This week we interview painter Abigail Box who graduated from Camberwell College of Art in 2008.
1) Which art movement do you consider most influential on your practice?
I don’t think there is one. I change my mind a lot. Impressionism seemed not to interest me much until recently - now it does and I can’t exactly explain that. I’m easily distracted...
2) Where do you go and when to make your best art?
Outside. I like finding the mess in nature. Recently, I visited Peru and stayed in the rainforest. I liked very much the unruly tangle of roots and branches below the canopy.
I blooming love the work of Hurvin Anderson and Andreas Eriksson. Paintings to get lost in.
3) How do you describe your 'creative process'?
All over the place. I have no set process. I’m currently working with all manner of things, oil, acrylic, watercolor, canvas, board, sheets of Perspex, glass, sketchbooks. I’m finding at the moment I start off a lot of things by making messy scribbly drawings where I don’t look at the page very much - seems I make better work when I’m not looking at what I’m doing.
4) Which artist, living or deceased, is the greatest inspiration to you?
I blooming love the work of Hurvin Anderson and Andreas Eriksson. Paintings to get lost in.
5) If you weren't an artist, what would you do?
High rise window cleaner.
6) What do you listen to for inspiration?
Not for inspiration but in the studio. Right now, any music, Adam Buxton Podcast and My Dad Wrote a Porno**.
**A series in which Jamie Morton reads out chapters from the erotic books his 60 year-old dad has written.
7) Which 3 artists would you collect work by if money was no object?
Aside from Hurvin Anderson and Andreas Eriksson. Julie Mehretu, Joan Mitchell ‘Chasse Interdite' 1973, and a projector ‘drawing’ by Amba Sayal-Bennett - though I don’t know where I’d put it.
8) If your dream museum or collection owner came calling, which would it be?
I would like to work with nice people.
9) What is your key piece of advice for artists embarking on a fine art or creative degree today?
Don’t be a dick.
10) What is your favorite book of all time (fiction or non-fiction)?
This changes often but The First Bad Man by Miranda July* - it’s nuts. I also love her short stories, Swim Team from No One Belongs Here More Than You is awkwardly beautiful.
*Miranda Jennifer July is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, author and artist. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital media presentations, and live performance art.
11) If you could hang or place your artwork in one non-traditional art setting, where would that be?
The Starship Enterprise.
12) What was the biggest lesson your university course or time studying taught you?
Heck.. how to better externalise my thinking process.. have conversations out loud and not in my head.
13) And finally, if we were to fast forward 10 years, where would we find you?
Studio cave.
