Its difficult to say what kind of an artists I am, not sure I care much for the question. I have since I can or care to remember, been interested in making work out of whatever is available, whatever is to hand. I have no sense of permanentness, everything is of a temporary moment. Perhaps this has something to do with my upbringing. We are shaped by events, of which we had no control and spend the rest of our lives either working with or against those imprints.
Art for me is more about process than about end results, which probably explains why I have a problems with finishing things. Most of them are left in various states of undone-ness.
My first encounter with modern art was a school trip to the Commonwealth Institute in London when I was 14 years old. In the foyer was a construction of building materials, that formed a centre piece. I asked my teacher what it was, he said, sculpture. I was intrigued and delighted, I thought sculpture was statues. Here was something, abstract, made from materials I understood and recognised. A working class kid could identify with these industrial materials. I had no problem accepting them as art, suddenly I saw art as a place I might someday call home. Years later I discovered that the work I came across was by the British Sculptor Anthony Caro. ( I came to meet and speak with him some 35 years later, but thats another story)
I work on many different platforms in different media, in different styles. I do return again and again to certain processes and methods and materials. I draw and I write and everything else stems from that. One theme that seems to run constantly throughout all my work is the idea of making something from nothing. I enjoy finding materials for free and repurposing them. I make things from what I find and then throw them away after I am done with it.
There are many questions people ask about art, most of them are useless, if your looking for an answer that you can remember, forget it. Art is not like that, most things are not like that. Often its not answers at all that we really want, its usually reassurance. Art is different, we don’t strive to be proved right, if anything we want to be proved wrong.