Transcript si (00:09) Hello, I'm Si Sapsford and this is My Private View, a series about how we look at art and comes out of that habit of looking and thinking and of wondering what other people see when they're doing the same thing. Each month I'll sit down with someone from various creative backgrounds and talk not just about what they make, but how they see, what they notice, what stays with them and what shapes their way of working. If something in an earlier episode stays with you or if it leaves you with a question, you can send it to me at Si Sapsford and I'll bring some of those into future conversations. And I'll also include in each episode a small reflection, something I've seen or thought about that I can't quite let go of. I'm your host, and this is my private view. This leads me nicely into a musing I had earlier this week. Recently I visited Alcazar in Seville. There were many interesting rooms and gardens, but the room that really held my attention was a room full of massive tapestries. And in particular, there was one tapestry that caught my attention. It was striking, because it wasn't a battle scene. It was a huge map, but not a map in the normal way that we see the world. It wasn't that familiar, flattened north up view that we're so used to. Instead it seemed to be orientated from north to south, as if you're standing in southern Spain and looking out towards Africa. And the map caught something I'd felt before without quite putting into words. I remember once standing on a beach on the south coast of Spain, not far from Gibraltar, and realizing that from there, on a clear day, I could actually see Africa, a separate continent, and it seemed to bring it so much closer to me. So this tapestry seemed to do the same thing, and I could almost imagine that the people who made or designed the tapestry had the same sort of perspective as I had on that moment standing there, looking out towards Africa. It was the same that's what I felt anyway. So looking at this tapestry didn't feel like a map in the modern sense. It felt more like a viewpoint, almost like where am I standing? What do I see from here? And it made me think about how much our idea of the world is shaped by the way it's presented to us. Today we're used to global maps, the cater projections, a fixed north at the top, the whole world laid out in one frame. It gives a sense of totality, of knowing the whole picture. But it's also quite abstract. It flattens experience. Whereas something like this tapestry feels more local, more embodied, not the world as a complete system. But the world as encountered from a shoreline, from a city, from a specific place. And then there's Seville itself, with Christopher Columbus buried there, a reminder of that moment when the known world was expanding, unevenly, uncertainly. Maps at that time weren't just records, they were expressions of what was known, what was imagined, and what was still just beyond reach. So perhaps it's not that people saw the world as smaller exactly, but that they experienced it differently, more in fragments. more in relation to where they stood. And maybe that's what stayed with me, that sense that a map doesn't just show the world, it shapes how we think about it, whether it feels distant and abstract or immediate and just across the water. Hello and welcome to the show this week. Today I've got artist and podcaster Gary Mansfield with me. I've known Gary for years, long before he started his podcast, back when he was actually one of my students at the University of East London. Since then, our paths have taken different directions, but with a strangely similar rhythm. I spent seven years at sea sailing. Gary spent seven years inside. in prison. It's something we've reflected on over the years. How time in very different forms of isolation can shape a person. Gary's story is an extraordinary one. While serving his sentence, he began corresponding with some of the world's leading artists, connections that help guide him towards a degree in fine art and ultimately into a life in the arts. Gary Mansfield is now an artist, curator And the voice behind the Ministry of Arts podcast, where he has conversations with everyone from emerging artists to internationally recognized names. The podcast has grown into what's often described as one of the most inclusive art podcasts out there, cutting through the usual art world barriers with Gary's unmistakable voice and open, down to earth approach. What I've always appreciated about Gary is Is that he brings not just knowledge of art but lived experience of transformation, second chances, and that long road to finding a voice. And that's exactly what makes these conversations so compelling. So it's a real pleasure to introduce Gary Mansfield today. Thank you for joining us, Gary. Hiya, Si How are you today? ⁓ not bad, not bad at all, thank you. Good. Thank you for joining me. I'd like first to talk to you about changing identity. We've talked together about this before, how a massive trauma can change us and make us see the world and ourselves in a completely different way. Very much so, definitely. Well I had I had to change my identity. As you mentioned there, we formed prisoner. I went to prison when I was twenty-six. I was a a career criminal, but then I went to prison, got a a fourteen year prison sentence. I wrecked my family, I saw all my family upset, and it was through that and several other reasons that I thought I've got to change my lifestyle. And that's what I tried to do. But by changing your lifestyle, trying to be someone new, you've got to change your whole personality. And I didn't know how to do that. So it was a very long and dark process. And did that process start when you were in prison? Yeah, very much so. As I say, I saw ⁓ my opinion. my mum and my grandparents and rest of my family very upset that I'd got myself into this trouble, ⁓ gone to prison for a long time for a drug related offence. And I was like, I want to come out a different person that went in. And I didn't really know how to do that, but I knew it meant changing my lifestyle and ultimately my outlook. And that was the hardest the hardest thing. So it was this traumatic moment of being sent to prison. I mean, that is a is a huge shock in anyone's life, but I I'm assuming it took a while to get to that point. And I was wondering what was the first step in working towards this new you? Well, I'd say it was several things. And and luckily stars aligned for me. I had a lot of things happen in a relatively small amount of time that helped me in this process. The first thing for anyone is wanting to change. You can't change unless your heart wants to change and obviously and your mind. But wanting to change was the first thing. Then I was scrambling around in prison trying to find out how to change my lifestyle. So the thirst first thing was was to stay away from the crime that's going on in prison, try and change my attitude and figure out how to use those seven years wisely by training to get a job for my release. So at the time in the mid-90s, computers wasn't, it seems strange to say now, but computers wasn't where they are today. They wasn't a run-of-the-mill thing. It was not every household had a computer. But there was computer classes in prison. So I figured I would try to learn computers, possibly even programming, and get a job in computing when I was released. I couldn't get any computer class. So I went in the art class and the art class was just a sanctuary from all the madness that was going on on the wing. The art shooter was an amazing person. He just really cared for the students, stroke prisoners that was in his class. And he was just a a great guy. And I wanted to sort of please him really. And he just taught me to draw. I'd never done anything creative before. And yeah, he was just a great teacher. So you were sort of treated just as a a student, a normal person, not as a prisoner. And that faith in you as a person gave you the the confidence then to sort of start believing in yourself in that way as an artist. Yeah, and also looking at myself from the outside, if you like, when you're in prison, you have zero confidence. It's all or with guys as well. It's all on the surface. It's all macho. It's all You're pretending to be whoever you are in whatever conversation you're in. But when you stop and look at yourself in the mirror, honestly, and question yourself and your personality and your actions, it is a really difficult place to be. Because I always thought I was, I'm a lovely guy, you know, I'm a laugh, everyone's mate. And then I when I start looking at myself in the mirror, I start seeing the holes in my personality. And I was trying to look for the goodness that's in me, the good pieces and the bad pieces and try and expel the bad. Turned outside that I had like a bucket full of these bad parts of my personality that I didn't like, that I wanted to change. But there was just like a thimble full of good stuff. And at one point I even thought, well what's the point of me being here? There's nothing to to me. I'm I'm nothing apart from this bravado. And it was quite a dark moment. But I did focus on this little thimble full of shiny bits of my personality and just tried to make them grow, you know. I I just wonder how many people actually take that time to look at themselves and 'cause we're busy with our everyday lives, in your case, being in prison and probably lots of time where you're on your own to reflect. Definitely. But I I think most of us rushing round don't. I was sailing for seven years and I spent a lot of time, maybe a couple of weeks at a time on a boat with other people, but predominantly on my own. And I d I do think it's something I I'd reflect on a lot from when I've spoken to you in the past. How time passes. Seven years for me sailing and your seven years in prison. They're sort of interesting ways of reflecting on time, aren't they? Well, I know that on the f on the first day at uni is when we met. You come to sort of get to know the students and we was in my studio area for For some time having a conversation. I don't know if I touched on it at that time, but I definitely reflected on it later. When I was in prison, my ideal dream, my ideal situation would be in the middle of the ocean, not seeing any concrete or walls or buildings. Just I saw that as total freedom being in the ocean. And then I'm speaking to you and you saying that you were on the ocean for seven years. And it was it was as if you were filling in the gaps that. my my want wanted, you know, like being at sea for seven years was that would have been my my dream then. I mean, in p in practice it probably wouldn't have been for me. I probably wouldn't have made it out of the harbour. But ⁓ being at sea was was the thing that I used to dream of. And then I'd make someone who'd done it for exactly the same time. But going back to when you you were in prison, you had this sort of inspirational tutor, at some point you decided you wanted to take this further and and university. But I'm just thinking in that situation of being in prison, does the library there is it good enough for you to get to grips with learning about art? Yeah, no, none whatsoever. The the library, it had two types of books. One would be about the old masters, and the most current type of artists would be Matisse and Picasso, who had been, you know, dead for some time. But other than that, it was Rolf Harris's cartoon time was the next type of art books, you know, how to draw cartoons. And so there was a massive void in between. And it just so happened, it was that massive void that with my small amount of knowledge, that was what I was interested in, was the time between them. And then just by chance, I come across the Sensations catalogue being an exhibition that happened in the mid-90s at the Royal Academy, being the likes of Damien Hurst. Sarah Lucas, Tracy Emmin, that that era of people. And I'd I'd already written to an artist previously just by chance. So and and had a reply. So because I'd discovered this conceptual art, which beforehand I always thought was just the type of art anyone can do. But after seeing and reading the Sensations catalogue, I just fell in love with conceptual art and that's what I wanted to be. ⁓ and it was so strong. was that feeling of change that I often referred to myself as a born-again artist because it just happened overnight. Because after I'd read that catalogue, I wanted to be a a conceptual artist. It just blew my mind. So I asked the education department to photocopy that entire catalogue. And in the back of the catalogue it it give information as to what gallery represented which artist. So I just ended up writing to every artist. In that catalogue via their gallery, asking for information on them and their career and this new thing that I'd discovered. And I figured that fishing with a net and writing to everyone would give bigger results than just sort of writing to the odd one or two, you know, like fishing with a line. So yeah, I wrote to all together, it was 32 artists, just hoping that one would reply. But Out of that 32 artists, 28 replied. 28 people replied to a stranger who was in prison. It it just blows my mind. And it was it was that that made me want to shift from this life of crime to this new life. And they'd given me that that option. One artist called Gary Hume literally said to me, We want people like you in this new art world we're trying to carve out. So to me. That was like an invite on the guest list to a nightclub, you know. Doesn't matter what anyone thinks of this prisoner, I've got an invite into this club and it's from, you know, Gary Hume, you know, he's a massive artist. And ⁓ yeah, so I'm part of it, whether anyone likes it or not. So that boosted my confidence. And I guess suddenly you're not just a prisoner, you're a person who's got the potential without judgment, to you know, that that does give you confidence, I think, doesn't it? Well, that was a that was when changing my personality become quite easy. That was a big step because as I mentioned earlier, when you're in prison you feel like you have little dignity, little pride. But when all of these artists replied to me, and like you said, they was treating me like a person, not a prisoner, that gave me a huge, huge bit of confidence. And that was made that transition into an honest person, or a straight goer as we would call it made that a lot easier. Because I already had people and proof that they would look at this person who was trying to make an effort to be straight and change his life and personality, that I've already discovered that it works. There's people out there who would accept. Exactly. And and so when you got all these replies, did that immediately start to affect the kind of work that you were doing? Immensely. Because beforehand, I wanted to learn to draw, paint and sculpt in a traditional sense. And you know, the the artists that I'd read about being Picasso, Matisse, and the like, that's all what they'd done. And then I've met this new group of exciting people who just create work that is a 3D representation of a story. And it just blew my mind that you can do that. And that then all of a sudden I wanted to learn that and I thought, that's easy. Anyone can do that, you know, cut a cow in half or Pitch up a tent and put names inside of people you slept with, like Tracy Emin did. But then I discovered just how difficult it was to create a convincing 3D representation of the theory, image, or idea that you're trying to put across. And it was just so difficult. And then, but when I'd sort of done the first one, I was like, ⁓ I'm on to something here. I didn't understand what I was doing, but I discovered. That it was similar to all of those people that I had just discovered. That just reminds me of when I was at college when you have that Eureka moment where you be making things, but then you suddenly do a piece and you maybe it's a bit awkward and you don't understand it at first. but then you realise that you can interpret and it is saying what you want it to say without it being too literal. And there's a an immense sat satisfaction with that, isn't there? Yeah, very much so. But it was that thing of Where I didn't know art, the only art I knew was the six weeks or two months I'd been in prison. So I had no concept of art history. So it just felt to me like everything I was reading was correct. I couldn't have an opinion on it because these people were correct. The critics who were talking about an artwork were correct. So I'm just agreeing with them. But then when I saw the sensations catalogue, I was saying I can do it. So it can't be it can't be hard. because I can do that. There was a postcard that was being used for a bookmark and it was Mona Hatoum's No Way Two. And it was just a colander upside down with nuts and bolts through the holes. And when I saw it, I literally said out loud, that isn't art. That's a trip to B and Q and a ten pound note. How is that art? To me, art was standing in front of a canvas for for weeks. or sculpting a bit of marble or wood for for weeks. It wasn't walking down to BQ getting a bag of nuts and bolts and sticking them through the holes. And I just couldn't connect how people could see that as an artwork. But what I find, if you give people a bit of time, you know, you might not some person on first impressions might not be your cup of tea. But if you give them a bit of time, take away your opinions and just listen to them for a minute, then you can Find there's a a few gems and there's more in common than you think. So that evening the tutor allowed me to take that catalogue back to my cell and I read through it and it was still, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that. But then I looked at the postcard that was being used as a bookmark and it was an image by Mona Hatung, and it was the colander with the nuts and bolts. And there was a little bit of context on the back, and I can't remember exactly what it said. But it was along the lines of Mona Hatoum is an artist who was born in Palestine, moved to Lebanon with her family, came to the UK to study, regime change at home. She couldn't get back, parents couldn't come out, she'd lost all connectivity with her family. And the colander represented a dome over the homeland, over Lebanon. And it's a feminine object. And the nuts and bolts were seen as the officials locking down any entrances and exits. So her family were underneath this colander and all of the light and freedoms had been taken away with these nuts and bolts. And possibly because of my environment at the time, I saw myself also as underneath the colander and not able to get out. My freedom had been taken away. And it was that connection that all of a sudden I started looking at this art in a different way. I understood what she meant. At that moment, and she said all of that with just a trip to BQ and a £10 note. And that blew my mind. So then I opened up the catalogue and started looking through, trying to look at it from this new direction without my biased opinion. So I was just looking at it and trying to understand what the artist was trying to say to me. And I couldn't get it in in most of them. But one that meant a lot to me at that time was Marcus Harvey's. Myra because everyone hated that artwork because of the image, not because of what he was trying to depict in that image. And it was made with children's handprints, which I saw as vile, first of all, and as did ⁓ most of the nation, you know, and fellow artists were throwing inks over it in the Royal Academy when it was on. But all of a sudden, looking at things from these new eyes, I just saw it all in a different light. And as I say, I didn't quite understand what I was looking at, but I started to appreciate what I was looking at. And that's what we all do with with people as well, you know, like I mentioned earlier. As soon as you start looking at people through a different light or from a different angle without your bias, then you learn to appreciate the person more. And those that that sort of correlation between looking at an artwork and rethinking, looking at people rethinking. was a key thing in my life going forward because I was so judgmental before, took people on face value, made a decision there and then, I don't like you. I don't like your artwork. It was that same thing. Give a bit of time, then you go, I I appreciate that person. I still might not like them, but I appreciate ⁓ understand ⁓ And the same with the art. And it's both of those things have have made me at that time want to change. You know, that was a shift in my personality. The first shift in my personality was that. Kind of waking up. And it's so, so difficult to ⁓ change your personality. And like I've said to people before, who, you know, not many people have gone through that where they have to change their personality. And I say to them, you know, if you support Arsenal, for instance, try and change your try try and change it and support Tottenham. That's how difficult it is to change a part of your personality. I think it is sort of human nature, isn't it? you know, not just within art, but any sort of change it is really hard to do. But that wake up call though to seeing one thing differently. And and then the beauty of having your eyes open to a world of possibility where you see things differently because your mind is open is very rewarding in itself. Because you've worked a little bit harder to understand something that you initially reject and you may not like it afterwards, but you maybe have a better understanding. And then you can sort of turn that to your own way of working in terms of like, well, how do I read my own work now? It sort of changes all of that, doesn't it? But then that's that's what I think that's the advantage I had going into university because I'd like that correlation I was making between my personality and the view on art. And it was the view on art that that kick started me looking at myself. I am so open, genuinely open to criticism of my artwork, because I'm also so open to criticisation of me. Because I've gone through this change. I knew that even at that point, I knew it was a massive leap to try and change one's personality. It's so, so difficult. But at the same token, if I'm doing an artwork, if if I was doing a painting for instance, and someone came along and said, that ain't quite working, that bit there. Rather than just go, that's what they've said, so I'll change it. I will look at my artwork and go, Right, that's they're saying this about the eye on this portrait, for instance. Are they right? Is this what I wanted to do? So I would question them and but be open to questioning myself as well. And then I might go, Yeah, they're right and change it. Or, No, I feel like it's what I'm trying to achieve. They're not wrong. They're just, you know, got a different opinion. But then I started doing that about myself as well. When people would say to me, you're you're quite impatient, or you, you know, you're butting a lot, or you always think you're right. I can accept that, but it's also a part of me. I can't I can't change it. I'm not doing it purposely. I'm not trying to talk over someone just to get my opinion across. It's because it's just the way I'm I'm wired. And I I do say to people, whatever this is that you're speaking to today, whatever you think of this person before you. It is so, so much better than the one that was several years ago. The one you didn't meet. The one you didn't meet was he wasn't a nasty person. He had these broken morals, you know, he had he was looking f at the world with a through a broken pair of rose tinted glasses, if you like. But the what what's before you today is is such a different person to to what was before. And I think you've used that self-knowledge in a very creative way, not just in the art world, but how you treat other people and see the world and what potentially what your ambitions are in the future. Well, I think it's because I've realized how difficult change is in in yourself. Most of the time it does take big impacts into your life to to make a change, to reflect. Because most of us think, well, I'm a nice person. I'm on my own little train track in life. What I do is correct, but you it's as if you're never open to criticism. And so many people take criticism quite badly. But I'm quite open to to what anyone says about me and my personality. I won't take it to heart because when I first started as an artist after university, I was trying to tell everyone about me. I've just come out of prison. But I realised very soon that that was wrong. No one wants to buy into just this one person who's saying, look at me, you know, I've been to prison and I've changed ⁓ you know, give me a break. It was bigger than that. It took me a long time to realise that I should be making work about the reasons that I went to prison, the reasons that I was aggressive. And just it was a society thing. It it wasn't a me thing. So then I s I ended up looking at people who were homeless, for instance. Many many of us would walk past and not even see them or sort of make eye contact. But then I'd look at people and think, well, how did they get there? I know how I got to prison. You know, there was a whole lot of history behind me. I am just my life didn't start when I walked into prison, which is how many people might see a pris an a prisoner or ex prisoner. I start looking at homeless people and thinking, you know, they're also marginalized and And sort of not looked at addicts are the same. You know, it's they're just sort of downtrodden and look down on people, but there's such a story behind everyone. And it was that story that that I wanted to put into my art. So from there, obviously you leave university. How do you begin to do that? I absolutely loved my time in university. I'm not just saying it because you're here. I've said it since I left university. I was so open and absorbing information and I just had a great lot of tutors that were there, a great ⁓ class of students as well. We were so diverse. We had people from every background, every race. We had people who was like in their sixties and just come out of sixth form, who were 18 years of age. And I got on with everyone. It was such a strange thing because I'd been in this testosterone-filled, aggressive macho environment of a night. And that's what I should stay. I was coming to university from prison. At the end of the day of university, I would have to go back to prison. And that was a real complication in my mind to switch from one environment, a very liberal, friendly environment, where I should also say. There was women, because for seven years I'd been interacting with men. Now I'm interacting and you know, it's not a hard thing to do, but it's it was a a new thing to do. The only women I'd interacted with were female officers and family members. But then to have someone who you could sit down and have a conversation with, I found that really difficult because normally in jail, it would all be a macho talk, or it would be on the surface. Although for the last few years I'd started breaking that down and being more open and honest with people, getting rid of the bravado. Because I knew that I couldn't take this ape into the art world. It wouldn't be accepted. When I'm sitting having a conversation with someone and they might be talking about their night out where they've met a fella, for instance. You know, just an average conversation that a a twenty-five year old girl would have with someone. To me, them talking about going out. meeting a guy, that's something that was alien to me from the last seven years. I've not had an intimate conversation like that. Normally it's as blokes talk, well, as you can imagine, but it was just such a hard transgression from prison to university. And I do think that I possibly should have got a job or been free before starting university for a year. You know, I should have I think it may have been better for me to Just have a year of getting used to being free and then start university because that bit was really difficult. I know you went from one institution to another, but people come out of an institution and then do they get a job? Do they have a family to support them? And, you know, that is a very hard time as well. That adjustment to any new situation is very hard. You know, maybe that would have been the best thing. But equally you came out to a life That you could start to learn about new things and adapt th through that and a community. Well, I n I was aware I was very lucky, that's for sure. Once I was released, a fortnight after starting uni, I had to go and live back at home with my mum, who lived just a few miles from the uni. So it was all I was very lucky because so many people, as bonkers as it sounds, get given their forty five pound release money from prison and a tent because there's nowhere for to live. How bizarre is that? How is that supposed to stop anyone from recommitting crime and getting them to break that circle? So I was very lucky that I had a structure coming out. I had I had a burning in my heart and in my stomach to want to be this artist. I wanted to learn. So I was extremely lucky that I come out with that attitude. But what I didn't realise until a couple of years after I left uni that my classmates were receiving a person that was slightly damaged up top insofar as I was institutionalized from prison. Because on reflection, I didn't see it at the time, but on reflection, I was still this bloke from prison who had a prison attitude, or at least a 50-50 attitude, you know, that I was still a bit brash. I dealt with people a bit more directly, where normally you would step back and let the situation sort of come together. I would just go back in there. If someone was annoying me, I'd tell them they was annoying me because I wanted them to stop. Because that's what you do in prison. You know, if someone was being loud and bombastic, you'd say, excuse me, you know, well, you wouldn't say, excuse me, you'd say, yeah, you're annoying me, knock it on the head. And if they don't, then it goes elsewhere, you know. I was doing that in university and I didn't realise it it was happening. I'd done it to a few people and I didn't even see that happening. And that was a a big learning curve to me. I felt I felt such a bad person. But I do also appreciate that it wasn't entirely my fault. I'm not excusing myself for for my actions in in uni with the way I treated some people because it it was just coming from a person that didn't know how to live with normal, straight, nice people. I've just had years of living with not so nice people. But I also think what what we forget sometimes, we look at people and judge them and think we know th them, their background. But actually when you get to talk to people, people have things happening in their life. You know, it it's very easy just to assume everyone else has is having an easy time because we are always internalizing and self reflective, aren't we, in that way? Very much so. But I did come out with a chip on my shoulder, sire, that Everyone sees me as just a prisoner who likes to draw. I thought, I presumed that everyone would just look at me as this token that was being accepted because, we've got a prisoner here, he ticks a box. That's how I thought people saw me. And even when I went into the art world at the end of uni, there was a a seven-year hiatus. But even when I come back into the art world, I was thinking that everyone is just gonna see me as a an ex-prisoner and not a serious artist. And I never saw that in anyone. No one treated me any different. I was just going to move on to some of the things you took on after you left university. I know you stopped making work for seven years, but then I think face value was something that you curated and organized yourself. So you're moving from purely being an artist to taking on other roles. Well I stopped art To become a father. My partner fell pregnant right at the end of the third year. And I started a master's, but it became very apparent that I couldn't afford a master's and be a father. That the two wasn't working well. So I didn't have anything, I didn't read about art. I didn't talk about art. I just properly cut it out of my life. Just had nothing to do with it. Seven years later, ⁓ a parent took me to a Tracy Emmin event. I saw Tracy, spoke to Tracy, you know, I'd known her for a for some time. That kicked start me wanting to get back into art again. ⁓ or to be honest, she gave me a bit of a rollick and told me to get back into art again, you know. But either way, I wanted to come back into the art world, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. So I was working in a printing plant that We printed newspapers, the Sun, the Times, Telegraph, all of those. And where I was working was a massive wall. It was like thirteen feet square. Like it's not that massive, but to put a painting on it is. So I asked if I could do a mural and inspired by Marcus and his handprints, I said I would do a a portrait of someone using everyone's handprints that worked in in the factory. And I got the okay. And I loved the idea that they wouldn't know it was related to Myra Hindley. You know, I l I love that sort of there was still a little thing inside me where I was I felt like I was being a little bit naughty, because if they would have known it was related to Myra Hindley that closely, there's no way they would have said yes. But there was that little spark of mischief inside me. So we had a an agreement of the image that it was going to be, and it got put out to the workers, who do you want? And it's blokes. They wanted a page three girl, which I agreed to, but it was from just below the neck up. So it was this portrait of this female model and not knowing how Marcus technically put it onto onto his canvas. So I just started off just doing the handprints, all different sizes, all different tones. But I said, if I can't pull this off, then I I'm not going back into the art world. And and it it worked. There was like couple thousand handprints on it, people all across, and I was just quite proud of myself that after all of these years of doing nothing in art, that I pulled off something quite big through someone who was quite an inspiration to me. And it and it worked. So I was like, I'm back in the art world. And then that was it. Face value, like you mentioned, face value didn't start from how it ended up. I wanted to do A it was to do with identity and the forced change of identity because like I said, I've got 14 years in prison for a drug-related ⁓ crime offence. It was 4.2 million pounds worth class A drugs, but I had no idea class A drugs were in the bags that I w that I had. I always worked in fake clothing and the bags were amongst fake clothing, but that's by the by. I've never complained about that. If I wasn't on a criminal ladder, I wouldn't have fallen off it. So I don't moan about being set up. But I saw that it was a forced change of identity. But likewise, I wouldn't be where I was today as this new person, this relatively nice person who had a total different outlook on life without these people who set me up and ruined my life and who I hated for years. But I now I had that conflict. Although they ruined my life at the start, it's it's blossomed into something else that it never would have been. And also, the children that I had, they turned out to be different people than they would have been if it was the old me. So now they're just nice, honest, friendly, pleasant, empathetic people. I'd be happy to sit next to them on a bus and have a chat, you know. Some say they're a photocopy of me and my partner. Ob obviously they are. But if it was the old me, They may well be photocopies of the old me. You know, they might have started stealing and nicking cars, but who knows? Either way, I see them as as the sort of testament to how much I've changed. So I was doing a lot with change of identity and a forced change of identity at that. And I was looking at scars on people because I saw myself as being emotionally scarred. So I'm always carrying this scar. And there was an actor called Michael K. Williams. Who was on police programme called The Wire. He was in Sopranos and he had a scar from his forehead to his chin, which crossed between the middle of his eyes. I always thought it was makeup. It turns out he wasn't. But when I looked into him, he was a choreographer and he would choreograph music videos. And if he was in the video, he'd put himself at the back. You know, he'd he'd train all of the dancers. But after he got attacked on his 25th birthday, he was only trying to stop his friend being beaten up. But he got attacked with a a knife and had this scar down his face. All of a sudden, the the artists, the musicians that wanted him to curate their dancers, they wanted him at the front because this scar made him look tough. He made him look like a gangster. So they wanted him there forefront. But he was ashamed of of this. It ruined his his face, you know. He didn't see it as a positive thing. And self-instinct. So All right, he agreed to put himself at the front. Then this other rapper would want him at the front of his video. Then someone said to him, Well, why don't you become an actor? So he started acting and he got these roles as a villainous person because of the scar. But that's totally not what he was. And I saw something there about my past as well. I'm not that person. I well, I've got the scar, but I'm not that person. So we was going to do something with scar, or I want to do something with scars with him. Just by chance I contacted him on Twitter and he replied. Then we started chatting about the scar and he said, I'm in London in April. Let's meet up and we see about this project. So I wanted to do a project about scars and ⁓ how his life had been changed by someone and he wouldn't be where he was now. He was like not quite an A-lister, but he was, you know, the the second or third star in in a lot of these films. So his life wouldn't Be that like that, he would still be a choreographer if it wasn't for that scar, if it wasn't for those nasty people that done to him what they did, and likewise for me. So we met. He agreed to be in this thing, but we was starting talking about Katie Piper. And Katie Piper, ⁓ many years ago, 2008 I think it was, she was a model that got attacked with acid. And it scarred her face as chest, she lost an eye. ⁓ her nasal passage had had rotted away with the acid. But she is now ⁓ a T V presenter, TV model. She's she's just a a T V personality. And I was questioning, would she be there without what happened to her? And well the answer's, you know, no. So these Tragic traumatic things can happen to people. And I'm I'm not saying my tragedy was anywhere near theirs, you know, but it's still fundamentally the same. So I was looking at that, this forced change of identity. And then I come up with the idea. the focus of this, this person I don't know is, you know. And ⁓ yeah, so I started looking at the the forced change of identity. So my way of and and their worth in society because because of the tragedy that had happened to all three of us, to be honest, our worth was increased later on as a person and in the eye of society than what it was before. So I was going along with that. So I thought, I mean, I've always looked at people's artwork as a an extension of their personality. So I've I wondered that if I was the villain and I put a scar on someone's artwork, would it still be worth the same at the end? So I put a shout out to several artists about this idea, saying, what do you think on this? Because I had no, you I wasn't completely confident on it. And a few of them come back, yeah, yeah, you know, it's sounds great. But I had a chance meeting with Sarah Lucas ⁓ at an exhibition. And I said to her, and and she, you know, obviously she knew my story. She I'd met her, you know, a dozen or so times, but obviously hadn't seen her for several years. And I said to her, like, you know, I'm coming back with this idea, and she went, That is I I love it. She went, I'll even give you an artwork to damage. Because the idea was for me to scar or damage the artwork. and she said, Yeah, I'll give you an artwork. And then once I've got Sarah Lucas on board, then that validates this stranger who's coming into the art world, you know? So I just contacted other people and said, Look, well, one of the first was Gavin Turk, who again is, you know, I've always looked at Gavin Turk, he's he's always been a huge influence. Knowing he's good friends with Sarah, I contacted Gavin, who also knew me from years ago and said, look, I've got this idea, this is what it is. Sarah's on board, she's given me an artwork. So, you know, Sarah validated me as if if you like, then Gavin did. And then that was it. I was just asking ⁓ other people, other friends. I also wanted to include either a student or a homeless person because I was working with the homeless ⁓ for for a little while. ⁓ Yeah, so I just wanted to get someone's artwork and damage it in some way to see if it would make it more unique, being more valuable, the input from this unknown person, or if it would slash the price of that artwork because it had been damaged. So the the ambition was you you take the artwork, it's then worked over by someone else, maybe a lesser known artist. Well initially it was all me. ⁓ so you're doing the first face value was me. So I have got like Jake and Dinos gave me a print, for instance. And I was only expecting a print. I was expecting a print by by them artists, you know, a a print might be three, four hundred quid. By a a lesser known artist it might be fifty to two hundred quid, you know. And I just wanted to do this social experiment to see if the price fell or rose, or even stayed the same. So for instance, Jake and Dinos gave me ⁓ a print, and for years they had used ⁓ Ronald McDonald as a focus of evil. ⁓ so I just put their print in a McDonald's drive-thru and let the customers drive over their print, you know, as if McDonald's were getting their own back on them, you know, and I was capturing this. So there was bits of when I pulled it away, there was ⁓ not tire print. marks. Yeah, yeah, tire impressions where, you know, it's pushed it into the into the tarmac. There was little bits of tarmac that had burst through the paper, you know. ⁓ that was one that I'd done. There was another artist that that made a a doormat with welcome on it and it was to do with Donald Trump, you know, ⁓ or unwelcome. But I put this No, sorry, cut that off. He made a large dollar bill ⁓ with Donald Trump on it. And at this time, Donald Trump wanted to be, this was like 2017, he was just making it known that he wanted to be a a president. He was going to build the wall for, you know, to block the Mexicans out. I went and put that large ⁓ dollar print with Trump on it outside the Mexican embassy so that when the staff go. in they would use it as a doormat and I captured that as well. And it was many things like that. You know, I would ⁓ Gavin gave me a a a print and because he uses his signature as a as as his brand, he uses it in his work. Just simply I wanted to just brand his signature. So I made a a little branding iron up out of a, I think it was a coat hanger. But either way, I made his signature as a branding iron. put it on the gas and then just branded the the artwork, you know. So they was all being damaged within context of the work or the artist themselves. That's when the exhibition came, I had 30 artists, all of their artwork had been damaged in some way. And I just said this is the price the artist has put on it. Does my influence in that artwork deteriorate the price or increase it? Pay what you like, you know. And what did you find? I found that well, that was a wrong one because I found that people just wanted to buy her cheap artwork. So they would like take the price. That I didn't see. But many people just come in and said, like, I'll I'll pay this for it. And I did leave the dot on there and take the highest price. For many of the artwork they went below. But it's still either way. It's still a social experiment with live results. ⁓ some took the price higher, ⁓ and a couple just took it at the you know, the asking price as it were. When I'd done it the next time, it was different. So the money raised from the sales was that for charity? Yeah, so because I by this time I'd spoken to Katie Piper Foundation, who helped people come to terms or live with their burns and scars. And what was apparent, one of the dilemmas is, if I'm taking Sarah Lucas's artwork and putting my influence on it and possibly, you know, devaluing it, whose artwork is it? If I'm included, is it is it anything to do with me? Can I give them back if it doesn't sell a damaged artwork? So I decided that all of the artwork would be donated to the charity. Not just like it normally would be, the the money raised. I donated all of the artworks to the charity. And, you know, we tried to sell as well, obviously. But yeah, so everything was donated. So it would eliminate the issue of who owns what, if you like, you know, and and what to do with the damaged artwork after if it didn't sell. But Obvio obviously the face value went very well and you you've done second and third showings of this, haven't you? But slightly different. Was that basically your first introduction to working in this way? You sort of moving into installation rather than just object, working with other people and yeah, the charity. 'Cause I I I know you've sort of doing a lot of work with prisons and you're on some charitable trusts as well, helping people and that's Obviously very close to your heart. Well it's all that thing of giving back Si you know. ⁓ I don't know what it is that made me a criminal. Like looking back, I don't know where it started. I put it down to knock down ginger and loving that knocking on someone's door running away. I love that bit of the chase. But then where most people stop at knockdown ginger, we would me and a couple of friends would see policemen in their car at the lights and we'd go and like throw an egg at their car windscreen to get a chase off the policeman. As bonks as it sounds, it's just taking that upper level. And I'd done that in the crime world. That's how I got into crime. But likewise I can't see the exact point which made me turn. There's several points, all the lying that made me want to stop doing crime and being a criminal to being this straight person or artist. I know there were several points, but it was that thing of making me wanna change. And I know I mentioned earlier about it going back to my family being upset. It also went there was a few other elements where I thought, I don't want to be part of this art world. But I knew that once I changed my attitude, it wasn't quite plain sailing, but that was the hardest bit to do, was change your attitude. So I figured if I can go back into prison and I'm aware that when I start talking, I know I get quite enthused and I I always have and but I had this knack when I'm talking to people not in the art world, I realise that I have got this knack of making them interested in at least my work, but that's still cracking the door open to the art world to someone that that may not have been in it before, you know. And when I go into prisons, or I decided to go into prisons and try and do that. And after being in there four or five times, I sort of started realising how I can get people infused. So when I go in there, every time I go in there, there's someone comes up afterwards saying, how can I do this? How can I do that? So it it's capturing that one person. I know it's an old cliche that if it just helps one person, but I get that every time I go into jail. So you know, the every time I've gone there, there's one person that, even if it's just for a week or so, they They might look at art in in a different way, look at themselves in a different way. That's where I'm trying to go with it. And I know that it it works properly because I've had a couple of emails. The first one, it brought me to tears side, to be honest. I went to a YP, ⁓ a young offenders prison called ISIS. What a bunker's name for a prison. But it's in South East London. And at the time it was Young Offenders. It blew my mind there because I saw that a lot of these kids got pushed into crime by older kids or even their parents, they didn't have a chance in hell. Even when they're released, they get taken on again by the gangs or their parents are pushing them into it to get them cheap drugs because their parents are addicts, you know. But I was talking to them and sort of trying to show them that to look at things on a different angle. And a couple of years after that, I got a direct message off of a guy who said that I'd gone into ISIS while he was there. ⁓ and when I was saying to them Just do anything creative, even if it's poetry, you know, matchstick making, trying to get them to use their mind in different ways. He said that that kept in his mind, and he took up plumbing while he was in there. When he got out, he'd done a plumbing course. Now he's a plumber and he's just looking to start his own company. This was like about four or four or five years later. And man, just to see that I've got proof that that one person, you know, he'd done all the hard work, but I I threw that little seed and you know, threw a little drop of water on it and and walked away from it hoping it might grow. And just seeing that person, man, it it just blew my mind. And and it it can work. It works. Everyone can change, you know, no matter what their background. And I've and obviously your, you know, your your evidence that you if you believe you can turn things around as well. Well what I've discovered, Sai is over the years, it's not the people who are already involved ⁓ that need the work. They they can that you know, they need to have a seed planted. That that's fine. The hardest thing in society are the people who have got the attitude of they're in prison, lock up, throw away the key. They are really stopping progress in the criminal justice system. because of that attitude. Fair enough, you know, they may have been burgled, they may have been mugged on the street in their time. But they're they're causing such a block in this flow through society because they're stopping people change or giving the opportunity for the government to even change their look. You know, we've been putting people in prison for hundreds of years and it don't work. You know, we're now like hitting like 90,000 people in prison. The country's on its knees. It needs a different way of doing things. And all the time, these people, and many of them, are saying, Lock them up, throw away the key, you know, that we don't want them in society. They're all going to get out one day. They're going to have someone who went in as possibly a used and abused young adult. And they're going into that environment that we're making into a factory of hate and despair. And they're going to come out. not a nice person. You they're coming out a tougher person than they went in. That can't be right. We're we're just doing bad for society by saying lock them up and throw away the key. So when I make an artwork, I focus on that person because I want them to look at my artwork and go, Wow, that's powerful. And then they hear my story and go, wow, he's come from prison. But he's not an and this is what I've had very, very often. yeah, but you're different from the others because you tried to change You know, you made the effort. But my answer, n not normally as straight as this, is there's thousands of people who are trying to change. You know, there's that lad who who'd become a plumber. He went through that exact change I did. It's just that I'm putting my head above the parapet, he's putting his head down and doing a day's craft. But I'm letting people know that there's people like me here who can change. So they can't in my head I see that they can't look down on other people from prison trying to make the effort, if they're, you know, looking good on me. I see that I am sort of representing people who do try to make that change. And if that person I know this is it's rambling a bit now, but but if that person who says, Lock up and throw away the key can accept me, why can't they accept that young lad who's become a plumber? Or that that, you know, young girl who's who's pulled away from the environment that were making her ⁓ or pulled away from the gang that are making her hold drugs or hold guns or hold knives, you know, through through faults and intimidation. People just change and and it's the lock up and throw away the the key brigade who need to just pull back a bit and and let good stuff be done. Exactly. It's about being allowed that chance or that opportunity. Sometimes I think the art welcoming and generous and accepting of other or outsiders, I think. So where does this take you now? Are you making your own work or still working with charities? ⁓ So currently I'm working for an addiction charity called the Forward Trust as an art consultant. So I visit all the hubs around the country trying to make up art programmes for to follow. And through a conversation on my first day there, the service users who are the people going through recovery, they get updated via a smartphone. If they haven't got one, they get given one. So I figured smartphone, camera, we could do the first thing we can do is photography ⁓ project. Street photography was my idea. That has progressed so much so that I ended up getting funding for an exhibition, for a street photography exhibition. Someone Donated £6,000 funding for this exhibition that I was just happened to be talking to, who was a charity funder, to be fair. They've promised another few thousand on top of that to make it happen. It's going to be held in November at the Photographers Gallery, which is without doubt the the country's leading photography gallery. So yeah, I'm curating that exhibition. Well, and the project itself, which is going to be starting very shortly within the next week or so. And that sort of thing is really feeding my fire at the moment. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing that when it comes out, Gary. And talking of recommendations, I think I've reached the point where I ask if you'd like to recommend something, whether it's a book, film or play. And without preempting you, I'm going to make a guess on sensations catalogue. Am I right? No, it's it's always a sensations catalogue. Well, thank you for joining us today, Gary. It's been lovely speaking to you and very informative. Good. it's been so much fun for me as well. You know, I always reflect on my life as part of my practice but doing it with with an old friend who was there from the the start of my freedom, it really does make it something quite special.