Phil Ashcroft

Interview with Phil Ashcroft

- How did it all begin for you? What is your personal history in terms of creativity?

P:I studied illustration at Harrow College of Art and Design and then went onto St Martins for a Post-Grad. Harrow was great - I spent all my time studying fine art painters, drawing and painting both from life and on location, generally experimenting and taking over the screen-printing studio. St Martins helped me get my first commercial work but it didn’t help me at all creatively.

During and after leaving St Martins I started getting illustration work for clients including The Royal Mail and Amnesty International but I felt increasingly frustrated by the limitations within the briefs. I decided not to actively seek illustration work from 1998 and focused instead on painting, and painting inspired by what was of interest to me, which at that time was the original Star Wars Trilogy (it hadn’t been re-vamped yet at that time), Blakes 7 and Tom Baker-era Dr Who meets British and US post-painterly abstract painters such as Albert Irvin, Basil Beattie, Richard Diebenkorn, John Hoyland and Patrick Heron.

In 1997 I had a self-initiated solo exhibition Space is the Place/Future Worlds at the Metro cinema in Piccadilly Circus and from that was offered a solo show at the now defunct Bedford Hill Gallery (they gave Yinka Shonibare MBE one of his first-ever shows). That show Duel had my first Yeti painting in it…it wasn’t what the gallery expected, I don’t think they were that keen, they liked my more abstract works! I also did other single characters paintings of Zygon, Greedo and Ree-Yees, all of which I still like, and showed them alongside abstract ‘sci-fi’ landscapes.

In 2001, I was featured in Scrawl Too: More Dirt (Booth-Clibborn Editions) and in 2002 I was invited by Ric Blackshaw (Scrawl author and Scrawl Collective founder) to paint live at the inaugural Grafitti Meets Windows, Hank-Yu Department Store in Osaka, that was my first Scrawl-related event.

- Do you keep in touch with all the Scrawl collective crew? Is it still a crew?

P: I regularly see and occasionally paint with Will Barras and meet up with Ric. I’m in email contact with Duncan (Mr Jago) but as he’s Bristol-based we don’t often meet. I bump into some of the others at openings…. but we’re not a crew that hangs out to be honest.

- For people who aren’t familiar with your work, can you briefly describe it in terms of style etc.?

P:Bold, graphic paintings combining elements of loose and gradient brushwork utilising a limited colour palette. The work veers between abstraction and figuration but usually focuses on real or imagined toxic, post-apocalyptic landscapes.

- With your recent large-scale paintings, you manage to convey a real sense of power with the looming, hulking & imposing figures/shapes from above.... is it meant to be aggressive?

P: Yes there is some drama intended. It’s very much a reference to the ticking global time bomb of climate change, our diminishing natural resources and how mankind will cope.

- You seem to have covered Lightboxes/Screenprints/large scale canvases/Live painting, how about sculpture? What has been your favourite material to work with?

P: I feel I have enough to work with dealing in two dimensions and I enjoy this deliberate limitation. I’ve never been a sculptural artist, however it’d be great to create a yeti figurine if the opportunity arose. With regards favourite materials, you can’t beat paint on canvas for its sheer physical quality and presence.

- Type-based question now; Would you say that England got its own style of handwriting? Can you describe it for our Japanese readers?

B: I think generally, English hand styles are kept simple without elaborating too much. This is also to do with our country having so much CCTV that if you want to catch a tag you got to be quick!!
Old skool writers had a lot more style in their tagging compared to writers today.
Tagging styles in England are so varied now due to exposure through the internet, 10 years ago you could tell if a tag was by a writer from Germany or France. I think this is sad as no country really has its own style any more…

- Computer-based or organic-based drawing/sketching/painting? Which takes more precedence for you?

P: I enjoy the precision of creating works using vectors for lightboxes and print, but I like the element of risk and accident inherent within the painting process.

- What is your usual creative process? Do you make sketches first or is a lot of the work freestyled?

P: I work from initial thumbnail sketchbook ideas that give me the direction in which to take a work. I then develop these on the mac and use these studies as starting points in the painting studio. The paintings veer between strictly following my design and following intuition.

Some paintings can take years to complete, others may be completed within a week. If I am live-painting I freestyle to an extent but I have to have something in mind before I begin.

- Do you draw a lot of inspiration from Science Fiction/Post Apocalyptic Worlds?

P: I do watch science fiction films and am inspired by them but largely I look at newspaper cuttings and footage from our existing world, and put a twist on this.

- Any future plans you are tell us about?

P: I will be doing a live paint project with Will Barras & Cat Johnston, in the Tate Modern Museum’s Turbine Hall from May 16th-19th. Overall, I’m in it for the long haul so not too many specifics, I just hope to build and develop my body of work and that others find it of interest. I aim to be painting until my final days whenever they may be…

Phil Ashcroft : http://www.philashcroft.com

Written by Selph