The Artist Magazine

Where do the images come from?

MASTERCLASS

The question I am asked most about my paintings is about where the images come from. It’s a big question. In fact, it’s the question that I asked in my PhD. ‘Do you use models, or photographs? I expect photographs; it would be hard to get a model to do that.’ That’s the usual response to my paintings when people are thinking about how I make them. My answer is that I make them up, and the next question I can see, passing across the face of the puzzled enquirer, is: ‘why?’.

That’s the hard question. It’s a bit like the way people look at song writing. I once spent a very boring hour listening to a chap who, on discovering that I liked Bob Dylan, insisted on telling me exactly what the songs meant. He cited biographical details and everything. It was very dull, and I haven’t wanted to listen to Dylan for a while since then. People seem to think that every song is written about actual incidents or occurrences in the singer’s life; sometimes this idea leaks over into the singer’s consciousness, with tragic consequences. You don’t have to live the life you sing about.

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