I was wondering how old you were when you decided to start practising 'art'!

It took me a long time to decide that I was an artist. I always thought 'artist' was a judgement other people could make about one, and generally only seriously a long time after the artist's death (ie after the work was completed).

However, there did come a point where I knew I was an artist. It's a different way of thinking about things. It happened to me when I was about 30. I'd just made four paintings which were the most abstract things I'd done. They were pretty bad but they were so very different from all the lettering-based work I'd done before. I'd understood something in a way I couldn't explain. The only explanation I had were these very paintings.

How long have you been a practising artist?

I've been exhibiting since 1999 so I guess I've been a professional artist for only six years. However, there was a twenty year lead up to that point during which I learnt all the techniques I'm now using.

Where did you study?

I'm completely self-taught. I was always interested in signwriting, lettering, typography and that kind of thing. Something about being obsessive and getting the tiny details just right. I learned formal writing from books (eg 'Writing & Illuminating & Lettering' and 'Formal Penmanship' by Edward Johnston (same guy who designed the London Underground typeface)).

Who were your tutors? Who were your important artists/influences at that time?

I knew virtually nothing about art. I was influenced by Japanese and Chinese calligraphers and western type designers. All I could concentrate on was making perfect letters and thinking harder and harder about what space is. Eventually I came across the work of a Chicago signwriter, Edward Catich, who made an amazing discovery about the origins of our Roman letterforms which he wrote up in a book calledThe Origin of the Serif.

How has your work evolved? As your work has evolved has there been any significant changes of direction in relation to the formal aspect/ content of your work now?

I got to a point when all the years of studying and practising seemed absolutely pointless. Lettering seemed such an arrogant and parasitical occupation: on the one hand you're taking some, often great, work of literary art and trying to redesign it as though something important might be added by the mere fact of a different graphical design; on the other hand, the design is only possible by using someone else's work. Very disappointing.

Before throwing it all in I decided to ask myself what really made all this study so important to me. What got me up in the morning. If I was honest, it was the sheer, seductive feeling of dragging a writing tool filled with wet, black ink over a clean sheet of white paper with absolute physical control. Spending all those years rigorously training my muscles and nerves to behave in a certain way meant I had some kind of physical skill not available to most other people. The letter and words just melted away when I realised I could just make marks and be happy.

I spent several years learning this new form of abstraction but recently I've decided I have to go back to my beginnings. Now that I finally know what I'm doing all this for.

I really can familarize with your process of work and in particular also find that I too can be happy just making marks. I love to see the ink of paint etc. flow from the tip of a brush or pen and no matter how many times I repeat the same stroke it is always slightly if not totally different. I can also be satisfied if it is not even me making the mark but I can watch it happen. I have set up devices that allow door movement for example to make marks and in essence I am recording the intuitive everyday movements that go unnoticed. (Chance also plays a part in these paintings being made which is another idea I am playing around with.) I would love for my marks to become as intuitive as that in away because sometime I find I over-think my work.

Anyway more to the point I was leading up to. How does your particle painter and the work you do with scanners relate to your passion of just making marks and being happy. You talk of the seduction of dragging a pen across a paper but do you not find by using digital means that you are some how distancing yourself from your process. Does it still satisfy you in the same way? How do they relate or not relate? Does it matter?

Good question. I have been puzzling over this myself for a while. Work with scanners is still a physical process. It involves a lot of body control there is just zero friction between the writing tool and the writing surface (because there is no contact). The problem with the scanner work is the lack of feedback. When drawing a mark, normally there is instant feedback about where the tool is and what it's doing which feeds into the next millisecond's work etc. With the scanner, one has to wait for up to 30 seconds for the image to appear. It's like painting blindfolded (which is a very interesting exercise you should try) but I still get the same buzz out of making my body create the marks in a fast but controlled way.

Software development is a completely different idea. I certainly enjoy the obsessive correctness of computer programs but this is nothing like the joy I get out of real painting. I originally made the particle works to get other people to try something vaguely similar to what I was doing with paint (but without having to practise for 20 years first!). However, they are also mesmeric to create; like watching anyone making something well. It's been exciting waiting for 12 hours while a high-resolution painting gets made behind my back using rules I've created. The ultimate use of the particle painter for me personally will be as a way of generating dynamic typefaces for screen (coming back to my original interest in lettering) but that's another story.

What are your main sources of inspiration?

I have no idea. After this much time being completely involved with my own self and its capabilities (very unhealthy and not recommended), I just think of things which need to be made.

How do you know they need to be made? Are you talking about the fact they need to be made in relation to the art world and what you think needs to be seen? Or are you talking completely self indulgently they need to be made for yourself in order to progress?

This is all self-indulgent to me. All I know is I become very miserable if I don't get to the studio for a while to make paintings. It's a pain. It really screws up my life which would be so much easier if I didn't have to do this stuff. However, I also become miserable if the work I make is substandard and not the right thing to be doing. I know the pieces have to be made when they first pop into my head. In a way it's hardly worth going to the trouble of then physically making them, except for the fact that most of their essence is due to the very process used to make them.

How do you feel your work relates to the art scene of today? Do you think your work reflects contemporary issues/trends or reacts against it or is indifferent to it?

Any scene contains very little of the subject it purports to show. Look out of a window: there's an outside scene. It doesn't show you much of the cosmos or the other side of the world or even who's standing behind you. What I'm doing may or may not relate to the art scene of today. I have no way to know and wouldn't be surprised either way.

How can you say you have no way of knowing if you exhibit to an audience? Do you not find that you receive some sort of reaction or response to your work? Why do you make art if you feel you do not relate to the art scene today. If you do not relate/respond to issues within art what do you see the point of your art being? Why do you bother to continue? Do you think it matter that you do not respond any contemporary issues today?

Interesting. The 'issues' raised by the art scene (by which I understand a particular network of artists - gallery owners - critics - journals) are not very interesting to me. Maybe my small brain can't keep up with the coolness of it all. I have a very simple question to ask which demands a fiendishly subtle and sophisticated answer: what is art? I think I'm on to something and, like a fox hound who prefers the smell of daisies, I've taken an unpredicted path and hardly hear the sound of the rest of the pack as I hunt what's really important to me.

I don't know if art ever reflects anything. All co-existing objects bounce off each other (a kind of reflection) which makes the world a very exciting and uncomputable place. There are certainly fashions, like anything, in art. These always seem to start with someone having a good, unfashionable idea and then many, many other people deciding it's important enough to feed off for a while. One fashion is the concept of art doing something, like reflecting, arguing, reacting against. This fashion started with critics (those uninvited guests at our party) and has been taken up by almost everyone willing to string two words together about art (including, amazingly, artists). I strongly react against this fashion but my art does nothing of the kind. It's not even capable of indifference.

What is it that you feed off? What do you consider important within your art work or otherwise? Why do you want to react against fashion?

My work now feeds off itself. It started out being heavily parasitical and I even realize now that I was unknowingly following well behind some important artists (Bryon Gysin, Jackson Pollock, Henri Michaux, Toko Shinoda, Yves Klein, Mark Tobey, Ed Ruscha ...).

I'm not reacting against fashion, just the fashion I described above (which may be all in my head). My point is I don't have the time to keep up with fashion so I just ignore it. There's real work to be done. What do I consider important? That's too difficult to answer in a short paragraph.

Do you think it is important for an artist to be able to explain their work to the public or critics? Is it important to you to explain your work personally?

Yes.

We do something very complex, very sophisticated and very, very difficult to understand. An analogy would be particle physicists. How many papers on quantum gravity would most of us be able to understand, let alone comment on and argue with the author about? And yet, we have no problem asking for explanations about what we feel might be a universally important activity. The quality of the response depends a good deal on the understanding the physicist has of his or her subject. Any decent artist should expect and actually want to educate those who think we might be doing something important; for example, every single person who ever knowingly walked into an art gallery.

Why should they want to educate the viewer? Some artists do not have a chance to fully explain the depth of their work. If your work was not explained what do you think the viewer would get from your work? How would it impact them? Is it important to you and for your work that the viewer understands the process of how your work was made?

All artists have the chance to 'explain' their work. By which I mean they have the chance to tell the audience (in a language which is not art) more about the work than the audience can physically sense. If they are being denied that opportunity by a gallery owner then either their 'explanations' are as impenetrable as their art or the gallery owner is being unfair (both to the artist and the audience).

If I don't talk (or write about) my work then viewers either get or don't get an immediate, visceral, understanding of the nature of the work (something about it's movement, its dynamism, its stark colour scheme, its physical making, the time it took to make etc.) This is fine by me. They are starting to touch on some of the universal principles in the work. Many people who buy a work say they never get bored with it. It seems to change all the time for them. It is important for me that people are able to learn more about what each work is, if they want to. You can't shove this stuff down unwilling throats; that does a disservice to the viewer but more importantly to the art.

What is your vision in reference to the role of artists in contemporary society?

I wouldn't expect society to embrace or deny us but I would expect it to let us get on with our mania, indulging our occasional crudeness.

What do you think is the main purpose and role of art today? And how do you think it differs from that of the past?

Art is inexplicable understanding.

I came up with this two-word definition a couple of years ago, only to find that the phrase was used in an essay from the fifties by Iris Murdoch. She was being sardonic, criticizing Kant's interpretation of art but she missed the point. Writing, words, explication take us only so far in understanding. After that comes art. It's possible to understand even writing itself through art (it's even possible to understand art itself but that's yet another story).

This definition seems to work for all time, all places, all people and all art.

Do you think it is possible to define quality‚ in art?

Yes.

The quality of art is a function not of its inexplicability but of the depth and breadth of its understanding.

What are the criteria? What makes a piece of work art‚ do you think? What makes it good‚ art or bad‚ art in your eyes?

The definition (in words, of course) tells us when something is art. Did you understand something by that work which you cannot say? If you did, that was a work of art.

Good art tends to focus on understanding; bad art tends to focus on inexplicability.

Can you broaden on this. What exactly do you mean by inexplicability. And why is this bad?

Sorry, I was mixing my definitions here. If art is inexplicable understanding then the inexplicability (something like not being able to be understood using didactic words) is the easy bit: it's easy to make something which is hard to explain. What's difficult and much more worth it is to make something which provides new understanding of something.

Do you think there is any avant-garde or counter-culture today? How will these concepts be defined today?

We worked out the counter culture thing a while ago. Relativism put paid to any serious idea that you can just be 'against' things, certainly in the self-satisfied, developed world.

There is always an avant-garde but it doesn't last for long any more. It also gets dangerously close to repeating older incarnations as time goes on.

What do you think about modernism‚ and post-modernism‚? How do you define these terms? Do you consider this relevant?

I don't need to define these terms as I'm not a sociologist or philosopher or critic. I don't need to analyze previous art in these terms because that wouldn't help me make new art.

You say that you do not have to define these terms because you are not a critic but earlier you said that artists become critics in a way? Why do you feel that you shouldn't? You also said that earlier also that 'all co-existing objects bounce of each other' so do you not find past art relevant and in some way influential even if it has allowed you to be inspired to do something that wouldn’t necessarily be done previously in the art world?

Did I say artists become critics? Hope not, poor things. I'm being very rude about critics (and those surrounding art in general). What I really mean is that whatever they do, it isn't art (which they would agree with) and it doesn't touch art (which they would disagree with).

I certainly find much art important whether it was made today or 10,000 years ago: it's all part of the reflective surface I was talking about.

However, the work of some postmodern philosophers has been influential on me. Derrida's works on writing, especially, are quite profound. (He had absolutely no idea about making things, though.)

How do you place your work with reference to these terms?

I don't need to so I don't. It's not the job of an artist to categorize.

What are your views on the future? - post post-modernism?

As long as artists have new tools to play with and a present which is different from the past, they have a future.

Sometime soon though, we'll have to get to grips with the elephant in the room: we paint while children die.

Can you broaden what you mean by this?

Ok. so painting (or whatever it is we do) has to be important enough that we don't get off our backsides to stop the thousand ways in which children currently die on our planet. Do we really claim that art outweighs this?

Can art make progress? How?

Yes.

The work of an artist is like a logical argument or proof. Each work is a step leading on from the previous argument and setting up the ground for the next step.

Or from one movement in art to another? Do you not think? If you do not necessarily find the past movements relevant how can you move on without it?

Sorry to have given you the impression that I don't rate art made previously. That small list of artists, above, should give you an idea of when I caught up with modern art. However, there are many examples of the work of scribes, going back to the invention of writing, whose work gives me a kick.

This notion of a logical proof would be a trite description except that from a set of axioms, there are a great many valid, logical conclusions. If the axioms are rich enough, some of the conclusions will be amazing. Therefore, the trick for any artist wanting to make progress is to consider very carefully the starting assumptions, prejudices, influences and guesses.

What would you define these assumptions, influences etc. as today?

That's a hard question. I guess there are art movements out there whose members share some of these things and there are individuals who don't realise they share many of these things with others. We certainly have the best start of any generation of artists (just by definition, so much art has already happened), unless you believe that art is slowly dying and that all the best ideas have been and gone (which I refute). Individuals have the responsibility for listing these items for themselves. It is a crucial exercise to force yourself to examine the roots of your art.

How significant and important is the work of today compared to the work of the movers and shakers of the past?

The answer to this is always the same: in two hundred years we'll know for sure.

Innovation - is it important?

It's the only way of creating new understanding so it's fundamental.

What in your opinion makes a work innovative? Is it the content, the formal aspects or the use of new technique/new technology?

It's the new understanding it gives us.

The computer is a great example of a new, unexplored artistic tool. We don't get those very often. The telephone wasn't too popular with us but the camera did rather well, I think. Someone who wasn't an artist made these things so we can't take any credit for the invention. However, our understanding of some of these previous tools is due to artistic work. The same will one day be true of the computer. And when we've stopped being so incredulous of the thing, we'll start to turn it on the world and ourselves to generate yet more understanding which we had no idea was possible before the tool was invented.

Are there any artists working today that you regard as innovative and why?

Sadly, can't think of any. Why is that? Just my ignorance..

Do you think today’s art is a form of entertainment or a means of propaganda? If so, is this new? How?

It's not entertainment. Or if it is, it's failing badly. Who consumes art? Almost no one. If it's propaganda, it's failing even worse. Who understands anything art is trying to tell them? Almost no one.

Can art make a difference‚? Do you think it can be a force that changes, a means of expression that communicates new and maybe radical ideas? What are/would be the cultural and social implications?

Yes. Art makes a big difference but only to artists. The cultural and social implications of this are subtle. Eventually, art gets out there. It gets under the social skin. It seems to take a long time for this to happen, though, by which time the artist has often moved on or died.

Why do you think this is? Why does it take so long? Why does the general public not respond as other people in the art world do? Do you think it is artists’ fault? Maybe we don't make our art accessible enough?

I suppose it comes back to the difficulty thing again. Most subjects take a long time to filter through. The set theory I learned at school, for example, took nearly a hundred years from the point of its invention to being taught in primary schools. We probably shouldn't worry about it. We probably can't do anything about it.

Were you prepared for the practical necessities of life after college as a practising artist?

Yes. I had a part-time job. I'd recommend this as the first thing to get if you are serious about being an artist. Get the best-paid job you can. Your art will suffer if you can't afford decent materials, travel, studio etc.

How did you go about finding a studio and how difficult was this?

I started in the storage room of a friend's office building. After a while the boxes of stuff overtook me and I found that the local council owns a building which it rented out to start-up companies at reduced rents. I hired one of those. I need a big space to make work so it's difficult.

As a practising artist how do you deal with financial obligations (e.g., costs of studios)? Is it difficult? Have the costs become greater since starting your career in art?

Costs are much greater. I still have a part-time job but I do sell quite a bit of work now so it all works out ok.

Have you found sponsorship for a project or mounting an exhibition in the past?

The Arts Council funded a large, outdoor project two years ago and a new gallery opened in Oxford recently which paid me to show my last exhibition.

Is finding sponsorship easy? What sorts of sponsorship channels are available?

I haven't tried very hard to find sponsorship money as my income isn't too bad. The Arts Council bid was exacting but worth it. My advice, as with everything, is to be professional. A professional is someone who just does the job whatever it takes. So do read and re-read the minutiae of contracts. Make sure the graphic design of your application is spot-on. Get someone to proofread your application. Always be on time for appointments etc. etc. Get all that junk out of the way and it gets a lot more difficult for people to find fault with you or your argument, therefore harder for them to refuse to give you the money.

Are you a self employed artist? If so do you have an accountant and how do you deal with tax and VAT?

I am a self-employed artist. I do my own accounts (saving about 200 pounds a year at least) and tax return. I'm not registered for VAT. I tried it for a while but it put up my prices to customers too much to make it worth it. If I was selling more to institutions, I would reconsider it.

Do you have a contract with a particular gallery? If so how did you go about finding this gallery? What percentage is a gallery likely to charge when works are sold?

I did have a contract with two London galleries. The first owes me money so that's not fun. The second went out of business. So luck's not on my side at the moment. Standard London commission is 50 percent. Careful, just add that up.

Here's the worst case: there's a painting hanging in a gallery for 100 pounds. The gallery takes this money and pays 17.5 percent to the government (17.50 pounds). The gallery then says to the artist "I've just sold your painting so I'll charge you the 50 percent commission we agreed." However, because the gallery owner has provided the artist with a service (selling the painting), he has to charge 17.5 percent VAT on top of his fee (the commission). So the gallery owner takes 41.25 pounds as a fee and then takes 17.5 percent of this (7.26) to give to the government. The artist therefore gets handed 100 - 17.5 - 41.25 - 7.26 = 33.99 pounds. If the artist isn't registered for VAT and the frame for the painting cost 30 pounds, say, then artist has made a profit of 3 pounds 99 pence on a painting which someone paid 100 pounds for.

Here's the best case: the gallery owner agrees to pay for half of the frame and then basically buys the painting from you at half the selling price (50 pounds) He then has to deal with VAT etc. He can always sell it back to you if it doesn't sell. but you get a profit of 35 pounds, not 3.99!

How do you go about pricing work? What criteria are used?

I have a feeling for how important the work is and use that. Sounds a bit pompous but some works are just worth more. You have to take size into account unfortunately. The following works well: make a set of works for a show some large, some medium sized, some small. Look at the smallest, least significant one and work out what is the minimum amount of money you need to receive to make it worth showing. Then look at the largest, most significant one and ask yourself what a rich version of you would be prepared to pay for it (a decent gallery owner will give you a good answer to this). Then price all the intermediate pieces between these two extremes. What happens is people see the large, impressive piece and gulp at the price but then they see the smaller ones and it makes sense to them why you've priced the big one at such a large amount. I've sold several big pieces when people after people have made this kind of comparison.

Would you say your work is bought as an investment?

No. My customers buy completely on gut reaction. Even all my fancy intellectual arguments mean nothing if they just don't like how a piece looks.

When you sell work to a client do you keep in touch with them?

Yes. Always. Keep their name, address and phone number in the list of people you notify about events or exhibitions. This is basic stuff but often not done diligently enough.

Would you recommend hiring a gallery?

No. Other artist's think you're desperate (you would be) and you have to sell so much more just to break even.

What is the point of exhibiting then if it is not cost effective? Do you think it is necessary to exhibit your work or important even if you don't sell anything? Do you consider yourself a commercial artist? An artist that may sacrifice some of their beliefs in order to make money? Does it matter to you if you sell your work? Would you consider comprising your work in this way? Your last exhibition you threw away your work at the end! Destroyed it! What was the idea behind this?

You should certainly exhibit as much as possible. I'm just saying that hiring a gallery can be a waste of money. It'svery important that I sell my work. I've got an expensive studio and a mortgage! I'm very suspicious of the argument against 'selling out' and creating commercially popular work. An artist makes the art which, for that artist, is necessary. Anything else should be used to support the artist in that primary activity. So if you have a skill which is used to make real art on the one hand, there is no reason not to employ that skill in deliberately making something just to sell on the other (except in the few very specific cases where the skill itself is the manifestation of the art).

I've had very few commissions to make commercial paintings, mostly people buy the stuff because they personally want it. But I've done a lot of graphic design and typographical work. I've picked up these skills along the way and put them to use when the money runs dry.

Much of the point of the last exhibition was that it did not and could not exist after the show. It's not an uncommon practice, of course. That idea just fitted well with the ephemerality of the writing I was putting on the walls. The destruction wasn't an allegory or a metaphor, it was a real destruction. It was necessary.

Would you recommend taking part in collective/group shows or just work towards one-person shows?

If you make one, gigantic, complex piece a year then work towards a solo show every year to show your latest extravaganza. Make it a regular thing that people begin to expect and look forward to. Otherwise, work towards every possible opportunity to show work.

At the beginning of your career you have no reputation and no knowledge of the horrifically vicious art world: you have nothing to lose. Learn how exhibitions work, how galleries work, how contracts work, how to hang a show, how to take down a show, how to publicize a show. You can only do all this if you take part in many different exhibitions.

Assuming you do good work, you need someone with influence to see your stuff. The chance of that happening increases dramatically the more shows you appear in. In solo shows, you'd better do something pretty amazing. In group shows, your one amazing piece should stand out from others', less important works.

So do you think it is important then for you or an artist to have an individual success in a group show. Do you not think the over all experience of a group show could be better for that of the viewer and that of the art world when trying to educate society. Rather than trying to outshine another artist, work together to educate. Or is more of a case of needing and wanting to be noticed in order for you yourself as an artist to progress?

Very rarely, a group gets together and acts as a group. There have been a few such artist groups but they are fleeting. In every show of a group of artists, the audience and the artists themselves treat the show as a set of (somehow related but definitely) separate works. Some artists will, indeed, treat the thing as a race and try to out do their comrades. It's the way humans work (certainly men). It's a power thing. It doesn't need to be so combative, however. What I mean is that you should really strive to do your best work for any exhibition. Because, like it or not, the best work will be noticed more than inferior work. Only in the case of a group making one or more pieces together can you get round the problem of competition and that's a completely different way of making art than most artists can tolerate.

How does one get articles about one’s work written in the press? How does one build contacts with art critics? Do they charge for writing in a catalogue or reviewing in newspapers/magazines?

It seems to be a matter of random chance. However, a lot of work in magazines etc. is submitted by writers trying to get their own name known. If you know someone who writes well and honestly then get that person to write an entertaining review of your exhibition and get them to send it to relevant art magazines, remember to send details of how they can get a great, high-resolution photo from you of the stunning central work (i.e., get good photos taken).

Invite all newspaper arts editors and deputies to your shows, as well as gallery curators. Send details of your shows to newspaper listings services. If someone's heard of you or met you, the chances of them writing about your work go up a lot. Get out there and mingle. Almost all of it comes to nothing but sometimes you find the right person to get your message across.

What has happened to your peers from art college? Are they still practising artists?

No art college, no peers.

I have noticed from the way you talk you do seem isolated from some of the art world. Is this by choice? Do you not know other practising artists? Do you not think it would be essential, if not only to help you personally to progress to be more involved within the art community?

I do know some other artists and I teach at art colleges every now and again. But, you're right, it's mostly by choice that I stay away from an art community. I'm not the most sociable person in the world and find it difficult to get to grips with more than about two people at once. I've learned how to do it but it doesn't come easily or naturally. I'm sure it would be very good for me to be plunged head first into the art world but I might also drown.