art of noise moments in love tip of my tongue

They were literally throwing themselves against the walls.

It was much more terrifying than it sounds: it was more aggressive, unreal and gladiatorial than I had anticipated. I worked with ukulele-playing skateboardersįor a recent piece at Eastside Projects in Birmingham. It’s true that for most artists I know, the studio is a space of production, but because I work with people I usually go to where those people are. There is this 19th-century idea of an artist in their studio that we’re unable to let go of. You could say I’m an artist with a suitcase. In those early works I was always the central figure and I was addressing the audience, so the performative element has always been there in my work. There was no rhyme or reason why I felt like this, but I just knew.

I remember distinctly that while I was making the pastel drawing, She ain’t holding them up, she’s holding on (Some English Rose) in 1986, I just knew it was the last of these kinds of works I was going to make. People are often melancholic about that, but I was only making them for about three years during the 1980s. I needed a letter to allow me into the class because the models were naked. Mrs Franklin wrote a letter to my mum asking if it would be possible for me to do life-drawing classes.

I grew up in a very working class community and had no idea about art school. My art teacher, Mrs Franklin, picked up on it and said: “You have to go to art school.” Art was a door that hadn’t been opened to me before. I always used to draw in the margins of books, on any surface I could find, on tables, walls, on everything. I started going to art school when I was 15.

Art of noise moments in love tip of my tongue