Zupa talks to Andy Inch, a painter from London. Find out more about his art, school, jobs and life in Brixtion. I met him in Windrush Square.
folks we are here with Andy with a painter and you you come from London yes yes yeah I was born in London brought up in Kent and moved back to London then yeah all your life you spent around London most of it now yes I came here in the 1980s and then it was very easy to find somewhere to live because there was a lot of squatting so many people came to Brixton who were interested in art and forming bands making Music Theater all those kind of people who came here so it was a vibrant like a hippie place oh yes yes it was quite a few famous bands who've now come and gone have come from around here and what they've come from around here right like it was in the 80s
oh Jimmy Somerville and bronsky B that was it yeah I remember then that was the 80s they used to live in the flats where I live a band called underneath kind of rock band
oh and the Bloody Valentines too they they were around here I remember them I remember Belinda and who plays Bass with them and that I see I see and now people say bridgeton's gently fight but I think that's a good thing she can't stay the same because you said you lived in north of London and then you moved well I was born in North London but I know I lived there when I was a baby and I don't really remember it all right but uh let's get back to the art yes we went to an art school yeah camberwell oh and what did you study
painting and printing Printing and painting and printing and okay so well we will follow your work and we see you see how you're doing it's amazing to see this coming to life yeah I don't usually work outside I'm just making sketches really that I will use as bigger paintings that are done in a studio all right so this is the watercolors yeah so you're a new thing to me watercolors I don't usually painting watercolor it's a very hard medium because you can't overwork it and I have a bad tendency to overwork things do too much yeah you can you make a hole in the in the paper yeah yeah you mustn't do that you can do that with drawing but not with watercolor it's fun how you're putting blue color on the on the trees will they eventually be green yes yeah at the moment I'm just painting in monochrome in one color I'm gonna go home then I'll put other colors on all right so it's a quick sketch yes it just look at the darks and the lights really I see I see and do you sell your pure art sometimes you have summer paintings my oil paintings you sell your oil painting so that could be an oil painting later one day it could be an oil painting yes and you're going to sell it bro I don't know maybe because someone will buy it and if you sell it how do you you sell your pictures very cheaply very cheaply maybe three four hundred pounds three four hundred pounds for the how big is that the painting oh about all right I suppose four times the size of this size quite small and you you sell to galleries or mainly to individuals who see your work somewhere and ask if they can buy it and how can we find you on our social medias well I'm supposed to make a Twitter site but I'm still doing it with the help of my nephew earlier whoops I did this one at the street so I would leave it like that in blue and white which is basically dark and light and then when I get home I go over it all with colors you get one like that that's a the pond in Brockwell Park great so that's gone over with yellow and red really yes makes the green so I'll do this later on I'll do the same thing with this and then with this when it's finished in some ways it's maybe I should leave it like that but rather than overwork it I don't know see it now and I'll do some more you can decide if it's better now yeah I'll tell you which one I like
so you went to the art school and then you become a carer yes um not straight away no I had dozens of different sort of day jobs oh sorry
yeah I had dozens of different day jobs just did market research laboring teaching don't let me forget Supply teaching that was lovely work what did you teach I worked in the nursery so all he had to do was play with sand and water with all these marvelous little people there's a good way to earn a living but in the end it got too much because Supply teaching every day you have to go somewhere different and it is hard to get there on time and all this sort of thing so it wasn't like that's what I wanted yeah but they only really give those jobs to people who've had their own class as a as a nursery teacher I was only ever supplied oh it was such nice and uh the little kids they're so good at making art long before they think they can't draw or something like that you enjoyed that yeah I've still got some of the drawings I've still got some of their drawings and I reckon they're the best drawings in my collection better than anything I did because they just simply do it they don't hesitate or worry or anything like that they just create let's see I see all right and then you you say you moved eventually Well you ended up in in Brixton sometimes yes right ages in the 80s 83. you can see now you you local um yeah I guess I'm I live five minutes walk away it makes me local isn't it how do you find Brixton I love it I don't mind its changes you know people going about gentrification and things but it's just changing it was gentrified back in the I think the early part of the last century it was quite a salubrious place to live and it went downhill then it went uphill again and it went up again yes yeah I think now it's up now isn't it there are a lot of people who when I lived here you could buy a house for a few thousand quid and they bought them and now they're looking at a significant property so Vixen I remember the riots in the Brixton I think that was in the 80s 81 was the riot yes the famous run that's now becoming a kind of almost a tourist attraction really people get trips around to see where the they call it the people's Uprising it sounds nicer than Riot doesn't it but it's a positive kind of uh slant on it but riots aren't good things it's just um an excuse for shopping without pain he asked me is there something going around right now because I saw a lot of police going not that I know but things can erupt out of nowhere very quickly it's quite strange all right Andy and tell me about the the society in brixtons because I've heard uh recent mix you know it's so mixed a lot of recently it's not as many black people as as a lot of Eastern Europeans moved in yes yeah so over the years all different groups have come and moved in and moved out do you see any groups moving out wow Eastern Europeans you know after brexit a lot of them found it's not worth being here you know it's too much trouble so off they went have you noticed that yourself a little bit Yeah there's still a lot of Builders thank goodness because these people seem to build to a very high standard so if you get a Polish Builder you're in luck yeah yes it follows Builders yeah they're really good I think they had a kind of a manly pride in their work so they want to do a good job whereas perhaps English workmen they just want to get their money and go home and they're not bothered about craftsmanship or anything like that anymore it's my last thing interesting my view and you say as the builders left they aren't good money so I suppose they yeah I think a lot have gone and well you can see it with recruitment can't you that people can't find bar staff because it used to be not Eastern Europeans but anybody from Mainland Europe you know who've now been brexitied off as it were live fast stuff
and what do you think about the brexit situation well
I suppose people should remember like the black people is a huge variety of people it's like saying European people and then thinking someone from Denmark is like someone from Italy so black people's a big subject you know there's all kinds here but I always got all sorts of yeah from from the Caribbean and from Africa and okay I was asking about the brexit black brexittle brexit brexit uh well I think most people here would be in favor of staying in the EU I don't think it was very popular here all right [Music] what's your personal opinion about me I I wanted to remain as part of uh the EU I think it's best but yeah it's very divisive you know I've got a lot of friends who don't talk to each other anymore because of brexit that seems a shame to fall out over such a thing yeah I should ask you that question as the last one yeah in case we have a big argument yeah well I'm a foreigner so anyway you know uh I think I was so shocked when when it happened and nobody was expecting it immediately no and it's interesting that it was very divisive because it was 50 50. areas were more into it in some areas as well and I think it did work out as areas broadly speaking up north is against staying in the EU and down in the South they're more they're more into it is that the case I think so yeah I'm not sure I think it was also with the the age groups yeah older people want to leave younger people want to stay but overall in Britain it worked out roughly is 50 50. 50 50. that's the worst scenario yes yes this isn't it because half of the population is against the other half kind of but that's a very difficult place to be isn't it all right so you say you sell your work through word of mouth and sometimes exhibitions is what and exhibitions it's a shame it's not there now but there was an exhibition in the library it only finished yesterday I had some paintings there I could have seen them So you you're well known local artists now I wouldn't say well no but there are so many artists in Brixton it's a Arty kind of place you know I have to kind of place see that Andy what is your favorite part of London and I know very big Stone but that's got to be the South Bank along the river anywhere along the river really and the way along the river outside it's very nice yeah because it's I only recently found out being on the cruise on the boat that why why is it so nice because you're not allowed to have any advertisements okay you look at that it is not like Coca-Cola or anything like that it's forbid it's only one advertisement on the building there's all orix or building and that that was the case in court but they managed to keep it and this is the only advertisement on the river right it's a good point I never thought of that yeah it makes the whole of a difference that's why it's so special it was a very smart move for the city Architects to do that because if you want you while you're there you feel like in an ancient city you don't see well you see the buses but that's all you see the cars and everything else is like it used to be hundreds years ago yeah that's why I would agree this is anywhere around the river for me as well that's not like a part of London but anywhere around the river all right Andy and what about the UK what's your favorite part of the UK that's hard to say I like Scotland a lot because my dad was from Scotland and my parents lived up there a lot
which town Fort William for William yeah perhaps if you live there it's a bit like okay today is just like yesterday but the visit's lovely I love the Highlands you've got to have something to do there haven't you what did you do do there were you working Hospitality kind of hospitality work over though yes hotels restaurants things like that
all right Andy and if there is any advice to to upcoming artists do you have any whatever you do keep doing your practice whatever it is whether you're successful or failure if you keep working that's that's successful it doesn't matter about what else happens I think because it's important well said that's what I would say and practice make makes perfect yeah yeah you need the passion for for your art really if you want to be successful I would say yeah yeah you need you need to have your heart in it definitely yeah
alrighty and other any exhibitions that we're going to see your work soon no no that was the last one in the library for a while maybe maybe some places I'm not very good at promotion and all that kind of thing
right Andy and can you tell us more about like your favorite painters favorite painters so so many so many let's think
is there any particular period of of History well let's let's say someone contemporary David hockney I like a great deal because he's very well known and famous and so on and so forth but he's still doing figurative art rather than conceptual art or something like that and that that's quite encouraging and he does the most lovely simple paintings you know they're not at all full of big ideas or anything they're just simple Straight Ahead pictures which sounds dismissive but actually I think there's something quite what's his name David David hockney is an English artist Israel an English artist yes all right and what about the the big names in the past oh big names in the past you mentioned the Red Branch yeah Dutch art I suppose let's say that Charter so much like that I think it's kind of Dutch art that comes from Holland or or northern Europe are you like that yeah yeah cool German really I suppose yeah the Germanic yeah Gothic and that I love all that so you finished with your your I think so yeah we're not going to do too much and then I can do some more on it when I'm home well Andy thanks a lot for the interview I'm really sorry that you you don't have like a like a social media account where you can place your art that would be I will have it it's a work in progress yes but at the moment if you can find Andy in Brixton maybe some of his work are going to be in the library here or just here sitting around the city center yeah see me in the street say hello to me you don't mind saying your surname no inch i n s h Andy inch and it means thanks a lot for the interview all the best my friends okay
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