If any picture is going to sum up We Don't Need Culture it this one. Molly is Sandra’s granddaughter. I entered an oil painting of Sandra AKA Nan into the RA Summer Show 2018 and it got exhibited. Naturally, I splashed it all over social media and Sandra’s daughter, Jacqui sent me this picture. Molly and Jacqui made a special trip to go up and see the painting. Neither have ever been to an art exhibition before.

We don’t need culture started where a lot of ideas start - down the pub... In 2009 I had been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of the BP Awards. For a portrait artist, this is the very biggest of deals, the NPG is the holy shrine of portraiture in Britain if not the world. It was one big, massive stamp of validation that us sensitive artists need.

The picture I painted was a Portsmouth football fan - THE Portsmouth football fan. John Westwood or John Anthony Portsmouth Football Club Westwood - yup, he changed it by deedpoll - is not just well known in Pompey but very much amongst the football fraternity up and down the country and divides opinion of his fanaticism.

Steve, the manager of my local watering hole posed the question, and it’s the only time I’ve been asked the question - why? “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good painting but of all the people you could paint, why him?” Well, I started started with usual arty talk banging on about adding the cultural fabric of the city…….all Steve heard was, blah, blah, blah. He stopped me, quite rightly, mid-rant and said,”Mate. This is Pompey. We don’t do culture.” Whaddya mean ‘we don’t do culture? Everything is cultural. This is pub culture. “No mate” he says. “We don’t need culture. We got the Navy and the football.” What about sports and culture - Football is a culture.” And on it went. A beered up conversation circling round two very different ideas about culture.

In the end, it was my fault. I was coming from a privileged, middle class, university educated, art can change the world, perspective. Steve, was quite right. He was saying, ‘Don’t patronise me.’ And I’m saying, ‘hey, I’m one of you’, but that wasn’t what he heard. So I had to reassess what I wanted as an artist.

It can be very conflicting being an artist. Sometimes I feel dislocated from everybody as though I am on the outside looking in and yet accepting I am a part of the community. This project is about recognising that conflict.

We all live in a different cultural bubbles within a wider society. If I want people to appreciate and see the value art and culture and get them to understand what I do as artist, I’ve got to put in some leg work and change my attitude. Stop assuming things, judging people and listen. Almost eight years in I still catch myself making sweeping judgements but, I’m getting better at following my own advice - if you want know or understand something or somebody. Draw them. Paint them.

Read more