Slovenian art student Andreja Repnik brings a unique vision to the figure.
Seethingly torn and ripped limbs are reconstructed with fibre, wood and what could be coral. Her drawings arrest your attention and make you question the mutilation. At only 24 it’s clear what a promising future Andreja has ahead of her. Read on and you’ll learn how coherently her work exerts the way she sees the world.
b-Loud!
b-uncut: What was your very first artwork? Women in luxurious clothes (marker on paper).
b-uncut: Describe the piece you love the most—why?
One element, female body embraced with wire, her back is so fragile and at the same time so strong, you can never know what she sees or what she thinks.
It represents me, my thinking about this world, life and how it is so empty some times and I also use themes of nature, wood, life. Elements which never die and have a thousand uniqe shadows. Nature is always telling us how to survive in the long term. It seems some people see and some don’t.
b-uncut: What are your methods? Your inspirations?
Just sit down and start… let’s go… I take what I have, shadows leads me at every step and the paper opens a new dimension. I have no fear, ther is just me, paper, ‘tool’ and shadows. I am inspired by nature, people, tone, smell, taste and sight.
b-uncut: What did it take to make it to where you are now?
Not much,… just life without compulsion … I started on canvas eight years ago and ended up drawing. So I seriously deal with drawing the last two years… in the other hand I draw from early age.
b-uncut: Do you make a living from your artwork?
No.
b-uncut: Who has helped you along the way?
Hm, very little help from others. The last three years has helped me find the art I want to express.
b-uncut: What 5 artists (dead or alive) would you invite for the ultimate dinner party?
Salvador Dali, Albrecht Dürer, Kazuhiko Nakamura, Jeff Bartels, Leonardo da Vinci.
b-Quick!
b-uncut: Qualities a man needs to seduce you?
Artist, a man with a special view on the world, academic, longterm creator, or just a stranger from the street or farmer.
b-uncut: Your parents advice you should have followed, but didn’t?
‘I told you what to do.’
b-uncut: The power you wish you had?
Freedom… is that a power?
b-uncut: Who would you chose to rule the world?
You, me, my mother, father, brother, sister,…
b-uncut: Favourite ice-cream?
Hm, yogurt with cherry sauce.
.
b-Honest!
b-uncut: Where do you see yourself in…..
One month?
studying.
One year?
studying.
One decade?
uh…. in rural France. Small rural house, canvas, oil, paper, pencil, …and a lot of colors.
Sammy Forway, 34 years old, started Underdog Art Company as an online gallery in early 2007 and opened the Underdog art gallery in London SE1 in mid 2008. Sammy discusses his gallery life, art he loves and the exhibitions held at this multi-media gallery on the Old Kent Road.
Why did you want to open a gallery? I have always been interested in art since I was a small kid I always made art paintings drawings and was generally creative when I got older I realised I wanted to start my own business but didn’t know what yet, I only realised what it was when I started to see how difficult it was for new artists to get work seen and promoted and came up with the idea of the online gallery, since then its just progressed. We now have regular exhibitions and live events here at Underdog.
How would you describe the art and artists you represent?The type of art and artists we represent are very diverse but I do tend to go for art that is quite edgy and urban also counter culture style work, I love graphic poster art and we have recently had an exhibition with LSD blotter art. We basically filled the whole gallery with sheets of Acid.What kind of work do you love?See the above, graphic art I have always had a soft spot for but I love any art work that has genuinely something to say. Can’t stand pretentiousness in anything.Do you think there is anything missing from the art scene at the moment?I do think that art and artists are not doing enough to open people’s eyes to the corrupt bullshit. War and terror that is being waged over the world and not always by the “Terrorists” as we know them. It seems like we are all too smug to stand up and rock the boat. I hope this is changing though.How do you source your artists?I just look around find work I like and try to persuade the artist that they’d love to work with me.What are you currently exhibiting?My Current show is called Rock around the Crockery! It’s a show of graphic art screen prints, stencil and digital work, oh and not to forget the Graffed up defaced and debouched Crockery! Tea sets, trays, coffee pots etc. Art should be fun too eh. How do you vary your exhibitions?Ha ha erm sometimes get pissed and come up with silly concepts like the Crockery show, but mostly just finding a good mix of artists. I could put on a show every month in the same genre of art but as long as you have original artists it’ll never get boring.What do you do to promote a show and do you do anything special for a preview?We always do something special for an opening of a show, we usually always have live bands playing and sometimes movies visuals etc down in the belly of the Underdog. We try to make an event as memorable as possible. As for promoting, the web is great but we still design cool posters and post all over London and I have found this very successful. If you have really nice designs that people want to nick and have on there wall chances are they’ll come check out the show/gallery.Have you found it successful to have live music when you launch a new exhibition?Very successful, I am a musician myself and know lots of bands so we have really good live music at our shows. What’s been your best and worst exhibition?One of the best is the show on now but the most successful was probably the gig poster show, Underdog Rock n Roll Poster Riot! Last May it was awesome. We had about 100 people turn up on the opening day from all over the UK and we sold a lot of work. We are doing a Poster Riot 2 this month on Saturday the 20th. It’ll be excellent again with top gig poster artists exhibiting limited edition screen printed posters, LSD Blotter Art and of course some excellent bands. It’s an all day event starting at 2pm. The worst was when I tried to do two openings in one week, terrible idea.
What’s the most expensive piece of work you’ve ever sold?The most expensive individual piece I have sold was £2500/£3000 we are more on the affordable art side here at Underdog so that would be our higher end work.
What’s the hardest part of your job?Selling work for 3 grand.
If you could represent any artist, who would they be and why?Raphael, he was the most productive of the old masters and he died at 37… Quids in! Only joking, I love Franz Ackermann’s work I would love to represent him. His work is very psychedelic, cerebral and visceral but still with something to say. I’d also like to have represented Von Dutch and Ed (Big Daddy) Roth. Because they were pioneers of graphic art and sure loved rock n roll. Have you got any exciting ideas for future exhibitions/events?Always have, just keep your eye on the Underdog.Are you an artist as well?Yes I suppose so, I do make stuff whether that makes me an artist is up to anyone else.Do you think it’s harder to be a gallery owner or artist?Its harder to be a gallery owner and an artist.How do you make sure you have enough money to pay the bills?Now that’s a good question, basically budget yourself. If you sell a big piece don’t go wild n think you can spend it. We also do fine art printing canvas etc at the gallery so that helps with bills. But no one said it was gonna be easy!
What advice would you offer to (a) an artist? Keep on doing what you love, but be realistic 90% of artists do not make a living from art. If you can get a job that is at least creative to help you live, pay bills eat etc that’s great. But keep on making art if you don’t believe in yourself no one else will.(b) someone who wants their own gallery? Go do it, but try not to borrow too much money, if any. and really think about all decisions before you jump in at the deep end. Find the best artists you possibly can as this is your gallery. Good luck!
Walk into Willy Wonka’s factory and tickle your desires with an edible paradise. Fruits and flowers conjure temptations. Your eyes boggle and glands salivate uncontrollably. But hang on…there’s a clear box imprisoning these delights!
Welcome to the work of Rebecca Stevenson. A sculptor oozing with talent. You would normally expect such excitable ectoplasm in the edible creations of Ferran Adrià. Well for more than ten years Stevenson has been creating some of the most vivacious sculptures on the market. Marveling at her forbidden fruit is just the beginning of the journey. If you can peel your lust from these glistening joys a deeper narrative unfolds.
The first work on display, Folie en hiver features a bust embracing a lambs head. Your eye initially sees the glossy candy separate to the classical form. The bust in fact vanishes among this wild vibrancy. Fooled by sweet shop trickery you are lured in close. Only then, slapped with some sickly contortion. Realising the confectionery is bleeding from this serene and quiet figure. Spewing like fungus on a dead tree and dangling like flayed skin. These teasers suddenly take on a darker side…
There’s one other piece exhibited thats lurks around the corner in the Nettie Horn gallery. No less delightful and gross, Luxe Vert harmonises supreme beauty with its supremely ugly flaws. This time the Disney disease has consumed the carcass of a swan. Sweet plums and raspberries have swept through its core like burrowing worms leaving a gaping shell. This beauty contest between classical and the craze has stunningly ravaged a new elegance. While the details of her feathers are in tact and her neck and head stands proud, a flourishing fantasy world has formed throughout the body.
In these sculptures, Stevenson let’s natural beauty and a magpie’s fetish have a fling. She achieves a wondrous balance between beauties and horrors. Her work leads me to think how our modern aesthetic is more a series of hybrids than a set of fixed traditional values. That these long established pillars of perfection have been released from their limitations. I urge you to make a trip to Vyner Street and experience this sticky situation for yourself.
Showing until 21st Feb at the Nettie Horn Gallery.
Have a look at her website for more fantastical examples.
The artist in the spotlight this week is Italian appropriation photographer Simone Boscolo. Boscolo lives and works out of Milan and creates work that is “research between memory and oblivion inspired by the history theories of Walter Benjamin and others.” His work is ephemeral and hauntingly familiar. Using images from the past the artist manipulates his medium, superimposing his own emotions, fears, and hopes on the photographs through his unique technique. b-uncut caught up with this talented illustrator turned artist for the scoop on his inspiration:
b-Loud!
b-uncut: What was your very first artwork?
SB: My first artwork was “Famiglia Deluca di Pozza di Fassa” (Deluca family from Pozza di Fassa), three years ago (2007).
b-uncut: Describe the one you love the most—why?
SB: My first, ‘cause in this work there are the aesthetic directions that I’ve tried to develop in all my works including my last work’s series. However it’s difficult for me to love my works after too much time. When I finish a work I feel that it’s not mine anymore and when I see what I have done I see all the things I could do to make it better…
b-uncut: What are your methods? Your inspirations?
SB: It’s hard to talk about your own work because the picture is always incomplete. First of all I have to find a narrative starting point, then equally important is the choice of the pictures on which I plan to work. I get inspiration from historical and social changes that took place during the 2oth century, and more specifically within the context of a 2oth century Italian–very complex, controversial, and with the point of view often being one of countrymen. I work on survivals, on unsolved tangles of a sort of “historic unconscious,” or resistance in loss and persistence in loss deriving from changes that began in the 19th century and accelerated during the 20th. This was the century that produced junk and dizzy dreams destined to fail.
I have found in Walter Benjamin’s “Angelus Novus” a good starting point to channel this research. All this trying to set aside unjustified nostalgia and regret. I think that from my pictures emerges a kind of obsession for death but I believe this belongs somehow to the dynamics or to the origin of the creative process. I also need a “soundtrack” when I’m working and it becomes part of the same creative process. Generally I work listening to Arvo Pärt, Fauré, Schubert, Einstuerzende Neubauten, Die Form or sacred music from 17th and 18th century. The soundtrack is vital for me.
b-uncut: What did it take to make it to where you are now?
SB: Some years working as an illustrator and three years as an artist. It’s a very short time and this has been a long way to walk.
b-uncut: Who has helped you along the way?
SB: The Art-Director of the gallery in which my works are in permanent exhibition (Galleria Zamenhof in Milan). Until three years ago I was an illustrator only. He suggested me to try to find an artistic way for my projects. And I have tried to do it. Also my family try to support me and, over all, my wife that believes in what I do. Sometimes more than I do.
b-uncut: Do you consider your personal and professional life one and the same? Does your art define you, or do you define your art?
SB: This is a complex question. I can answer that what I do in the way I do is what I love to do. It is a basic part of me. I must do it. But the artistic way is only a part of the symbolic representation codes through which I try to define the world and my role in it. I can affirm that in many ways my art can define myself, my perception of life, history, society, my personal fears and obsessions, my expectations, mistakes and illusions too. My “Weltanschauung” in other words. Perhaps art is the final product of every side of my life but I don’t live my life like an artwork.
b-uncut: If you were to design the ultimate dinner party, what 5 artists (dead or alive) would you include for stimulating conversation?
SB: Well, these fives could be it (not only painters or visual artists): Joel Peter Witkin, Peter Bruegel “the Elder”, Jorge Luis Borges, James Ensor and Werner Herzog or Pier Paolo Pasolini (not very fun party indeed! I think I will also include five porno-actresses…)
b-Quick!
b-uncut: Your favorite swear word?
SB: I have a latin motto: “Nomina sunt consequentia rerum.”
b-uncut: Most attractive/least attractive quality in a significant other?
SB: It’s not a quality (I think) but in others I’m attracted by their contradictions. And I love the ones who can take themselves and their life with a touch (or a lot) of irony. Too much seriousness is not for me. But normally I don’t ask too much of other people. They are not born to entertain me and I’m not born to entertain them.
b-uncut: Your biggest (albeit endearing) flaw?
SB: A lot on the same level: like a human being I’m irremediably unreliable, often lazy, with a tendency towards selfishness and reasonably vicious.
b-uncut: Your parents advice you should have followed, but didn’t?
SB: My mother desired for me safe employment like every good mom but…
b-uncut: The superhero power you wish you had?
SB: ESP powers…
b-uncut: The celebrity you’d like to meet?
SB: No one, it is a very dangerous thing.
b-uncut: Your least favorite interview question?
SB: All good questions, really.
b-Honest!
b-uncut: Where do you see yourself in…..
One month? In Milan to finish the second and the third part of my Emanuele Gudester’s series.
One year? In Milan with some good exhibition and some more money (I hope).
One decade? I hope to be alive…and if it will be I should like to live with my wife in a cottage on the Hebrides, in Scotland, and, honestly, with a solid artistic career (not only in Scotland, obviously).
16 year old Joanna “DROPDEAD” is an “artist, photographer, writer, singer, musician, mechanic and computer nerd” living and going to school in New York City. It was her passion for music (at the age of 6 she was in a band called ‘Hello Gorgeous’ that is currently still together) that led her to the visual arts, another outlet to bare her emotions. Joanna’s approach is straight and raw. Her work pulses with honesty and directness. No commercial concerns impinge on her message and b-uncut glimpses traces of a young Tracy Emin. “DROPDEAD” is an artist to watch…
b-uncut: What was your very first artwork?
JD: I believe I was around eight or nine years old and my art teacher decided to do “cave paintings” on dry wall from her re-done bathroom. I got so into the project and finished with my dry wall cave painting of a wolf on a mountain. This of course was probably not my first experience with art, but it was the first time I was truly proud of my work.
b-uncut: Describe the one you love the most—why?
JD:Unique, different, adventurous, creative, curious, accepting, intelligent, understanding, someone that I can rely on to always see right through me, that can view past the cover and flip through the pages. I think I’ve always wanted someone to see me for a unique person, for a personality unlike others out there. Most people see me as a “freak” a “weirdo” and instead of trying to discover who I am, they label me as what they want me to be.
b-uncut: What are your methods? Your inspirations?
JD: I’m not a method person. I’m not into rules and step-by-step operations. I’m a completely free thinker and my creativity blooms from that. Anything can give me inspiration. The world is such a beautiful place. There is music everywhere, in the air, the trees, in the city, in people; everywhere you go there is music, but only for those who choose to listen.
b-uncut: What did it take to make it to where you are now?
JD: Everything takes time, for me it has been my whole life. From the beginning of 2009 to the end I have been completely content with my life. I am passionate about my art, my relationship with others, my music, and my career. So it has taken me long, but the receiving product has been worth waiting for.
b-uncut: Who has helped you along the way?
JD: I have been in a whirlpool of different people in my life, and the people who have truly helped me the most have been the people I have recently met. There have been few in my life that I can count on and trust, so most of my help has been self-given, but those who have helped me will forever be my friends.
b-uncut: Your work acutely reflects the fears, anxieties and frustrations of teenage life. It is raw, fresh, and in a word—cool. As a young artist, how do you see your style progressing as your work matures?
JD: My Artwork has always been about getting the chaos or the insanity of what you are feeling and ripping it out to lay it upon the page. It’s my insanity, my chaos, my eccentric self, and I think the main thing about my art is to challenge people. I want to challenge people to see things through different eyes, to feel the pain or the happiness that someone else may feel. It also focuses much on being trapped in a place where you feel alone, like you are a flower in a field of buds. I want my artwork to grow, what artist doesn’t? But I would love to see it still challenge people, and hopefully inspire people.
b-uncut: If you were to design the ultimate dinner party, what 5 artists (dead or alive) would you include for stimulating conversation?
JD:Picasso is the ultimate, his work is inspiring in so many ways, he was unique and his blunt way of painting the truth was beautiful in a sense. Megan Cedro is one of my role models, she is an amazing artist and she is so young. Her talent amazes me and I would love to be like her when I grow older. Oscar Wilde, his art was more reflected in his words then in a canvas, but he is such an amazing person and I use him as a model for myself. He was unafraid of being himself and I greatly look upon that as an act of bravery. Mozart, because of his success and intelligence is such a grand accomplishment at such a young age he is truly an inspiration. Then finally, Beethoven, because he poured his soul and entirety into his work, his devotion was so grand that he went deaf.
b-Quick!
b-uncut: Your favorite swear word?
JD: I would have to say this is definitely F#!k, you can use it with anything and it’ll just make any insult more interesting.
b-uncut: Most attractive/least attractive quality in a significant other?
JD: I hate stupidity, so I find intelligence attractive.
b-uncut: Your biggest (albeit endearing) flaw?
JD: I would have to say this that I rush into things to quickly.
b-uncut: Your parents advice you should have followed, but didn’t?
JD: “Don’t run on the ice.” BAM I fell.
b-uncut: The superhero power you wish you had?
JD: I wish I could fly, that would be amazing.
b-uncut: The celebrity you’d like to meet?
JD: Everyone says that I resemble Demi Lovato in personality and in appearance and Iwould really like to meet her just to see if it’s true.
b-uncut: Your least favorite question to be asked in any interview?
JD: I’m a pretty open person, I don’t like when people try to get in depth into my life and things like that.
b-Honest!
b-uncut: Where do you see yourself in…
One month? Studio Art class building up on my portfolio.
One year? Taking a million new classes to improve on my portfolio.
One decade? In my first home in New York City, in a small but reasonably nice apartment, managing my own art gallery, still in an amazing relationship with my only love Connor, with two dachshunds one named Bruce and the other name is still pending.
Last month we set up a contest between all our artist members at b-uncut asking them to create a work of art inspired by their favorite street. The results are in! The winner is…..Raija Hellwig! This is her street in Örebro, Sweden–vi ska alla den vägen vandra. In Swedish, this means “We Are All Walking the Same Road.” A very fitting title indeed!
A big thank you to all those who submitted, it was very difficult to choose! Congratulations Raija!
With the definition of what is ‘art’ ever expanding, forums for creative expression are appearing everywhere, and most obviously in fashion. Fashion and art have always been linked but only recently (in the grand scheme) considered one and the same.
Our very own Robin Antar uses fashion as inspiration for her art. Antar describes her work as “the precise art of creating virtual records of contemporary culture — capturing common, everyday items in stone.” She explains her process, ” essentially, I replicate these items on a real life-scale, complete with meticulous detail. I achieve this absolute realism by incorporating parts of the actual object, as well as custom-made stains, paints, plastics and gold leaf. It’s more than art imitating life, it’s art mirroring life.”
Dutch designers Fioen van Balgooi and Berber Soepboer are producing eco-friendly clothing that is not only artistic, but versatile. Known as ‘fragmented’clothing, the threads resemble a piece from Legoland rather than actual clothing. The same garment can be worn in countless ways as its assembly is up to the wearer. Pieces are snapped together like Legos and altered on demand. Wearable art, with you as artist! The pieces require no sewing, can be washed separately, and replaced just as easily which reduces textile waste, making this fashion statement environmently sound, supposedly… That is if you can stand to wear this more than once a year. Fragmented Textiles was recently on display at Beyond Green, Good Design at the World Fashion Centre in Amsterdam.
So we’ve seen art imitating fashion, and fashion imitating art…and now art using fashion to make a political statement, ha! This spring, a crane rising five stories will drop more than 10 tons of used clothes into the cavernous drill hall of the Park Avenue Armory. Calling the spectacle ‘No Man’s Land’ (good pun eh?) the piles of clothing are expected to reach heights of 40 ft.
The show is the creation of French artist Christian Boltanski and will occupy the armory from May 12 through June 14. Tom Eccles, the armory’s consulting curator and executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture at Bard College says “it’s a piece with political resonance. The clothing represents humanity, while the crane, man’s capacity for inhumanity.”
All the pieces are being borrowed from local used-clothing distributors and will be returned once the projects have ended–so it is environmentally friendly. Win-win.
When I walk into the Wallace Collection (it is one of my favorite museums in London) a sense of calm passes over me, my pace slows, and I take a deep breath. It is one of the most tranquil experiences to walk around the creaky London townhouse, chock-a-block full of 18th and 19th century paintings, sculptures, clocks, furniture, tea sets, ornate mirrors, and every other decorative object imaginable. For any art history buff, it is an absolute treasure trove.
At the moment, in the newly refurbished West Galleries is a surprising exhibition called “No Love Lost” by British artist Damien Hirst. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past 15 years, Hirst is the hottest contemporary artist. His sales have made him the wealthiest living artist (rumoured), and controversial to boot–recall his sale of over 200 works at Sotheby’s in London last year (the very night Lehman Brothers collapsed), where he daringly surpassed his dealers and sold directly himself, raking in 95 million pounds. The artist also regularly invests in himself (shill bidding anyone?) and his most expensive work to date–the diamond encrusted skull “For the Love of God” at 50 million pounds was apparently purchased by an “investment group” that includes Hirst–he is so confident in his investment value that he is literally banking on himself.
The paintings which are on view at the Wallace Foundation include 25 new paintings by Hirst, known as the ‘Blue Paintings.’ They hang in stark contrast to the rest of the lavishly decorative collection, set against beautiful light blue silk wall paper. Hirst (generously) shelled out 250,000 pounds to refurbish the exhibition space. There is nothing else in the two rooms where the exhibition hangs, nothing to distract. All of the works incorporate a message of death and decay, and Hirst has used his trademark skull to remind us of our impending doom. What is unusual about these paintings, is that they were created by the hand of the artist, and NOT in his factory…oops I mean workshop. The artist chats with Tim Marlow, the director of exhibitions at White Cube about “No Love Lost”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHxAV1Nn9fY
I for one am thrilled to see Hirst at the easel–and thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit. In order to be considered a Modern Master, he needs to prove himself as more than just a brilliant self-promoter but as a talented working artist, and this exhibition is the first sign of acknowledgement that he is adamant about his standing as more then brilliant duper of fashion conscious investment bankers. However, as to whether Hirst is worthy of hanging in the company of Rembrandt, Titian, Hals, and Fragonard? The jury is still out…
The Internet has become a breeding ground for commercial promotion–it has revolutionized marketing schemes, and become downright annoying. No longer can you open up your browser and actually see the page you were trying to get to.
Instead you are bombarded with pop-up windows, flashing seizure-inducing images, and the worst–musical advertisements. Some are less annoying and invasive than others–like the announcements that appear in the margins of facebook or newspaper publications. But the hope is that these advertisements will seep into your subconcious and compel you to use so-and so’s product.
What if I told you there was a way to REPLACE these adverts with ART? That’s right–you can!
The wonderful people behind “Add Art” have made this possible–for free. It is a Firefox add on and will replace advertising on websites with curated art images, one artist per page. What a brilliant way to turn a pesky problem into something aesthetically pleasing. Add blockers have become popular in recent years, but this puts an interesting spin on the concept by turning your browser into an art gallery! Art lovers everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief.
This week b-uncut has caught up with Scottish artist Robert Anderson: painter, poet, and writer. A multi-talented artist, Anderson is probably best known for his illustration style art. A Carpenter by trade, he is now a full time mid-career artist and poet. In fact, he classifies himself as a “poet with artistic expression” as all of his artwork stems from a poem he has written–it is an extension to his spoken word. His quick wit and quirky sense of humor are sure signs of his creative genius!
The b-you interview:
b-uncut: What was your first artwork?
RA: My first artwork was probably me if I am to go with a story my mum told me. She was having a piano delivered and placed me in my cot with my potty, so I did a number 2 in the potty then placed it over my head. When my mum noticed me, she said, “you really are a work of art Bobby?”
Bob Marley
Cheeseheart
The Holocaust
b-uncut: Describe the one you like the most-why?
RA: Probably, “Spills From The Hour Glass” It just depicts for me this apocalyptic course we as man kind are heading into. The turmoil created to an infestation through greed and survival of the fittest. I am disgusted by the mind of human kind.
b-uncut: Describe the one you hate the most-why?
RA: I don’t hate, I don’t know how to hate. I made an Easter, “boiled egg” for my daughters school competition using wires and bolts so it looked like one of the little, “Cadbury’s instant potato mash” aliens from the advert. She left it in her room and it fell over and smashed, and all these maggots spilled out. Well I must have jumped on every one of those little suckers…….eh? But I never hated them.
b-uncut: What did it take to make it to where you are now?
RA: Three eggs and a bag of flour, ha, ha! A lot of long hours and persistence, constantly believing in myself and keeping my work real. Whether this upset others or not. As long as I stayed true to myself and my art I knew I could do no wrong. I don’t work for commercial gain. For money I paint football stars and pets, GRRRR! This allows me to fund my realist art. The things I want to do. This art is my mind and sanity.
b-uncut: Who has helped you along the way?
RA: Nobody, I have and never will ask for help. Everything I do comes from what was installed from the womb. I live in my own little bubble. I have never had a lesson in my life. It just seems to have always been there waiting to come out. Now it just flows endlessly.
b-uncut: What are your methods? Your inspirations?
RA: The scope of my world I suppose. If I see something that hurts on T.V. Or hear of some injustice then I paint and write about it. As I said, I try to keep everything as real and as close to the bone as possible. I also do this with fun things. I am not all doom and gloom, rather to the contrary, I am a very happy go lucky person.
b-uncut: If I ask you to describe your art, would it be redundant to describe yourself?
RA: My art is me, my mind and pain, my laughter and love, my illness of thought
I constantly strive in endless hours to keep it that way.
The b-quick interview
b-uncut: The swear word you like the most?
RA: Politician
b-uncut: The flaws a man/woman should have to seduce you?
RA: I love a woman that can’t cook, or pretends she can’t so I can show off my culinary skills. ha, ha!
b-uncut: Your parents’ advice you shouldn’t have followed?
RA: Well my mum always said, “It is not the coughing your coughing, but the coffin your carried off in” So I started smoking. Another one was, “If you fall out that tree and break your legs, don’t come running to me?” Yip, that was my mum.
b-uncut: The talent you wouldn’t want to have?
RA: That’s a hard one? I suppose knitting, I hate that bloody endless clicking sound like a metronome on high speed.
b-uncut: The person you’d like to be hated by?
RA: Dr David Starkey, He wrote terrible things about Scotland. So I wrote a poem about him once and he hates me for it. I love him hating me, the little English four eyed, bum buffing wimp. But I don’t hate him, ha, ha! I am falling of my seat in laughter here.
b-uncut: The question I should never ask you?
RA: Will you do another interview? Ha, ha! “kidding”
When was the last time you changed your underwear? Because I wont tell you. I will tell you however that I am not hungry as I ate a plate of corn flakes three Wednesdays ago. Am I evading the question here?
The b-where interview
b-uncut: Where do you see yourself in…
5 seconds?
RA: Sitting here staring into empty matter
5 minutes?
RA: Making a coffee
5 days?
RA: Sitting here writing, or in my bubble painting.
5 months?
RA: Florida to see my girl
5 centuries?
RA: Sitting in heaven as a wise old man with my girl at my side,
looking at statues built in Dr David Starkey’s name, I can send some pigeons down.
The Should Would Could Interview:
b-uncut: Do we know you?
RA: You should , we had sex, was it that bad?
b-uncut: Should we know you?
RA: Not if your pregnant, ha, ha!
You should know me through the truth I try to write
b-uncut: Will we know you?
Yes as I am going nowhere. Watch this space?
Cheers from Scotland everyone xxxxxxxx Bobby
b-uncut: What was your very first artwork?
b-uncut: What did it take to make it to where you are now?
b-uncut: Qualities a man needs to seduce you?
