Lucinda Holmes answers FAD’s questions

1 When did you start to make art?
probably before crawling

2 How did you evolve into a professional artist?
no idea, suppose just couldn’t stop doing it. Tried hard to stop making art but failed miserably. (actually I don’t agree with the word professional here as I purposely decided to stop making artwork that was selling successfully because I was bored of it and didn’t want my creativity limited by the perception of what people wanted to by this interfering with my creative process). Also, we increasingly live in a world which considers something success as to how much money it makes. The UN define poverty as those who live on 2 dollars a day. But, there are many places in the world we you can live happily with equality within their community without any money and other who have much money but live in awful situations and feel dejected and 3rd class citizens. Perhaps I am taking the term professional too far to that meaning; making art work to make money, but has the world ‘professional’ changed too? Or is financial validity still at the core of our societies criteria for success.

3 What drove you to make art as a professional vocation?
I suppose initially beauty, self-satisfaction, now lack of quality considered art work displayed and increasingly as an agent of change – as a mood of changing how people think and perceive the world. Something to look at and contemplate – akin to the view from the top of a mountain or the inside of an empty church.

4 Explain your inspiration?
I like hand made things, bits of wood. Things that people who stay still do. Things that have time condensed within them. The slow contemplation of seemingly empty space. Edvard Greig’s Death of Ase.

5 In what way does your inspiration transform into ideas?
I visually magpie what I like. I also fail to re-create things I have seen and make new things. I play with things I like and photograph them. I go for long walks with my camera.

6 From Ideas to production of art – how? And why?
I feel that my art is the process of being an idea, an investigation. An exploration. I’m very much a drawing sort of person. I think the selection of what I want to say which is the most important.

7 Could your ideas be portrayed in any other medium? If so which?
Not sure, a court of law, but it is about showing structures and changing them.

8 Which artists would you most like to blatantly rip off?
Gidey Sibony, Agnes Martin, not sure. All of them.

9 Why is your art made?
Because it get cross and upset if I don’t. Sometimes it is a sort of friend.

10 What does being an artists mean to you?
It means having a different view of the world, and an innocence with the confidence to give an honest view. The power of the powerless. Offering clear-sighted-ness from an outsiders perspective.

11 Are you happy with your reasons for making art? i.e Are there any trade offs that make life hard?
I don’t feel like I really had a choice. I tried to give up art, but ended up in the art room all the time, perhaps even more than before. Yes, there are huge trade offs. I work twice as hard as everybody else but still perceived as lazy and creative. I want to know about everything and know very little about lots of things. I studied in a world without any form of truth, consistency or right or wrong. I would like to have children but could never give up art, but wouldn’t want to neglect my offspring. Not to mention how it would completely radically change my perception of myself, the world or my art practice. Is it worth the risk? Its frustrating and expensive, but rewarding when I make something I feel happy with.

12 When does your art become successful?
When I feel that I have done something worth while enough to go to the pub and have a pint with my mates.

13 What is art?
boring question.

14 How do you start the process of making work?
It starts when I’m selecting the last one, looking over my pictures, going for a walk, watching a film, walking round a gallery, reading something, or laying on the floor looking at the ceiling.

15 Who prices your work? And how is the price decided upon?
I price my work, I generally manage to price it slightly too expensive for people to buy it. Unfortunately for me and my family I like my work so I have too much of it. Generally I consider the audience the context, the quality of the piece, where it will be exhibited next.

16 What is your next; move, project, show etc?
At present time focusing on making more work, now that I have a clearer idea of my practice area. Currently working on improving the photographic aspect of my work. Want to do some installations in deserted buildings. Also, want to make a book, either of electronic remote controls photocopied and another book just on photographs of Chinese characters and another on macros on fractured surfaces referencing minimalist paintings.

17 What are the pros and cons of the art market?
I’m not so interested in this side of things. I just want to make good pieces of art work for myself. If people pay me lots of money maybe they can have them. It is interesting to read about the art market.

18 Which pieces would you like to be remembered for?
A photograph of an envelope on another piece of paper.

19 Any routine in making your artwork? If so what?
war with guilt and conscience + walking around taking pictures looking at textures shapes colours, deserted fallen down things. debris.

20 What has been the biggest break in your career?
Winning the 2001 Hunting Art Prizes Drawing and Print prize – this I suppose was my biggest break. After that I realised that I didn’t want to make art work like this anymore and that I didn’t want the market to dictate what I made so I changed my practice. In a different way being accepted onto the Viewing Programme, Drawing Center NY gave me greater belief in my new work and what I was trying to achieve.

21 Who has been the biggest influence on you?
I suppose one my teachers at school who thought my art work was amazing. Also interviewing tutor on art foundation course who said he didn’t want me to go to art college because he already loved what I was doing and he didn’t want my work to change. Its more a case of sentences people have said to me constantly swirl around my head, waiting to be fully answered.

22 How many artworks have you given away and to whom?
Not sure, must be quite a few. Family members. A lover, who had to remove his first floor window to get the framed drawing into his house. This was pleasing to me as I didn’t like him anymore and like that he had experienced inconvenience because of me.

www.contemporaryartshanghai.com
lucindaholmes.org