The next British Art Superstar? - upfront interview with Stuart Semple.

Telephone interview with the 23 year old British artist, he talks about British art, Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin and how he feels about his sudden fame.

(PRWEB) December 18, 2003

INTERVIEWER: Jennie Corogan

Stuart Semple telephone interview, London Dec 2003.

-There’s no doubt that you are now the most successful artist of your Generation, certainly within Europe, do you feel that gives you a huge responsibility, how do you deal with that?

I don’t know, I don’t really think about it in that way, I’m trying to make meaningful things and stay focused on being truthful in the work. I guess it depends what you class as success, if I made something great, something I was really proud of, you know like broke some ground with it or something, you know that’s success. I don’t think I’ll feel really successful for a long time; there really is a hell of a lot to do in the work yet. As for responsibility, I do feel that, but more just to make the best things I can.

-Ok, I got to ask you about Nancyboy and why you called yourself that, and what that really meant, there was a lot of talk at the time that it was a lot to do with your sexuality.

Well, Nancyboy meant a whole load of things and as it evolved it took on different meanings all the time, it was never fixed. At one end it was a brand, like something St. Lukes might create, it was a persona, it was a mask, and it was a Graff tag. It was never really one thing or another. It was never really very important to me.

-But you called yourself that?

Not exactly, I actually labelled the paintings that.

-I don’t understand why I can buy one of your drawings on eBay for £100. That doesn’t seem very credible to me.

How much are my big canvases?

-I don’t know.

Well most people can’t afford them, but I don’t see why people shouldn’t be able to buy one of my drawings if they want. EBay’s not a bad thing. It’s like the biggest global shop in the world, that’s the way it’s going. People sell everything on eBay

-You’re obviously a very accomplished painter and I think that makes you very different from more recent conceptual artists.

Are you looking for me to comment on the ‘YBA’s’ or something?

-Yes, I suppose so, you’re British and they must have had an impact on you.

Alright, when I was seventeen my college bussed us in to see Sensation, I stared Damien Hirst’s shark in the face and thought it was pretty good. The media around them was really exciting, but I always liked Chris Ofili best.

-But your work is painting isn’t it?

Well, you know I think a lot of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin’s work is painting, Tracey’s tent is like one big 3D fabric painting or something, and you know, before it became wrapping paper I think Damien’s spot paintings were really great abstract paintings. I’ve never been any good at 3D anyway.

-So you’re not reacting against that era at all?

I’m not rebelling against that, I’m just picking up the painting thing; I think it got left after Warhol, after Basquiat, to some extent, I come from there. I do think that a lot of that work was pretty shocking but that’s not a bad thing. The YBA’s are over, the Saatchi gallery is the proof. Damien knows that but lets face it there’s nowhere in art he can expand to now. He’ll do something else amazing.

-So you’re saying that it’s all over? Do you think you’re next?

Ummm, it’s obviously over, I don’t think anyone is denying that. Only in the way that it becomes classic though, it’s not like their markets are going to evaporate, they just sit in a different category, they become living history or something, maybe like Warhol, Johns, Rauschenberg. I don’t know. As for me being next, that implies a queue or something. It’s as if you’re saying there can’t be both. It’s wider than that.

-Well in terms of whom the focus is on?

I never asked to be the focus of anything; don’t you want to ask me about my work?

-Alright, where do your paintings come from?

I want to kind of take it to the extreme and I don’t want to hold back, like I want to walk out to the very edge and say, oh my god, you won’t believe it. At the same time I want to find those extremes in quieter places. I want to find these places inside society, inside the way it is and I want to show people the gaps in that, like the huge cracks they are. Nothing is as firm as they make out is it? You know, we have a choice…

-How do you feel about being grouped with artists like Banksy, Kaws, Futura, Barry Mcgee etc…?

I’m nothing to do with that. I don’t really have time for it, it’s not the direction I’m looking in, and I’m closer to Sigmar Polke than Kaws. I don’t think their work’s bad, it just looks like they’re making logos most of the time, and there’s a place for that, but that’s not me. I’m just trying to say it how I find it.

-Are you just saying that because at the moment their work is very fashionable?

I don’t think their work is that fashionable, I think it’s just because they’re good at marketing, the general public know about them. I’m not saying I’m nothing to do with them because they’re known in those circles. If you ask someone if they’ve heard of Banksy they might say yes, or “didn’t he do the Blur cover” or something. If you ask them to describe a Rauschenberg, then they don’t have a clue. I’d rather be a Rauschenberg.

-Yes, but you can’t deny that you are very good at marketing yourself? Someone told me that your work is in more than 3000 homes in the UK alone.

Well I don’t deny that I know about marketing, these are the times we live in; I see that as an art. I’m not that cynical about it. Why’s marketing thought of as a bad thing?

-Most people think Marketing is manipulative?

Most people think that artists die starving and think ‘modern art’ is a pile of bricks still.

Most people would never get to hear about anything if it weren’t due to marketing. Some people could see this interview as marketing. I think marketing can be artistic, engaging and a good thing. I’m selling art, not something bad.

-For instance, your series of advertisements in Modern Painters, where you took out full page ads for yourself. It could look purely like an attempt to make money.

If I can do it why not, it’s all art, even in an ad. I thought they were pretty good ads and I enjoyed making them. People of copied those ads since so they must of hit a nerve somewhere. It wasn’t a marketing thing; it was more to do with the idea that I did it because I could.

And as for making money, if I make something good that someone wants I should be paid for it. Crikey, a plumber on Christmas Eve is £80 for half an hour. Come on…

-How does that tie in with your ethos then?

You know, a lot of people don’t see things the way I see them, there’s all this stuff going on under their noses, and unless I blow it up, they just walk past and not even care. It’s just getting the word out. Art can still do that, it’s one of the only places left where someone can have a stab at presenting some kind of viewpoint, or idea of what the truth may be.

-Why should you feel that you have the privilege then, why is your truth the right one?

I’m not saying that, if someone wants to listen to what I’m saying that’s up to them. If they’ve got a problem with it, why don’t they paint something that says the opposite and throw it up there.

-You are probably one of the youngest artists ever to have achieved this level of success and a lot of people are waiting to see what happens to you, how do you feel about those that say, you can’t possibly have anything valid to say as you’re inexperienced or that you’ll be a lot better in the future.

Are you saying that?

-I might be?

Well in that case I don’t have to talk to you; I don’t have to do this.

-Well? What do you feel about that?

I think Tutankhamen died at 18 after ruling the whole of Egypt and Michael Jackson did Thriller at a similar age to me.

-So you rate yourself alongside kings and Michael Jackson?

I didn’t say that. I just said it can happen at any age.

-I was looking at some of your work, from a recent show and I saw a boy with a big brace on his face, is that you?

No that’s Gerald.

-Who’s Gerald and what does he signify?

I made him up, and he’s not very happy. But I’ve made lots of things, why are you asking me about that?

-I just thought that maybe he meant something?

He means a lot but you need to take the time to understand what he means, you need to look, you need to let go. It’s all there but there’s not time to go into the significance of Gerald now.

-Is it ‘all there’ though, or is it just a stream of random images that really make little sense? Couldn’t you be creating the idea that it’s significant by using the old ‘find your own meaning’ argument?

You know what, I have a video tape of an early 80s interview with Basquiat, and this is sounding more and more like a parody of that.

-Oh right, I’ve not seen that.

Maybe you should.

-Ok.

Well I got to go now anyway.

-Ok, maybe we’ll talk again sometime.

You never know.

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