Where are you based?
Currently based in London, but I have been gazing across the North Atlantic (to Mexico City) longingly for some time.
Listening to?
The sound of traffic passing.
What’s on your desk?
A beautiful Polaroid taken by my late friend and brilliant artist Charlotte Horrillo, a plaque my dad had made for a tree he planted in memory of his parents and a cast bronze monkey face I made in the foundry at The Royal College of Art.
Can’t live without
My camera, a 35mm Nikon from the early 00’s, an awful piece of pre-digital equipment that I have developed some sort of attachment to it.
I’m a romantic.
Sunny or cloudy?
Sunny with a chance of rain.
Currently reading?
‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers and Simon Critchley’s ‘The Book of Dead Philosophers’.
Daily routine?
My studio is next to my bedroom so I like to get out of the house in the morning, I make a strong coffee and go to pick up materials, take photographs or make work outside (weather permitting). If I am at a brick wall with my practice I go to a show or take a book somewhere until it comes back to me. In the studio I like to work with headphones on as it keeps me focused, that’s the problem with working where you live, there are distractions everywhere, my cat Mavis is the main one. In the evening I tend to catch up with all the boring stuff, and then either to the pub or I like to have a drink at home and play darts or cards with Tamar.
Guilty pleasure?
Potato Waffles.
Can’t travel without?
Moving.
Written or spoken?
Written to be spoken.
Favorite drink?
Gosling’s rum on ice with cold water on a hot day
Sunrise or sunset
Sunrise on my own (this is for your sake, I’m miserable early in the morning).
Hobby?
No thanks.
Favorite lyrics?
Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator And he drinks at home now most nights with the TV on And all the house lights left up bright
I’m gonna blow this damn candle out
I don’t want nobody comin’ over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin’ behind bottles in dark cafes dark cafes
(Joni Mitchell from The Last Time I Saw Richard)
Most precious object?
Some years ago my dad was approached in a restaurant by Francis Bacon, they ended up going out to a club together and drinking themselves into a stupor. I have his signature that he gave my dad that evening, it’s in fountain pen on what seems to be the inside of
a Christmas cracker.
Currently working on?
Getting the hell out of this miserable city.
March 5, 2016
DÉAN 