanted to learn how to draw. I remember when I was 15, I wanted to carve a human figure. I saw this photo of a ballet dancer in a newspaper, I got a book on wooden carvings and I just started carving it. It took me months and months to do it. The leg even broke off because I did not know anything about wood and how to treat it. Despite that, it was good actually! It wasn’t bad at all. I really believe that when it comes to teaching yourself, if you are listening and you are alive to what is going on, you can learn anything, very quickly. This is why I feel very strongly about school. I am very anti school as it stands because I believe that whatever you do, the things that you learn, they have to matter. If you want to cook, it is because you want to eat, because you want to enjoy food. You don’t learn to cook because it is the thing to do. You do things because they matter, because you need to. If you need to paint, then you are going to paint. Not just to pass the time.
AD: I agree with you about teaching yourself stuff. I am the same way. At school and university, there were plenty of times when I did not go to lectures and I had to teach myself so that I would pass the exams. I learned better when I taught myself. I knew that I absolutely had to because otherwise I would be in big trouble!
TB: Yes! I think urgency is the best teacher. We are alive, but we often don’t really feel we are alive until we might die. That is very dramatic, but in a way, that is how it is. If you feel like, “shit, this is it, this may be your last moment,” that is when you go for it. When I did the painting that is in the National Portrait Gallery now, it was a competition. You get a year to get your work ready for this competition. But I couldn’t work out what to do. On the morning that I was meant to hand it in, I did a painting of my daughter in two hours and that is the one that was accepted.
AD: That is impressive!
TM: Yes. It is a competition called the BP Portrait award. My painting was never going to win because it is not photographic. The winner is always photographic. I knew that, but I also knew that I had to make a painting, so that is what I did.
AD: Congratulations on being short listed.
TM: I was surprised, but in a way, I think that if I had worked on it longer, I would have ruined it.
AD: Yes. I have seen the painting, it is beautiful.
TM: Oh, thank you! I work at it. Every day, when I draw, I do 50 drawings in one hour. I work with both hands. I paint with both hands at the same time. I do 50 in one hour, or maybe 30 in 40 minutes. I have learned to work very fast and I believe that less is more. Even when you are doing difficult stuff, less is more. You just need to get really clear, know what you are going to do and do it. I spend more time thinking about it, dreaming about the work and less time doing.
AD: You are some sort of prodigy.
TM: I don’t think so! My belief is that every one can do that. The question is, do you have the motivation or the desire or the energy?
AD: That is true. I don’t think I have the energy to learn to draw with both hands though!
TM: I teach people to do that. I used to teach people in France to do that and they always protest, saying that they can’t do it! I always tell them, well you are not going to die if you give it a go! I draw with my feet… You see, it is all about seeing. Because, when you put the emphasis on seeing and responding, it is not about what your hand can do, but what your mind can perceive. I believe in pushing yourself beyond the limit so you can’t control the result. So many of the best things happen when you are not aware of them happening. They are beyond your control. We are very scared to be beyond our control obviously, but there are ways of equipping yourself with skills that allow you to respond quickly when you need to.
AD: I would assume that you are full time?
TM: Yes, I am full time now. I was doing landscape gardening and building work, but I am not doing that any more.
AD: How long have you been full time?
TM: Not very long actually. About six months. I came to London about a year ago. I was still doing building and gardening. It is only about six months ago that I decided to just do this full time. It was a big risk because I have four kids and I am trying to provide for them. It is not easy.
AD: Did you make the decision to go full time or were you approached by a gallery?
TM: It was a decision. It has to come from you.
AD: Have you had any solo shows?
TM: I have had a few recently and the last one was… This seems a bit ridiculous, but I know that this is how people work… I had one a few months ago in London and I only sold one painting. Luckily, I didn’t pay for the exhibition, so it was not a complete disaster. Then I got accepted for the NPG and the last exhibition I did was a sell out. People think, “Oh he is in the BP award, so he must be good!” I find it funny because I have been painting for years like this! I can do this. But people need to see recognition. It is something that they understand. I have not been to art college. I have not got any letters after my name. No one knows about me, so the only way is to get recognised by a big institution and obviously, it doesn’t get much bigger than the BP Portrait award. I sold 21 paintings and got eight portrait commissions. The problem is that they are all kids! It is getting to the point where I am getting tired of painting kids! I need to paint older people! But anyway, it is work.
AD: What would you say is your definition of success in the art world?
TM: For me personally, my definition has always been to be completely free. Freely expressing what I really want to do and just free flowing. Without worrying or being in a position where I feel constricted or not able to do what I want to do. That is why I want the proper recognition and I want the money. I find that I am currently held back because of other considerations. I am earning money but there is all the paper work, the emails… All this stuff to do, which I am very bad at doing, but which I do. It takes up so much time and I forget things and I loose commissions and forget phone numbers! I am useless! I want to be in a position where I have got somebody who can run that for me. I have got a woman who is sponsoring me and helping me to get stuff done thankfully… Anyway, ideally, I need somebody that I can pay to be a PA. My definition of success in that sense would be, to have a proper studio somewhere, to not be worried about money or thinking about it and to just be working flat out all the time because that is what I love to do. I would like to give workshops and open studios every few weeks. I am somebody who very much wants to be involved. I like to be involved with people, sharing and inspiring… But I don’t want to be organising it and to feel like I have got commitments that I can not keep up with. I just want to be doing the work really.
AD: By your personal definition of success, are you there yet?
TM: No I am definitely not there yet. If my voice was clear, I would be there now in myself. If I had a PA and a studio space that was big enough to work in… I am renting a studio space now, but it is quite small. I want to do sculpture. That is where I am really at. I want to do sculpture, film, animation… All sorts of stuff so I need a space that is bigger. I am a long way from success now.
AD: But you will get there!
TM: I will get there yes! My main goals at this time… One is to be released and to not be worried about what people think and to be able to speak freely throughout the day, which I can not do now…
AD: What would you say is your biggest achievement to date?
TM: As a man for me it is having kids and building a house. Not just having kids, but also raising kids. I really love my kids. My eldest is nearly 20 and he speaks several languages. He is his own person. He has travelled all over the world. He is very free… We get on really well and we really love each other. I am very proud of all of my kids. Having and raising kids has taught me that there are no limitations and it has taught me about trust.
AD: What would you say is your ultimate dream for your work?
TM: I want to have somewhere I can work. A big space to be working in multi media, so sculpture film… Collaborating with film makers and making music. I am really into music too. I want to be involved in everything. I want to be continually and freely creating and thinking. I also love writing. I want to find a fusion of film and writing. I want a place that is designed by me from the building itself to landscaping the garden. I want it to be a studio/workshop/gallery where people can come and participate in films being made, workshops… A centre. That is what I want. That is my dream. I have built houses by myself. I built a football pitch for the kids. It got to a point where I realised that without money and other people, I could not do it. I now realise that there is no reason to do it alone. There is no point. I don’t want to do it on my own anyway. I therefore need to get recognition, get the money flowing… I don’t want the money for myself. I want it so that I can do this and get it working for people. I want it so that I can be generous… It could be anywhere, in the city or in the countryside somewhere. As long as enough people know about it and there is a momentum going, then people will come to it. That is my dream.
AD: What advice would you give to anyone who wanted to follow in your footsteps?
TM: Trust in the really simple values of working. First of all having a spark or a dream… Something that really moves you. That is the gift. The gift is to be moved. The gift is not to be good at something, that is what you work at. Be moved. Have something that matters to you. Either that comes to you, or you have to open yourself up to it. But be moved by something, then simply just do it and go on doing it without worrying about what will happen. Do it with trust that if you do it, then it will happen. Every long journey starts with one step. You just do it. It is not complicated. The difficult bit is not being diverted by other people or other stuff going on. This is part of the reason why I want to do the workshops. I want to show people that it is not difficult. Even drawing with two hands is very difficult in a sense, but everyone can do it, given the structure and given the energy of somebody motivating them, you can do it and it is amazing what you can achieve. It is really amazing and so is the release you feel when you are not in control…
AD: I am really intrigued by this… When you are drawing with both hands, I would assume that you are working on one picture?
TM: Yes, one picture. There are a number of reasons why I do that and it is to do with the left and the right hand sides of the brain. It is to do with combining the rational and the creative sides of the brain, the rational and the intuitive. There is a science behind it. The main thing for me is that when you are doing something sort of impossible, which requires you to focus in different directions at once, which in a way, kind of explodes your brain and breaks up the synapses, it is really difficult to do. But at the same time, it releases you. You can’t control it, therefore you do something that you wouldn’t plan to do. Then the other part of your brain can utilise it and go with it. Life is duality. You have chaos and order. We are all trying to make sense of what we perceive to be a chaotic world, a chaotic universe. Very often, we are terrified of this. We are terrified of anything we can not control, death, ageing, disaster… All for good reason. The trouble is that it is there. Our fear is not going to stop it from happening. It is not an answer to be fearful and it is not an answer to control because you can’t control. Therefore, in my mind, the only thing you can do is to go into it. To dive into it and be a part of that process. To give yourself to it, but to give yourself to it with tools.
AD: When did you start doing that?
TM: Years ago. I have done lots of things where I have no idea why I started doing them. The thing that got me into drawing with my other hand was a book called Drawing on the Right Hand Side of the Brain. The book advises drawing with the left hand. Drawing with both hands is just me. I just decided that it worked for me. My whole life I have had this desire to not be in conflict, but to be free. I feel that for some reason, we accept disease- the opposite of ease. We accept things that shouldn’t be acceptable. We assume for some reason that life is difficult and that life is dull. I have so little patience for that. I think that it is because you make it that way and that is because you accept things that are unacceptable. But it doesn’t have to be, it shouldn’t be. The best things happen when you fall in love with somebody… Or when you love something. It is not an effort. You have got to make an effort then to go on loving somebody. But that is different to this notion of boredom and this notion of dragging yourself through things. I don’t believe in dragging yourself through something. If you are going to build a house you just do it. When I was building my house, it was incredibly difficult. I was working sometimes in -17 degrees! I did it. I was not dragging myself through it. When you want to do something, you can climb a mountain, you can sail around the world. You can do amazing things! It is not difficult. It is difficult in the sense that your body may be very tired and you may have to really push yourself. But you still do it. You are struggling, but actually, within yourself, you are at peace. It is amazing what you can achieve when you are in that space, when you are living your purpose.
AD: I love your bio! It says a lot without saying very much about you. It says that you were inspired when you were a kid by the Roald Dahl story about Henry Sugar. Do you think that that has shaped your views on success?
TM: Yes. Very much so. I love Roald Dahl. I think a lot of the time, I have got confused because I really believe in where you are in yourself. It has taken me a while to get to the point where I have had to accept that I need worldly recognition. I have kids and I have to look after them. That is why I built a house, but at the same time, I was not wanting to accept money and the fact that I had to make it. This meant that life has been a real struggle for me because I would always be doing jobs that I didn’t want to do. I think that story affected me in such a way that I believed that with the power of your mind, you could achieve anything. That is true, but of course, there is a day to day thing… You combine that with a day to day thing, so you have got to carry that power or motivation into simple tasks that you do day by day. I think that is where I fell down before. I did that, but I did not translate my passion into what I was doing day by day. But now I am doing that. Before I was passionate and working very hard, but the two were not working together. The key is carrying that passion into the simple things that you do every day and to keep on doing it, even when it doesn’t seem to be producing results, keep on going.
http://www.tobymulligan.com/
Review: My Life in a Spin. A conversation between Frank Dunphy and Tim Marlow
This is a DVD of Tim Marlow, Director of Exhibitions at The White Cube Gallery, London, in conversation with Frank Dunphy, who managed and helped Damien Hirst become the world’s most successful living artist of all time. Below is a snippet:
The DVD was put together by artist Neil Lawson-Baker who is chairman of the Chichester Arts Trust and has been running the The National Open Art Competition here in the UK for the past 15 years. It is the third in a series of lectures entitled the “Chichester Art Lectures” and the lecture itself took place in 2011.
The Early Days
The film is an interesting and rather heart warming look at Dunphy and his endearing relationship with Hirst. As his début lecture so to speak, Dunphy comes across almost like a proud father who cares deeply about his son, while simultaneously obviously being a very shrewd and intelligent businessman. Starting with the interesting story of how he came to work with Hirst through Hirsts mother, he talks knowledgeably and almost nonchalantly, about the business of art and the huge sums of money that have been involved in some of the famous transactions that have taken place over the course of Hirsts career. Dunphy briefly and empathetically touches on Hirsts rock and roll years from 1995 till 2002 and deftly goes on to discussing his own history- a rather colourful one involving accountancy, clowns, dwarfs and an interesting sounding peep show nude artist by the name of Peaches Page. Dunphys descriptions and stories of how he and Hirst first started working together to develop his business and ultimately, his brand are simultaneously funny and informative if you are a Hirst junkie like me.
Beautiful Inside My Head Forever Auctions and Pharmacies
Anyone who knows Hirsts name will be aware of that now infamous Sotheby’s auction which took place on the same day that the Lehman Brothers fell in 2008. When I heard the news of the amount of money that was made, I found it ironic. I remember being wildly impressed. Dunphy describes his and Hirsts emotions and they are not what I thought they would be. His description is strangely emotional and inspirational while being informative and interesting. He sets the whole buying back stock rumour to rest in this section. Something I for one really wanted to know.
Remember the Pharmacy restaurant incident? Dunphy explains the whole thing in some detail. A very enlightening section of the DVD and it is not what the press would have you believe.
Galleries
Most artists and aspiring artists have an interest in the relationships between galleries, collectors and artists. Dunphy goes into percentages and touches on how he managed the relationship between some of the big galleries that Hirst was working with, delving into the potential to negotiate fairer deals with galleries. Obviously, Hirst is and was in a unique position in that he could afford to do so, but Dunphy and Marlow discuss the gallery relationship and whether or not some artists would be able to get away with what Hirst famously did.
For the Love of God
If you ever wanted the low down on how the famous diamond skull with a market value of £50million came into being, Dunphy gives it to you here.
Verdict
As you probably guessed, I enjoyed this DVD. I have always had an interest in Hirst and I have been curious about his manager for some time now. The DVD answered most of my questions… I wouldn’t mind delving further myself…
The film reaffirmed my original suspicion and one of the opening lines that Marlowe says at the start of the DVD,
“All artists need a Frank Dunphy.”
Anyone got his number?
Links
Purchase the DVD here: http://www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com/podcasts.php
If you are an artist interested in the National Open Art Competition, well it’s a bit late now as it is closed for this year, but you can always enter next year here:
The National Open Art Competition
Neil Lawson-Baker art
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