JEREMY CUNNINGHAM bass, artwork
Question: Why the bass?
Answer:Oh dear. Accident really.I saw a programme with the Clash doing "Career Opportunities", it was about 1978, I looked at them and thought, "I want to do that!". The only guitar we had in my house was my youngers sister's. I'd already given it a couple of goes and I couldn't do it. I got it and started playing it one string at a time, then I found out, that the bass was like that, you could it play one string at a time.So I took all the strings off it and put on three acoustic guitar E strings at double space. I used to go in the bog and jam it up against the sink and use that as an amplifier.So that was why I played bass.The first bass was a Maya - a fender copy, then i got a Yamaha which I used on Weapon Called The Word, I used it for years. I saw it for sale in the Bass Centre the other day - I gave it to someone to look after after and they've sold it! I thought of buying it back for sentimental value but I didn't have any money.
Q:When are we going to see an exhibition by Jeremy Cunningham deconstructionalist artist?
A:I'd like to do one some time.I've just done a painting for the Zeitgeist cover, the first painting I've done for years.I proved to myself that I can still do it, it looks really good.I'm just so scared of it because I have to put myself in such a frame of mind to do it, it's a bit of weird one. I never intended to start doing the cover, I just had the paint there and it happened. I looked at it the next day and thought that looks good.It looks looney, but my pictures always do.They come from that part of you.
Q:Are you involved in the design of the stage set at all?
A:Mark's taken a bit of lead in that area at the moment, but I'm sure when it's closer to the day I'll probably have my final say.It's all about banners and symbols basically, but we're trying to avoid it looking like chinese new year.
Q:What about the videos - are you involved in that?
A:Yeah, it was at the record comapny yesterday choosing a director for Hope St., I've done a storyboard for it.So we'll see what they come up with and the one with the best treatment I'll show him my ideas and then we'll get together and do it.
Q: What is the content of your paintings about?
A:I paint things that affect me, anything. Then I try to turn the mundane into the extra ordinary by exageration and distortion.I disect perspective and force in images and re-arrange it all by instinct (loosly using cubist and expressionist ideas).It then becomes my personal view, rather than a photographic representation.IO arrange everything as i go along, it represents the way I feel at the time. The picture is almost a diary of its own creation, but without making that the point of the exercise.My instincts about the picture have been trained by the use of many ideas belonging to previous schools of art.I'm not concious of these guides when I'm painting but I know from experience where my ideas come from.I draw all the time (self portraits mainly, cos I'm the only one about)just because I find I can paint more quickly if my drawing arm is confident.
I work quickly, - first just to cover the canvas starting broad and then working "in" to the picture.The most important thing is knowing when to stop and as soon as I think I've conveyed my feeling of an idea then I stop, no matter how conventonally "finished" the image is.
