Interviews
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Andrea Ponsi: ‘I draw, therefore I am’
The architect, designer, writer and painter on how he went from building his own shelter in a South American palm grove to building furniture from copper piping, why the role of an artist or architect is to create harmony, and…
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Botticelli and Treasures from the Hamilton Collection
Botticelli’s delicate illustrations of Dante’s The Divine Comedy steal the show in this exhibition of prints and manuscripts from the Hamilton Collection. Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen, head of the Courtauld, talks to us about them
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Chantal Joffe: ‘I want to make the painting feel like the person’
The artist talks about what she seeks to capture in a painting, how motherhood changed her, and why she is drawn to confessional poetry
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Joe Graham: ‘Anchor is not quite a book about drawing, and yet it’s not quite a book that isn’t about drawing’
His new book, Anchor, presents 14 responses to the question: What is an outline? Here, he explains why he uses drawing as a form of investigation to explore philosophical ideas
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Julien Prévieux: ‘Humour is a good fighting trick’
From ‘hacking’ Google to responding to ads to tell employers why he doesn’t want their job, the French artist employs humour to explore, among other things, technology and copyright. Here, he explains the concepts behind his art, while Rachel Cook,…
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Maha Malluh: ‘I don’t see the point in creating new objects while we have a lot of waste around us’
The Saudi Arabian artist talks about the allure of working with found objects, why she considers gender to be immaterial, and the significance of hosting a women-only exhibition in 2016
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Hector McDonnell: ‘My paintings have always been about personal experiences’
As well as a realist painter of everything from Northern Ireland’s infamous Maze prison to Rwanda after the genocide and the twin towers following 9/11, McDonnell is a prolific cartoonist and the author of books on Irish history
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Superflex’s Rasmus Nielsen: ‘I would not call us do-gooders, but maybe doers’
The work of the Danish collective has included everything from designing a public park to producing soft drinks and biogas lamps for farmers. Rasmus Nielsen explains how the group started and its refusal to be boxed in
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Alice Anderson: ‘I don’t refuse this world, I just need to explore alternatives to live with it today’
The artist talks about her unique method of “memorising” and “recording” objects in copper wire, and explains how this helps her to slow down and maintain an intimacy with the world around her
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Odili Donald Odita: ‘I want to use colour to have an effect on the mind and body’
Known for his vibrant, large-scale, abstract paintings, the artist talks about his influences, from the crazy patterns of wallpaper and the African artefacts in his childhood home, to the exhibitions and artists who have shaped his work
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Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse
The walls of this exhibition tremble with the vibrant blooms of summer days. Gardens have inspired artists and influenced painting, from impressionism to the avant garde and beyond. Here, curator William Robinson talks about the exhibition and Monet’s erudite passion…
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Koen Vanmechelen: ‘An artist is always arriving at something that was unknown before’
The man who turned breeding chickens into an art explains his plans to create a sustainable, diverse society, and how his new project, Biomista, will advance his aims
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Robel Temesgen: ‘Being an Ethiopian in Norway was a really interesting inversion’
In his first London show, the artist explores the Ethiopian traditions of honouring the spirit of a place or community. Two years of studying in Norway have only intensified his fascination with disappearing rituals and cultural and social fragmentation
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Virgile Ittah: ‘I think it’s in an artist’s genes – they never follow the rules’
The artist talks about her unique wax modelling technique, her current collaboration, and explains why she feels gender is no longer an issue
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Aura Satz: ‘I think of all my works as conversations’
The artist reveals some of the hidden stories that inspire her film, performance and installation works, exploring different techniques for visualising sound and seeking to recover the unheard female voice
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Pat Sachs: ‘The small, intimate scale has felt ideally suited for my visual language’
Working on drawings after labouring over collages is like taking a gallop through a vast field, says the artist best known for her tiny, torn-paper explorations of landscapes and architectural forms
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Champagne Life
As the Saatchi Gallery marks its 30th anniversary with its first all-women exhibition, a new generation of female artists seems confident about what the next three decades will bring
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Liz Magic Laser: ‘I’m interested in throwing a well-rehearsed script into a precarious scenario’
The multimedia artist talks about being critical of TED talks, studying US presidents, treating the child as an emblem of the future, and other artists who have had most significance for her
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Carole Robb: ‘It was the harsh Scottish weather that shaped the internal life of my imagination’
As a child, she drew on her bedrooms walls. As an adult, she has won the Prix de Rome and a Fulbright Scholarship. Born in Scotland, she has lived in Rome, New York and London. Here, she talks about her…
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Anthony Pearson: ‘I am seeking an inventive form as opposed to a clearly conventional one’
The artist, known for his refined sculptures and reliefs, explains why he moved from photography to sculpture, why he likes flaws and idiosyncrasy to be part of his work, and why he bans artificial light in his studio, stopping work…
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Margaret Harrison: ‘You have to have a strategy to draw people into the work’
Pioneering artist Margaret Harrison shares memories of her early career as an activist for equal rights and pay and fair working conditions for women
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Emilia Kabakov: ‘The idea behind this work is that reality can never been seen straight on, but is always obscured either on purpose or by necessity’
Emilia Kabakov, who collaborates with her husband, Russian conceptual artist Ilya Kabakov, talks about working together, their exhibition at Pace Gallery, and other projects they are planning
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Yevgeniy Fiks: ‘Any utopia is queer by nature, because it takes you from the present and directs you to a strange time and place’
Artist and curator Yevgeniy Fiks talks about his work with curator Olga Kopenkina for the exhibition Future Queer Perfect, which looks at the utopian aspirations of Soviet experience and its connection to artistic and cultural concerns
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Rose Blake: ‘I have always found it easier to express a thought through a picture rather than words’
The illustrator and artist talks about her recent exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery, drawing by hand and directly into the computer, the perils of being freelance – and why being Peter Blake’s daughter can be embarrassing
