Behind Closed Doors

Adam Withington - The Office

2009-01-19T09:42:00.001-08:00

Describe your work

I manage Great Western Studios.

How did you come to do the work that you do?

I thought that artists would be interesting to be around and . . . thankfully, twelve years later, I still think that artists are interesting people to be around.

Where do you look for inspiration?

I'm an inveterate magazine reader - Monocle, frieze, Gardens Illustrated, Esquire, Elle Decoration, Icon, Wallpaper . . . even, if push comes to shove, the Sainsbury's magazine.

What is your favourite place?

The coastal footpath between Cape Cornwall and Sennen.

If you could own one piece of work what would it be?

White Curve VII by Ellsworth Kelly - but only if I had the wallspace to do it justice.

What is your favourite website?

Where to start . . . Pan Global Plants, Present & Correct, The Sartorialist, Modern Craft.

Alice Tait - Studio 11

2008-11-25T03:32:00.000-08:00

Describe your work

My desk is piled with drawings from life, hand drawn type, inky marks and a scanner.

How did you come to do the work that you do?

There was never a question of doing anything else. When I was little I used to read Famous Five and plan how I’d do the illustrations if it were me.

Where do you look for inspiration?

The sky from Great Western studios windows.

What is your favourite place?

Where ever Sean and Roger are.

If you could own one piece of work what would it be?

An Emily Young please! Or a grumpy man from either Georges Grosz or Ben Shahn.

What is your favourite website?

www.audible.co.uk This year I have discovered talking books! I am on the brink of an obsession with Poirot.

Alice Tait

Kate Banazi - ex studio 28, now in Sydney

2008-11-20T01:22:00.000-08:00

1. Describe your work

Screenprinting, drawing, painting and sometimes sewing.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

My parents were old style graphic designers and typographers so taught me to wield a scalpel and draw a straight line from a very young age. My apparent skill should have been channelled towards brain surgery, quite obviously, but that was soon scuppered when I fainted whilst dissecting a rat at school. There after I swore only to slice paper. And the odd bit of self surgery.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Under bridges and up mountains. Specifically Anzac bridge and the Blue Mountains.

4. What is your favourite place?

Tasmania or the top of Parliament Hill, London.
Quite extreme in their differences.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

A picture that was accidentally thrown away, drawn for me by my son when he was 7.

6. What is your favourite website?

Google images, especially street view.
Its weird and a little bit wrong.

Kate Banazi

Sophie Molins - Studio 36

2008-11-10T02:51:00.001-08:00

1. Describe your work

Mostly photographs, a few short films, and at the
moment it’s drawing a monkey a day to make a website
in honour of the things we are loosing in our
evolution.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

How long have you got.? I’ve always made things,
looked at things and been profoundly moved by certain
other works, so i went to art school to learn…

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Good friends, interesting humans, galleries, books,
conversations, talks, meditation. They all put me in
the spirit.

4. What is your favourite place?

London even though I get away as much as I can I got
so London sick when I lived abroad. Born here.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Raft of Medusa

6. What is your favourite website?

http://www.thenag.net

Sophie Molins

Jay Burridge - Studio 6

2008-10-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

Kids toys from Lilliput. The theme which has run throughout all my work has been a question of scale. Children's toys are often scaled down simplified versions of everyday things in the world, I reverse this and scale them back up to life size but retaining a childlike simplicity.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Luckily for me, my brother and sister, our parents met at the Royal Collage of Art in the Pop Art Revolution so we had paint and pencils thrust on us as soon as we could hold them.

I was never going to be an academic.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Toys'R'us and my old sketchbooks. My artwork needs to mature over time between the pages before it's ripe for making.

4. What is your favourite place?

In bed cuddling my family on a lazy morning.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Horse There's always one on display at the Pompidou in Paris and luckily for me I get to go at least 3 times a year and stand in front of it for a day or so.

6. What is your favourite website?

Totally biased but it has to be my little fashion project Lucky Seven custom made caps www.luckyseven.tv About four years ago I had a foray in to the fashion world which resulted in me meeting my wife and starting this company supplying bespoke baseball caps to discerning customers world wide.

The other site I look at every day is the Wooster Collective www.woostercollective.com

Jo Ratcliffe - Studio 6

2008-10-27T03:45:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

Currently I am drawing, painting and printmaking.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

When I was 16 I used to write the slate signs for the produce department of a supermarket, it was a glamorous job, I even had my own office but I was hungry for more.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Dirty streets, rolling fields, google images & most haunted.

4. What is your favourite place?

Bed in the morning.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

For the bathroom anything by Gustav Dore from his series of illustrations of ‘The Divine Comedy’ or ‘Death Depicted as the Grim Reaper on Top of the World’ for the hallway Gustave Courbet - The Origin of the World, for the study Carolus-Duran - Equestrian Portrait of Mademoiselle Croizette and for the living room a Glen Brown or a Eugène Carrière painting.

6. What is your favourite website?

Google images!

Jo Ratcliffe

Katherine Lubar - Studio 44

2008-10-03T03:41:00.001-07:00

1. Describe your work.

Light patterns on man-made structures, usually interiors. For the past couple of years, I’ve been working on a series of lamp paintings – which I see, in a way, as portraits - they have a sort of human character to them.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Actually, I can't remember a time when I wasn't painting or drawing, even when I was 2 and drawing on the wall, apparently!

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Light, shadow, architecture, the colours in nature. Artists I've been influenced by: Michael Craig-Martin, Patrick Caulfield, Wayne Thiebauld, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Edward Hopper

4. What is your favourite place?

Would have to be the Maldives... if only I could afford to go back!

Also Puck's Glen in Scotland - a magical place

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

St George and the Dragon by Uccello or one of Memling's triptychs

6. What is your favourite website?

interesting stuff about colour: coloracademy

to help the world: The Hunger Site, and the Rainforest site, Animal Rescue site, etc. etc.

and lastly, the craziness that is the US - The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Katherine Lubar

Jo Davda - Brickett Davda - Studio 15

2008-09-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

Simple ceramic plates and bowls in dirty colours, sculptural lighting in ceramic and steel.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Got tired with starving in a garrett trying to paint, liking the possibilities of clay and metal.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Food, eating food, grey London skies

4. What is your favourite place?

bed, beach, bath

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

would like more than one please..... a Yannis Kounnellis steel wall piece, a Tapies painting ( any big one ) would be nice....

6. What is your favourite website?

www.colette.fr

brickett davda

Liza Campbell - Studio 30

2008-09-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

The montages are lavish & wistful. The dioramas are sardonic.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Having worked in stone for 6 years, I was drawn paper & scissors while recovering from RSI & never went back - God knows from what sociopathic crevice the dioramas sprang

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Joseph Cornell, Saul Steinberg, Edward Gorey, John Nash, Billy Collins, a steady need to laugh at my depressive tendencies & absolutely nothing functions without music. I have recently entered a mournful folk patch but my tastes straddle all styles except 'wandering' jazz & reggae which bore me

4. What is your favourite place?

Outdoors: the banks of the Findhorn river at home in Scotland, Barafundle beach in Pembrokeshire, where I played as a child

Indoors: nothing has yet surpassed the Taj Mahal. There is an inscription inside its marble dome that reads 'if there is a heaven on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this', which is not an idle boast.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

One, what d'you mean one? That's so unreasonable Adam.

I would like The Valpincon Bather by Ingres, an empty room in fading twilight by Hammershoi and a small sketch by Holbein but really, you can't beat a white laundry on a washing line drying in the breeze: a global occurrence & free

6. What is your favourite website?

Youfail.org is curiously cheering

stlyrics.com/songs for exploding mondegreens...it puts you right when you think Hendricks is singing 'scuse me while I kiss this guy' or Creedance Clearwater Revival are pointing out ' a bathroom on the right'
'dance properly: advanced seminar' on zefrank.com taught me everything I know.

Liza Campbell

Giles Phelps aka Slipmode - Studio 11

2008-09-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work. My personal work is basically mixed media, my commercial work is "Creative Brand Communications". So this means I work with video, photography, graphic illustration, interaction design, and more recently heavy doses of audio... The line between my commercial work & my personal work is kinda thin, how I pay the rent & put food on the table is by working with Advertising & design agencies, and to a lesser degree Record Companies, & on occasion Film companies. Since I've been at GWS I've created: a 182 page coffee table book for the Apart art gallery, helps create the ideas behind 3skyphone then went on to work on the 360º nation wide launch campaign across the UK, created the multi media launch platform for the Aston Martin Rapide to the worlds press, created cinema ads for the theScreen.biz, helped Tyler Brulé & Dan Hill set up the digital broadcast devision of Monocle Magazine, created interactive on-line campaigns for Lexus, Blackberry & Waitrose, attempted to turned 6 Smart cars into a giant newtons cradle, created an on-line viral site "the worlds biggest mexican wave dot com" for British Telecom & Fon, made a film with SPECIALTEN about "Juergen Teller", directed a film about the making of Nil By Mouth featuring Gary Oldman, Ray Winston & Eric Clapton, done some nice 12" remix's for Ninja Tunes artist Luke Vibert ~ I'm maybe about to do some Limited Edition sneakers for New Balance & maybe a film with KRINK, i've got a new project about to come out called "Driptease", oh and I also created Kate Banazi's web site :) I don't really see a distinction between commercial work & my own really, as I have to sell both to live ~ I learned the hard way at Central St Martins that after my MA degree show the only way to pay off my student load was to sell my work to the ICA as a solo digital installation! which quite a while back now, I did. Ok so the ICA did not pay off my loan ~ the work it got subsequently certainly has. I think I'm right in that I'm one of two artists in GWS to have had an exhibition at the ICA ? or you can just go & laugh at http://www.slipmode.com

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

I was & still am sh*t at maths & english, but I need to tell a story & engage people on an emotive level that goes beyond words & numbers, so an (F) in those subjects but an MA in communication Design... go figure on that one... what else was a kid from Notting Hill into graffiti, hip hop & street art gonna do when the the the rest of his peers went off to collage? Yep you guessed it ~ go to art collage...after that it's all been about work, work & more work, a great agent, an even better accountant most of all more luck than I think I deserve, but then again the harder I work the luckier I get :)

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

All over, anywhere I can, pretty much anything that gets my attention ~ I'm like a magpie or a very big sponge. When I'm lost I always go to the Mark Rothko room at the Tate Modern & sit there for hours until either I'm still lost or I need to go pee... then as I leave a see just how grey & flat London can be BANG there's my inspiration! As for other folk around me, Sean Alexander has always been a good friend & big influence on me, Protools Pete always has time for a music or Mac related chat, Kate Banazi for fags, coffee & printing techniques oh & dog vomit... Kate Gibb cos most of the Agencies I work with worship her, and she's very understated in spite of it & Tommy Penton cos his work make me think of the ice creams I used to dream of as a kid. As for the folk I've worked with, I'm very, very lucky to have worked with some great creative people, from Jane Campion, David Fincher, Jonathan Glazer, Nick Darken, Ray Brenen, Terence Donovan, John Stuart, Frank Lieberman, Mark Andrews & Paul Owen ...the bacon, cheese, egg & brown sauce sarnies at Steve's café have probably done more for me though!

4. What is your favourite place?

In bed with my wife on a Sunday morning or on any beach, again with my wife :)

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Pretty much anything by Mark Rothko or Helmut Newton

6. What are your favourite websites? urm... i'm very into RSS feeds & "dipp'n" in & out of websites but otherwise:
ffffound.com
styleboost.com
timesonline.co.uk
rainhamsheds.co.uk

Mat Sant - Studio 47

2008-09-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

At present I'm exploring mark-making. Looking at surface textures and compositions from the world around me, making marks that describe both the physical appearance and sensual characteristics of everyday surfaces. I'm interpreting what I see and think into creative observations that I hope communicate to my curiosities about sight and touch. In particular, I'm interested in road and pavement surfaces that show age and wear. Road markings are also of special interest to me.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

When filling in my university application form, I decided to go to art college because a girl I fancied was going there. I never did get to date her, but instead I became interested in printing. I also spent a fortune doing six years at college gaining a few degrees along the way.

My interest in road markings is a rip off from someone else's work, but I thought I could do a better job at it.

Another way of looking at it is that I managed to get here by pure chance.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

The road. On occasion, I venture down small alleyways and mews', but I mainly stick to places I know.

4. What is your favourite place?

My house. In particular; in front of the fire place.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Probably something by Picasso. Perhaps something in blue... or maybe 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.'

6. What is your favourite website?

Probably Screwfix

Mat Sant

Kate Gibb - Studio 46

2008-09-10T04:52:00.001-07:00

1. Describe your work.

A series of happy accidents..

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Not sure, in my younger years I wanted to be a nurse. Screen printing satisfies my love of colour, traditional craft and paper.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Anywhere and everywhere, it's completely random.

4. What is your favourite place?

I've many, but a constant would have to be Hampstead Heath but only if i've my dog with me. My studio would be in my top ten.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Off the top of my head, a silk screen by Gary Hume or Eduardo Paolozzo would do me proud.

6. What is your favourite website?

NHS Direct!

Kate Gibb

Lisa Jones - Studio 39

2008-09-10T04:46:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

Silk screen printed gift cards, stationery and design. Also part-time potter.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Well those Fine Art degrees never really get you ready for the real world.....

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Car boot sales, my favourite!

4. What is your favourite place?

Outside in the sunshine at Fanny's Farm, Surrey, this summer.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Cactus and wall, 2000, pencil sketch, David Hockney

6. What is your favourite website?

Ferryhalim/orsinal - It's a free game site that is really cute, Cranky Crabs is a good one but my favourite is ' Floats ' and, yes, I should get out more.

Lisa Jones

Sean Alexander - Studio 6

2008-09-02T04:40:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

Line and texture. Paint and plastic wood.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Taking a massive leap after being encouraged and inspired by others.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Current and vintage culture.

4. What is your favourite place?

Patmos, Greece - where the George Clooney Lookylikey fisherman and permanently drunk Art Bar owner lives.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Anything shiny by Jeff Koons.

6. What is your favourite website?

Its between ffffound.com and www.itsnicethat.com

Sean Alexander

Steve Williams - The Café

2008-09-02T02:42:00.000-07:00

1. Describe your work.

I'm a life enhancer; giving nutrition to the stomach and soul.

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

Lack of any other possible skills or talents

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Adam

4. What is your favourite place?

The back seat of my Dad's car

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

A Lynn Parotti painting would complement my home interior. Failing that a Giacometti sculpture - one small enough for the mantelpiece though.

6. What is your favourite website?

Google

David Ben White - Studio 65

2008-09-02T01:53:00.000-07:00

1.Describe your work.

Painting. At present it is mainly figurative, but over the last year, it has been predominantly abstract. I tend to work within a particular framework of ideas that connect up and disband. My work has tends to look cartoon-like, overtly expressive with clear gestural brushmarks and lots of drips, especially as the work is scaled up..

2. How did you come to be doing the work that you do?

I started to think about certain elements of what painting can do for me that excites me. I then started to reason out a way in which I saw life around me and then decided to bring a strong degree of auto biographical elements into the work. Not always, however, as you can find groups of works like ‘Mummy loves Daddy’ as being less about that.

3. Where do you look for inspiration?

Everywhere- on the street- I tend to draw a lot and it generally will lead to starting a painting- which then takes on its own life and heads off in another direction- I generally find that the act of painting is the main inspiration.

4. What is your favourite place?

Tel Aviv, Sicily, particularly Palermo, to name two straight off- and London- as inspiration.

5. If you could own one piece of art what would it be?

Rembrandt’s self-portrait in Kenwood.

6. What is your favourite website?

Hmmmm nothing comes to mind-

David Ben White