This month's artist of the month is
Colin Smithson
"My paintings often recall small observed moments which invoke a sense of place...."
What is your studio like?
I work in a small room with views across flat fields towards the North Yorkshire Moors.
Do you work with music or silence?
My ‘Music While I Work’ includes 1930’s American folk music , radio 3, even Carlo Curley.
What are your top 5 desert island works of art?
Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel would keep me going until the boat arrived.
Do you know how a piece of work will turn out before you start?
I don’t think you can know how a piece of work will turn out. I like to use textures and allow accidents to occur so there is usually a lot of re-assessing and re-working going on.
Biggest ever piece?
I have painted pictures 4 foot square
Smallest ever piece?
I painted pictures 6 inches square for several years!
Who was is your biggest influence/inspiration?
Eric Ravillious produced wonderfully controlled calligraphic work that makes me see landscape as a valid art form. I could not possibly emulate how he did it though.
What's it all about?
Picking out the good bits.
Is modern art rubbish?
Does it lift us out of the mire or encourage us to play in it?
What is the most insulting thing anyone has ever said about your
work?
Nothing anyone can say about my work can be as bad as I might say on a bad day.
Damien Hirst or David Hockney?
Hockney can draw proper and I know Hirst does not go down well with chemists.
Rothko or Rolf (Harris)?
Did Rothko ever say ‘Can ya tell worrit is yet?
Tracey Emin or Tony Hart?
It would be interesting to see them on ‘ Celebrity Love Island.’
Can art change the world?
It did, for the first 1960 years of Christianity!
What is the colour of happiness?
Ask Rothko.
Is art the spiritual world looking in or the material world
looking out?
I think your actual caveman did his bison painting to make the world outside a bit less scary and I think we still use art for that purpose.
London or the lake district?
There are no atomic waste dumps in London.
