How much impact does colour and light have on your work, and what would you describe your medium to be?
The question/answer is not about how colour and light impact on my work, but how they influence and directly impact on my life. I have always been attracted to light; my mental wellbeing is affected so much by the seasons of the year, the quality of light and the weather. Even when I was at art school playing with various media, the choice of light just seemed natural to me. Added to that, I grew up in Northern England where it always seemed industrial and grey; I would therefore take notice of any vivid colour around me as it stood out. Saturate colour would jump out at me, it might be a neon sign or very bright labels in the shops. I have always been attracted to the power of colour and wanted to use and investigate it within my art practice. My medium could be described as colour; light, space, reflectivity, or a mixture of many interlinked components.
When did you decide to become an artist and which artist or artworks have inspired you the most?
Growing up with both my parents working as artists (with two studios inside the family home), it was inevitable that I would end up being an artist myself. I was brought up with creativity all around me and shown what the life of a practicing artist looks like first hand, I was never daunted. Therefore it is extremely difficult to place an age on when I ‘decided’ to become an artist. Do you ever rationally or consciously decide to become an artist or does it just happen naturally? I loved my art education, art school was the obvious path for me. When I’m not making, I am not myself. I graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2007 and have been working full-time as an artist since 2010 (after an awful three year hiatus working several random jobs to try and support myself independently).
The work of artists who use the mediums of space, architecture, colour and light in combination have inspired me the most: Robert Irwin, Dan Flavin, James Turrell, Daniel Buren, Carlos Cruz-Diez, David Batchelor, Ann Veronica Janssens, Anthony McCall, and Olafur Eliasson. Works by these artists have had a direct effect on the scale, ambition, and form of my work. For me, J.M.W. Turner remains the father of light art.
Would you consider integrating digital technology with your artwork?
There are many different elements and mediums that I would like to work with and integrate into my work at some point in the future, including, but not limited to: digital technology, sound, movement and the natural elements i.e. water. The possibilities seem endless when working with colour and light as they are both diverse and sometimes ephemeral tools for making artwork. I think using digital technology would lend itself to my practice, but it’s finding the most suitable opportunity to test and utilise it.
What are you looking forward to next in your career and post pandemic?
Whenever I am able, I am really looking forward to showing all the new works that I have been developing and making for the past 2 years to the world post pandemic. It will be a great moment to be able to stand side by side with people at the openings and feel a sense of achievement again. I am really looking forward to unveiling my next large scale commission Hundreds and Thousands at London’s Greenwich Peninsula as soon as Lockdown is over as I hope it will bring joy and a much needed injection of colour into peoples lives.
Apart from colours, are there any other elements that have influenced your style of art?
I have already mentioned how light, space and architecture help influence my style and resulting works. However, these elements combined are wide in their outreach and ability to transform, perceive, deceive, illuminate, and optically challenge myself and my viewers. There are so many possibilities to create using colour as a medium. I never feel restricted, maybe because I don’t see myself as a ‘colour artist’. I see myself as a visual artist — a label which suggests a bigger toolbox and wider palette of materials.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
It is hard to pin point just one moment as the highlight of my career so far as there have been many enjoyable and memorable times. A few ‘pinch me’ moments include; self-initiating and making Your Colour Perception at Federation House in Manchester back in January 2015 and then seeing images of the work all over the internet and being appreciated by so many thousands of people; Being included in group exhibition Seurat to Riley: The Art of Perception at Compton Verney in 2017 alongside some of my greatest inspirations and artist hero’s; Also, being invited to make and exhibit my works in countries all over the world that I would never have dreamt of visiting.