Do you have any early memories of being interested in art?
In school I was interested in art and as a child, growing up, I would have always drawn things from when I was very young right up until 5th year at school. I was really into drawing cartoon characters, things like that so it was a hobby which I really enjoyed doing.
In school when I was doing my GCSE’s in art I wanted to do my own idea but the teacher wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do, so I just threw the head up and said I wasn’t going to follow the curriculum. I wanted to do Republican and Loyalist murals and for the final piece I wanted to do was to create a Peace mural, because growing up during “The Troubles”, that was just all around you, so I wanted to relate to that. But the teacher told me no, they said I wasn’t allowed to do that.
To me, that seemed to go against the whole idea of what art is about, because you should have your own freedom of expression. That’s the whole point of art. So I fell out with my art teacher and I just completely stopped doing art.
What happened then?
Well, I left school and I got involved in low level drug dealing. There was a point where the Art College had come across some of my school course work and they rang me up and asked me if I wanted to go there; offered me a place. I asked them how much you got paid to go to Art College, because I didn’t know anything about it, and they told me you don’t get paid, so I didn’t bother with that.
Did you get any support at home?
Not really, although my dad died recently and when I was going through some of his things he had kept some of my drawings from when I was a child so what I was doing obviously mattered to him.
My mum and dad always said they weren’t creative but my dad was a scientific glass blower, he created things out of glass, and mum did flower arranging, but they didn’t see that as art or as being creative. So not really any support at home.
What happens after you leave school?
My life just got crazier and crazier. Before I left school the career advisors asked everyone what they wanted to do for work, and some people said Policeman, a Pilot or a Fireman and I wanted to be a Bank Robber. I wanted to work only a few hours a day and get really loaded. That really annoyed the careers advisor so I said Undertaker because with The Troubles still going you would always have work. I didn’t realise how much work goes in to qualifying as an undertaker.
I thought I might take a year out and do nothing but I got into trouble with the police because of a firearm. I needed to get a job, so I did an NVTQ in retail and I didn’t really like working in retail, then I worked as an exterminator and that was like my main career most of my life. I should say part-time career because I got involved with paramilitaries and that meant drug dealing. Drugs were massive at that time. It was like I lived a double life, a normal working career through the day. Then a mad crazy, drug and crime filled life at night and weekends. My life has been very, very eventful to be honest, it would probably make a good movie. But everyone would think it’s mostly made up. Believe me ha.
How did you get into that?
I used to sell drugs at school, because I didn’t like alcohol, so instead, I took drugs and I would sell drugs to get money for my own, and eventually that didn’t end up well. I would spend time in prison, then get out and go back to my old life.
But, I did do a bit of painting in jail and that eventually leads me to painting all the time.
