Please introduce yourself. What initially sparked your interest in becoming an artist?

I’m James Bland. I’m an artist working mainly in oil paint. I’m originally from the East Marsh of Grimsby, via a spell in Laggan in the Scottish Highlands. I don’t have a clear memory of choosing to do art, but I remember my engineer brother having a completely different approach to drawing and all aspects of life, so I suspect we don’t get a choice. I liked anything I could create stuff with. I remember the beautiful-naff computers of the 1980s where you could write your own games in four colours and 64k of memory, and the computer magazines where readers submitted games they’d written in BASIC. My first publication credit was in Amstrad Action. Later, I read those books on painting techniques and my dad encouraged me to paint in oils. I also got very heavily into music at some stage.

What is your main source of inspiration? Has your upbringing been influential to your work?

Living in rural Scotland during part of my childhood gave me a love of nature and an early introduction to politics. Both influence my work indirectly, though I guess my main interest is in images with implicit narratives, the subconscious and metaphysical approach to painting. Maybe it’s because I have such surreal dreams? There’s always some drama. Most of my childhood was spent in Grimsby, a big town in economic free fall. I saw docks and factories close and my parents struggle to find work. As a teenager there were all the usual features of a deprived seaside town and I was desperate to get away. Increasingly I make art about my childhood, even returning to the actual places with my easel and stuff to see what’s changed. I don’t think it’s nostalgia. It’s more a way of connecting narratively with my experience. For instance, I’ve painted fairgrounds from early memory, which I find is quite different to, for instance, looking at photos of fairgrounds, or even visiting them as an adult.

You have created numerous self portraits. Has the way you perceive yourself changed over time?

I was studied in hospitals for almost a decade as part of a scoliosis research project, both pre and post-surgery at 13. Every part of your body is scrutinised for its asymmetry as it grows, including my very lopsided skull. This generated a lot of data for someone, and I hope it’s useful, but my medical notes simply say ‘deformity’. I’ve seen hundreds of X-rays of me but only one seems to exist now, showing the hard lines of the titanium in my back and the soft edges of the bone almost like smoke. The selfie heads are part of a bigger project: I’m fascinated by bodies and our knowledge/ownership of them, through pain and measurement and memory and dreams.

Thinking about your piece, ‘Boy with Goldfish’, what was your initial source of inspiration? Describe your creative process from start to finish of this piece.

I had a picture in my mind one day. It wasn’t really about fairground fish, but those see-through ones you get in Christmas crackers that curl up on your hand. The Matisse paintings of goldfish as objects of fascination were also in my mind. I painted my fish with a stencil because I wanted that feeling of flatness contrasted with the heaviness of the water. I studied the way water, light and plastic bags refracted and reflected. I did various tests on canvas, and eventually found it was impossible to paint. Twice. I’ll try again one day. No real fish were harmed!

Which part of your painting process do you enjoy the most? What is your least favourite part?

I like solving problems and taking shortcuts. Finding a combination of colours that transports me. Lightening what can sometimes seem a heavy process of laying mud on mud. I’m prepared to spend years on a painting to make it feel like it was done quickly one afternoon. I don’t like finishing off, but oil painters aren’t expected to finish things off any more, are they?

What does a typical day look like for you in the studio?

I stare at some painting until I get angry enough to lift a brush. Or else I bully myself into starting something new just because I feel lazy, destroy the bad painting I make with this bad motive, and afterwards paint something completely different. This isn’t always true, but there’s rarely a day when you don’t struggle with yourself a bit. At some point I ride my bike for an hour and write something, play some music, and, like a shark, try to come away with a sense of forward movement that keeps at bay the sinking feeling.

If you could spend a day with any artist; dead or alive, who would it be, and why?

I’m too shy to ask, even in a thought experiment! Frida Kahlo. Giotto. Would they be interested in me? Wouldn’t they’d rather hang out with Rembrandt and Van Gogh? However I’ve already got to spend time with some great ones: Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco, Clare Haward, John Long, Jennifer Pochinski, Pete Brown, many others.

What has been your greatest achievement so far as an artist? What are your future aspirations?

Teaching. Those times I’ve done it right and given the students space to make their own mistakes. There’s nothing like it. I’ve written one and a half novels out of a projected three and will publish them all one day and either be hammered by critics or ignored. The thought is terrifying, but I’m more afraid of doing the same semi-successful thing over and over. I want to make films about places as well as paint them. It used to seem a very modern technology, film, but now it’s almost ancient and, with all this AI stuff, it’s probably close to being obsolete, which makes it more interesting. I still want to make music, and have lately got into polyrhythms. I have an idea for an exhibition that’s more multimedia than shows I’ve been involved in before.

Why do you think art is important in society?

You find ways of being part of society without straining for it. You can try to get involved in art groups and argue for inclusion etc. Not a lot changes, though it’s worth having a go. Institutional inertia is a big part of this. More broadly, you can’t make the case that art is important to society if the person you’re talking to doesn’t believe in society - more common than I used to think. So I sort of reject this framing. But I’ve painted outside a few times and talked about art and other things with every passing person. I remember especially that kids seemed to like seeing someone doing something ‘proper’. I’ve done portrait demos and had great interactions where anything and everything was discussed. It seems wrong to quantify the benefits of these experiences to everyone involved, but I’m sure they’re real. I still remember the origami frog an old sailor made for me when I was little: it was magical. Which gives me an idea for a painting.

James Bland

ARTIST INTERVIEW: JAMES BLAND