Striking Kamp – How the Wolverine of British art creates his layered emotions

Vince: The Wolverine of the British art scene

British painter Vincent Kamp was named Artist of The Year 2017 by Talented Art Fair.

In yesterday’s blog, he talked about his upcoming short movie about a heist at the Ritz Club in London. It is based on a series of paintings he created.

He has also been collaborating with singer Sam Smith on a series of paintings.

But an earlier success was another series of linked-narrative paintings.

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JOHN: Barber shops. You went round barber shops and created a series of paintings… Why?

VINCE: I was at a motor bike show and there was a barber shop there. I was there to research the bike guys, but I saw this barber shop where there were three or four guys with a fantastic look – tattoos and all the rest – and they had this 1920s feel about them. So, even though I was there to photograph motor bike guys, I asked if I could photograph the barbers too and then I started painting them and the paintings went down really well on Instagram – people were really excited by them – so then I went to see those guys in their shop in East London and asked: “Are there more guys like you?”

“…There must be other things going on…”

And they said: “Yeah.”

This is a massive community of really creative, interesting people.

So I started to think more about and visit these barber shops. And these guys are doing quite well, have a fair bit of money but, I thought: They can’t be making this money from just cutting hair! So I started thinking: There must be other things going on. And I came up with ideas of crime behind the scenes.

Guys just cutting hair is not necessarily THAT interesting but, once you imagine these guys are doing something else… When you get your hair cut, you end up telling the barber everything, so maybe they are hearing about all sorts of stuff…?

JOHN: And this barber shop series was a turning point for you?

VINCE: Yes. I had been selling art for a long time, but…

JOHN: Selling it where?

VINCE: Just around. There are lots of art fairs around London. Manchester and places. You hire a space, a little booth. I had a booth. You put your paintings up and people walk past turning their noses up, because people love abstract art and pretty colours. They see Renaissance Art type stuff and they think: Oh! Old-fashioned rubbish!…

I thought I would never get anywhere but, when I started painting the barbers, that’s when it started resonating with people and I started to get a lot more interest. That was about two-and-a-half years ago.

“It started resonating with people and I got a lot more interest”

That was when I could quit working at my full-time other job. So I have been a full-time artist for about two years.

But, really, I think another major turning point was just before I did the barbers stuff, when I studied in Rome for a couple of weeks with one of my art mentors, an American artist called Sean Cheetham, and he gave me the feeling I could do something. That gave me self-belief, but I just kept chipping away. That is the thing; you have to keep chipping away.

JOHN: You’re not interested in abstract art – random triangles, Picasso and all that?

VINCE: No, I’m not. I appreciate that people like abstraction, but…

JOHN: The Renaissance is seriously complicated, detailed stuff.

VINCE: Well, I’m a realistic painter, a representational artist.

JOHN: That’s more difficult than painting triangles.

“It is the ‘idea’ people buy. That is where the art really exists.”

VINCE: Yes but, at the end of the day, that is just ‘craft’. The ‘art’ is the ‘idea’. There are tons of people who can paint way better than me and representational ‘craft’ will get you so far, but only so far. It is actually the ‘idea’ that people buy and that is where the art really exists.

Even the old masters would maybe paint face and hands and have students filling in everything else… but they had come up with the original ideas, the composition.

Love him or hate him, Damien Hirst comes up with the ideas, the marketing, the brand and he has other people do the work. But why should he do the work? Someone else can repeat what he tells them – the spacing of his dots, the colours that are used, any number of different things. People say: Oh, my 5-year-old could do that… Yeah, but your 5-year-old DIDN’T do it. And YOU didn’t do it. HE did it and HE was successful.

There is so much more to it than just producing a piece of art that’s impressive. There are so many people who are brilliant at painting dogs or children or whatever else. But it’s only the people who own the dog or own the child who want to buy their painting. Because there is no real story; the idea is not interesting enough; it’s just a piece of craft work.

JOHN: Painting is dead, isn’t it? You do reference photographs and you can do creative changes with Photoshop and you can sell prints of your work successfully – which you do. Why bother actually painting at all?

“…Prints are just not the same… They flatten everything out…”

VINCE: Prints of paintings are just not the same. They flatten everything out; there’s only a certain dynamic range you can do with a printer, so a lot of subtleties in the darks and the blacks and the shadows will just get turned to black by a printer. You won’t see all those different subtleties.

Oil paintings are painted in layers and, because light goes through all these different layers of paint and reflects back colours, it has a very different feel when you see an oil painting in real life compared to a print of that oil painting.

One of the big things about my art is it’s expensive. The people buying it like the art, but also they know that there is only one of these. When you buy a Lamborghini, ten people down the road could have the same car as you. You have spent £250,000 on a car and you don’t have the only one. Whereas, when you buy an original oil painting which has had many hours of thought and work go into it, it’s a completely different investment.

“…People really get quite emotional about my paintings…”

People are emotionally attached to it. People really get quite emotional about my paintings, which is the greatest thing ever for me; it’s the biggest rush; I get goosebumps when I think about it. When they tell me how much the painting I have created means to them… well, a print of the painting will never mean the same thing.

JOHN: So I can’t appreciate your paintings as prints?

VINCE: You can still appreciate them, of course, because the story is still there in each print, but you know the artist’s hand hasn’t been involved. There’s a different emotive, visceral thing that comes with an original that has been created by a human being. A print is a photograph of an original that has been reproduced. It’s not quite the same thing.

TV and film spoon-feeds you everything – the characters, the plot, the story, the whole thing.

“What happened leading up to the instant captured by that?”

But a painting is one instant and you decide what went before and after and what the back story is…

What happened after that moment?

What happened leading up to the instant captured by that paining?

And that is what people do. They write to me to tell me what they think is going on. Everyone sees something slightly different.

JOHN: Do you take commissions?

VINCE: No. I haven’t got time and I don’t want to paint someone just because they want to be painted. I’m very busy and I paint what I want to paint.

Edinburgh Fringe magnifies comedian Malcolm Hardee’s testicles and objects to Charlie Chuck’s English grammar

Charlie Chuck- What the duck is the Edinburgh Fringe doing?

(This was also published in the Huffington Post)

Now, make no mistake, I love the Edinburgh Fringe. One thing I like about it is its freewheeling, hands-off nature. Anyone can perform at the Fringe; the Fringe Office itself merely acts as a central not-really-controlling-anything hub. They charge you to put your 40 word listing and perhaps an ad in the Fringe Programme. But it is very relaxed and freewheeling.

In theory.

Except for the fact that they appear to have thrown away the spirit of the Fringe and gone in for mindless bureaucratic stupidity this year. Two examples:

1. THE GREATEST SHOW ON LEGS

This admirably anarchic, occasionally naked-balloon-dancing troupe have already had problems, with the PBH Free Fringe refusing to allow one of their members appearing in a show on the PBH Free Fringe to appear as part of the Greatest Show on Legs in the Laughing Horse Free Festival. (It’s complicated – I blogged previously about it.)

But the Greatest Show on Legs ARE now performing (with special guests standing-in for the missing member – yes, I said the missing member) at Bob Slayer’s Alternative Fringe venue The Hive (administered as part of the Laughing Horse Free Fringe). When I left for China three weeks ago, they were going to be performing for three days in the final week (and on the Malcolm Hardee Awards Show). Now they will be performing for five days in the final week (and on the Malcolm Hardee Awards Show).

So they paid for their entry in the Fringe Programme, which includes a tiny photo. The words were:

Famed naked balloon dancers, The Legs return to Edinburgh with extraordinarily eccentric comedy sketches and surprise guests. “Surreal and anarchic comedy” (Huffington Post), “Anarchic high point” (Guardian), “Manic and riotous” (Chortle)

The photo (which I have reproduced here at the size it would have appeared in the Fringe Programme) is on the left. I say “would have appeared” because the Fringe refused to run the photo, saying:

The man on the left of image, is not fully covered by his balloon. As this is a universal publication – one that is read by adults and children – we need to be sure that every image included is suitable. We therefore require you to either use a different image, or photo shop the existing one to ensure that the balloon is covering the entire area.

This was news to me as the photo has been run elsewhere, at a more visible size, before.

But, indeed, when I viewed the original image at full-size, I could vaguely see something and, indeed, if I looked at it at 300% original size, I could see what I think is the shape of the bottom of the late Malcolm Hardee’s testicles. I suppose I should be more certain as, with most comedy-goers of a certain age, I saw them often enough.

Bob Slayer tells me: “I said to them (the Fringe) if they really had to Photoshop, then to do a very subtle blurring but don’t add anything to the image.”

He also asked to see the Photoshopped result, but never did until a couple of days ago, after the Fringe Office was chased-up. They had changed the photo to what you see on the left… with an entirely new third balloon plonked over the offending vague shape. A ridiculous piece of over-kill, not part of the Greatest Show on Legs’ act and, as far as I can figure, it would be completely impossible to actually perform the act with this third balloon. Ironically, the Photoshopped picture is a load of bollocks.

So, a couple of days ago, the new picture you see on the left was submitted, although it is quite difficult to find colour photos of the Greatest Show on Legs with the late Malcolm Hardee (who is obviously a marketing point). Watch this space in case this one is rejected too. The Fringe appears to have gone control-freak mad. Which brings us to:

2. CHARLIE CHUCK

Cirque du Charlie Chuck is the new Edinburgh Fringe show from a man whose act goes far beyond utter nonsense. The words submitted for the Fringe Programme were:

Vic and Bob’s sidekick, Fringe legend Charlie Chuck, back with cabaret, organ-playing, drum-smashing mixed-up magic, with burlesque bits of French songs and lady assistant. ‘Masterpiece of oddity’ (Scotsman). More scary, more weird. Plus a latex suit.

The response from the Fringe was:

Thank you for your recent registration for the Fringe Programme. I have taken a look at your form, and the copy for the Programme is over the word limit, as some words were missing, as per below:

Vic and Bob’s sidekick, Fringe legend Charlie Chuck, IS back with cabaret, organ-playing, drum-smashing AND mixed-up magic, with burlesque bits of French songs and A lady assistant. ‘Masterpiece of oddity’ (Scotsman). More scary, more weird. Plus a latex suit.

These words are required to be added to make sure the copy is in our house style.

Warm regards,

Katie McKenna
Programme Production Assistant

Note the phrase “These words are required to be added”. Not “suggested”… “required”.

It is worth mentioning at this point that Charlie Chuck was paying almost £400 (OK, it was £393.60p) to have these words put in the Fringe Programme to advertise and promote his show. I can’t imagine The Times or the Daily Telegraph or the equally respectable Guardian objecting to the grammar in a paid-for ad in their hallowed pages.

The Fringe also mounts ‘roadshows’ advising performers how to publicise their shows. One of their annual gems of wisdom is that the Fringe Programme entry is the most important and effective piece of publicity for your show and every word used should count in marketing your show. “Cut out every unnecessary word” is the Fringe’s advice. No mention of adding in an unnecessary “is” or “and” or “a” or of having to use fully-grammatical sentences.

It is also worth mentioning that Charlie Chuck is secondarily listed under “Absurdist” by the Fringe Programme and his shows often start with the words:

“Ay and beway, flippin de bow-wow. Donkey. Woof-bark. Donkey. Woof-bark. Donkey. Woof-bark. Donkey. Woof-bark. Woof-bark.”

And that is one of the more coherent parts of his act.

I think he could justifiably argue that being forced to write a fully-grammatically-correct Fringe Programme listing would be professionally damaging to his career.

When the Fringe was pushed on this mindless idiocy, the reply came:

It seems your show copy was over the 40 word limit when you resubmitted.

(It actually was not over the limit at all and it was resubmitted via the Fringe computer which does not allow over-length entries to be submitted.)

We do attempt to make the copy grammatically correct. Looking at your show copy, I woud (sic) suggest that the first sentence needs a verb, which on (sic) of our team has put in. I don’t see the ‘and’ you refer to in the proof sent. I think ‘and a lady assistant’ reads fine. However, it largely up to you, (sic) as long as your copy adheres to the style guide found on edfringe.com, is grammatically correct and within the 40 word limit (including your show title) it can be run.

Martin Chester
Publications Manager

At the time I write this, the Fringe appears to have accepted an entry from Charlie Chuck which reads:

CIRQUE DU CHARLIE CHUCK
Vic and Bob’s sidekick, Fringe legend Charlie Chuck’s back with mixed magic, cabaret, organ-playing, drum-smashing, burlesque bits, French songs and lady assistant. ‘Masterpiece of oddity’ (Scotsman). More scary, more weird. Plus unexpected latex suit.

Let us hope they do not refuse to run the almost £400 paid-for ad on the basis that the last two sentences are not, in fact sentences. But, it seems, this year at the Edinburgh Fringe mindless bureaucratic stupidity rules.

Why I am pictured in Mensa Magazine (twice) holding a man with an erection

How did a man sporting an erect penis with a dog on the end of it get published (twice) in the current issue of Mensa Magazine, the glossy monthly publication for members of British Mensa?

And why am I holding the man?

Well, that’s an interesting question. Thankyou for asking.

Sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and pay close attention.

Preparing for Edinburgh Fringe shows in August tends to start way back in December or January each year.

I am organising Malcolm Hardee Week in the final week of the Fringe – basically two debates, two spaghetti-juggling contests (anything to get noticed at the over-crowded Fringe!) and a two-hour variety show during which the three annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards will be presented.

I am normally a shrinking wallflower where self-publicity is concerned but, because I am chairing the two Malcolm Hardee Debates and there are precious few other photo opportunities, I had some pictures taken, courtesy of lecturer Peter Cattrell, by photography students at St Martin’s College of Art (where, it turned out, no girl came from Greece, though they did have a thirst for knowledge).

I had brought along a giant dice box for no reason other than the fact it looked interesting. Student Cody Cai had brought along a pair of comedy spectacles and student Kerstin Diegel took a photo of me wearing the glasses and holding the box.

I remember thinking, “Oy! Oy! Malcolm Hardee could be Photoshopped into this, popping up out of the box!”

So now, dear reader, we have to take a time trip with wobbly special effects transitions back into the mists of last century – probably to the late 1990s, when the world was young and the Twin Towers still stood in New York…

London photographer David Tuck took some photos of comedian and club owner Malcolm Hardee, including an iconic one of Malcolm apparently doing shadow puppetry with his hands – you know the routine – you link your open hands together, flap them and it allegedly looks like a bird – except that the shadow on the wall behind Malcolm looks like a dog and, with the shadow of his arm included, it also looks like he has a giant penis rising out of his groin in the foreground… with a dog on the end of it.

David Tuck cannot remember exactly when the picture was taken, but it was a couple of weeks before Malcolm opened a short-lived comedy club in Harlesden, which would make it the late 1990s. Memories of Malcolm seldom come with exact dates.

David tells me: “The image Malcolm originally had in mind was that he would be doing a simple bird shape with his hands and a magnificent eagle would be the shadow image. This was before the days of Photoshop so, to get the image onto a piece of black and white photographic paper, I had to cut the image out of card and physically lay it on top of the picture during the darkroom process.

“My abilities with the scalpel weren’t exactly up to creating a photo-accurate eagle in full flight, so we talked about other possibilities and, when he mentioned a dog, I thought: Yeah, a dog I can do!

“I remember afterwards someone saying that it was funny because it appears to be coming out of Malcolm’s flies, like some sort of shadow penis. Just to set the record straight, that wasn’t the joke. I didn’t even notice until someone said it.”

From such random accidents do iconic photos come!

For anyone who knew Malcolm, it will come as no surprise that he never actually got round to paying David Tuck for the publicity photos he took and that this shadow puppet photo was used widely for years afterwards without David ever getting any money or even any credit for taking the photo.

When I used the photo on Malcolm’s website after he drowned in 2005, I found out David had taken it and have always tried to give him credit for it.

Around 2006, comic Brian Damage, at heart an arty sort, was playing around with images. Brian says:

“I was in the middle of my second or possibly third mid-life crisis. (You lose count after a while) It could have been age-related or something to do with giving up smoking or both.”

He played around with the David Tuck photo of Malcolm and basically ‘cartoonised’ it.

I thought it was excellent and got Vinny Lewis to design a poster using this image for all subsequent Malcolm Hardee shows at the Fringe.

Vinny had designed occasional artwork for Malcolm’s Up The Creek comedy club and had created the printed programme for both Malcolm’s funeral and the first Hackney Empire memorial show in 2006.

He added a coloured background to the cartoon and played with details.

So, when I got the St Martin’s photo back from Kerstin Diegel, I got Vinny to Photoshop the Malcolm shadow puppet image into the photo and the result is now available for The Scotsman or anyone else to publish to plug Malcolm Hardee Week at the Edinburgh Fringe.

‘Anybody else’ turned out to be Mensa Magazine who printed the image on the contents page of their July issue and, inside, to illustrate a piece on Malcolm Hardee Week.

I suspect it may be the first time Mensa Magazine has published a photo of a man displaying an apparent cartoon erection with a dog on the end of it. Their defence is clear – that even David Tuck and (possibly not even) Malcolm noticed that the shadow was of an erect penis.

It’s a funny old world.

You can see the photo here.

It was created by Kerstin Diegel, Cody Cai, David Tuck, Brian Damage and Vinny Lewis.

Nothing is ever simple.