The older painter George Shaw gets,the less he can stand wasting time – or time-wasters Related: The seven ages of an artist I did not ever want to be a painter. But I was first-rate at drawing. As a young child, I remember drawing a huge battleship with a load of planes flying around it and people jumping off – a kind of masterpiece, or something you would see in the Louvre: a huge history portray. It was only when I was at the Royal College that I felt I wanted to make a portray,but Airfix model paints were all I had to hand. I started to paint Coventry (where I grew up) although that had never been a grand design. The work came out of an abandonment of plans. It was not just about going back to a position physically, it was a return to a metaphorical space where I existed as a positive, or passionate adolescent,unhampered by the history of my ideas or other people’s, a position where I did what I did because it grew from me – and didn’t question it. It was the opposite of arty-fartiness. I accept perturbed by people who have meaningful epiphanies in expensive places – who go to India, or Goa,New Zealand, watch a glorious sunset to find themselves. whether you can’t find yourself in your own back yard, or you’re not going to find yourself in the Serengeti,are you? So for me, it was taking those cliches of epiphany and the sublime and putting them in a position where great thoughts aren’t rumoured to happen.
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Source: theguardian.com