The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 | Page 145

Q: How do you want people to
view your artworks? What story
do you want to convey to them?
I don’t mind at all how people
view my artworks. There are
some very strange reactions
to them but I do subscribe to
the view that Marcel Duchamp
espoused that it is the viewer
that completes the work. Art is a
mystery that opens a door onto
another mystery and that mystery
is always us. I don’t necessarily
have any useful explanations for
any of my images. If I was asked
for a piece of advice to give the
viewer it would be, “You bring
your baggage to my work and I’ll
bring mine.”
One of the greatest compliments
that has been paid to me was at
the first exhibition of my work
back in 2001. An old college friend
of mine, came up from London to
see the exhibition. When he saw
the work, he turned to me and
said: “Only you could have made
these images”. He was referencing
back to the conversations that
we used to have as students
about philosophy, life, religion,
photography art and all that. He
said the images were a reflection
of the ideas that I used to express
when I was in college. That’s
oddly comforting to know. I’m
not saying that I haven’t changed
or that I’m very rigid in my outlook

but it is good to know that there’s
something of oneself in one’s
images which is recognisable to
others.
You asked me, how I described
my work and I said that I wouldn’t
try to describe it. It tends to get
classified as surreal but what I
would say about it is that I try
to make my work as much mine
as I possibly can. I don’t really
worry about art movements or
what people will think about an
image or whether an image will
be successful or whether people
will like it or whether they won’t
like it. All I want to do, and I don’t
know how better to say this, is to
make worthwhile images. Now,
what is a worthwhile image? We
can talk forever about that but, in
short, what I mean by that is