From the Community Centre to the Royal Academy

If any picture is going to sum up what I love about being an artist it’s this one. Molly is Sandra’s AKA Nan’s granddaughter. I entered an oil painting of Sandra AKA Nan (lady flicking the V) 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.

My ongoing project We Don’t Need Culture is about reaching out to people who are suspicious of the word culture, the belief that it doesn’t apply to them and that culture is wrapped in an elitist bubble reserved for the rich, cloaked in an impenetrable, opaque vernacular to insulate and consolidate high prices. The gate keepers of the art institutions and markets are responsible for this but many artists are complicit in this agenda, including myself. For a while, at least.

Attitudes are changing and I for one, have definitely changed my outlook as to what I think the role of art is in the 21st century.  A world full of false flags, alternative truths and now artificial intelligence is quite a minefield to navigate. Molly and Jacqui physically making a trip to London gives me hope that art can communicate through all of the digital noise and shape behaviour back into a positive real world experience.

Exhibiting in a community centre will not devalue your work any more that being exhibited a couple of times at the Royal Academy will catapult your prices to Hurstian levels. The value of what we do as an artist is revealed in the our agenda. I’ll paint anybody from any walk of life and I’ll exhibit anywhere I can, be it a community centre or the Royal Academy and all points in-between.