Interview with Paul Baines

SIMPLE SIX

1. Besides art & music what else drives you? Politics, the environment, philosophy, strange dreams, impossible memories and flashes of inspiration.

2. Favourite character from the Muppets? Animal - used to have a friend years ago who looked like him and played the drums too. Although he was called Ken.

3. Window or aisle? Window

4. 3 favourite colours to use? Black white and hmmm.... the other depends on my mood.

5. First thing on your mind most mornings? Tea, emails, cats, weather, work, sketching any ideas from dreams.

6. Favourite artist to collaborate with? Warhol, William Blake and Marcel Duchamp - will need a séance.





DOWN to BUSINESS

• What style of art do you create & where did it start for you? Urban art, or that's what most people tell me it is. It's a long story, I used to make giant collages from commercial posters from a company in Brighton, then I got into design, graphics mainly, then fashion, then worked my way back to art. I realised that if I ever wanted to get my political views across to a wider audience I'd have to learn to visually entertain...


• Who was your main inspiration at the start? Andy Warhol


• What are you trying to say or create with your art? That life is fake. The media and government tell us what to do, what to look like, how to behave, and feed the never ending cycle of greed and vanity.


• Where have you taken your art or had it put up? Nowhere as yet, except on people's walls. Don't work the streets (any more) and don't like most galleries, except a few indie ones. If I ever get around to screen prints I have a few offers to exhibit.


• How have you used your art to change your lifestyle? My basement is now a screen printing studio, and p/t cat sanctuary for local strays - although that part wasn't planned lol.



• How does the community benefit from your art? Fight the power.


• With the boom of urban art & its many classifications such as street art, graffiti, bombers. How do you view these styles & what would you like to say about them?
It's all art under another name, the point is there isn't a top-down filter system in the arts these days. The rich and influential have to wait in line like everyone else. Urban art and all its sub-genres have made the public realise that artists are more like them than the dealers, galleries, auction houses and posh magazines that pimp them out to rich bankers looking to make a quick buck investment. Art for all!



http://www.arturban.co.uk/