Charles Avery

Charles Avery is one of the most exciting new artists to emerge in the UK in recent years. Born in Mull in 1973, Avery has worked across a range of different media – using large-scale drawings, models, diagrams and text – his work throughout being characterised by what has been described as 'formal beauty, humour and a spirit of philosophical enquiry.' His most high profile project to date was the epic 'Islanders', where, over a ten year period and inspired by his childhood on the Inner Hebrides, he described the topography and cosmology of an imaginary island. This year Avery was chosen along with five other Scottish artists to represent Scotland at the prestigious Venice Biennale.

SN: How has the experience of the Venice Biennale been so far?

CA: It's job done really. The installation period was great. Nice and relaxed, lots of pottering around and eating great sea food, tottering off to a bar with a couple of good chums in the evening. Things got a bit more intense when the jet-set landed for the openings. I thought the show was great – Scotland's I mean. Everybody involved acquitted themselves very well, so it was definitely something to be proud of.

SN: Would you say the Venice experience is helping to promote Scottish art?

CA: Vastly. For a start the curator, Phil Long, chose artists who were making very strong work. That might seem an obvious strategy, but the amount of presentations at Venice that are selected because of politics and over-zealous curating means that a lot of the shows are weak. I think the Scottish show looked – and was – extremely intelligent and pure.

SN: Tracy Emin is representing England at the Biennale, as is Willie Doherty for Ireland. Do you think Scotland will benefit by being represented by 6 artists?

CA: My first thought when I heard was 'That's too many'. It worked out though in the end. I think on balance it was the right thing to do. It is a big boost to young artists, but it wouldn't make any difference to the career of somebody like Douglas Gordon, who everybody knows about anyway.

SN: 5 out of the 6 Scottish artists at Venice graduated from Glasgow School of Art, do you think GSA still has a major influence on the contemporary art scene?

CA: Clearly. I didn't go to GSA. I moved to London when I was 20 – having twice failed to get a place at Edinburgh Art College! I don't really want to be associated with any particular scene but, in terms of the international profile of artists emerging from Scotland, the scene there is as disproportionately strong as an angry ant! There are many Scottish artists I admire, but no favourites.

SN: But presumably, the Hebrides was an artistically inspiring environment to grow up in?

CA: Yes, very, although I didn't know that at the time, but then I wasn't looking at it with a view to being an artist. I think growing up on an island and not really having other people around, certainly encouraged independent thought. My mother was an artist too, a wonderful painter, so that helped. She painted on the wall of our cottage a map of our part of the island with little scenes of all the legends, in the appropriate places. I used to be terrified of the headless horseman.

SN: How would you describe your work to a stranger who knew nothing of it? Also, what and who would you say influenced you as an artist when you were starting out?

CA: I am always having to describe it to strangers who know nothing of it! My spiel at the moment is that 'I am creating a philosophical allegory in the form of drawings, models and writing, and that ultimately I hope to encapsulate the whole project within a leather bound book of encyclopedic proportions, and it is the book that will be 'the work'. Then the ball is in the stranger's court, and we take it from there. My influences are too various to mention, but few come from the arena of fine art. Earliest influences include: Beatrix Potter's Ginger and Pickles, G.B.Shaw's 'An Intelligent Woman's guide to Capitalism, Sovietism, Fascism e.t.c' I can't quite remember the title, and 'Back to Methuselah'. Alice in Wonderland. Winnie the Pooh, Woody Allen, to name but a few.

SN: Was there a specific moment when you got the inspiration for your 'Islanders' project?

CA: Yes, but I can't remember when. I remember coming home and telling my girlfriend (now wife) and she was very encouraging. I had been working for some time on 'The Book of All Knowledge'. It wasn't literally meant to be 'all knowledge' but was based on a dream my father told me about, which he had had. The dream went as follows: My father was standing on a shore on Mull, in his swimming costume. A little out to sea there was an island with some nubile girls, and they were beckoning him. He was about to dive in, when he felt a tap on the shoulder. It was three erect sheep, wearing cloaks. The head of the triumvirate drew himself up and said, 'Baaah. Come with us. We'll show you something much more interesting.' He weighed his options and decided to go with the sheep. They led him off to some heathery knoll, on which there stood a lectern with a large tatty book. He described the book, as having lots of indecipherable intersecting lines, but that when he saw it, he understood everything, meaning the universe et al. I liked the idea of 'A book of all knowledge' the simplicity of which belied its title, and set about creating it. Of course the project threw me into all sorts of metaphysical reverie. I got very involved. I was having all sorts of ideas which were all pulling me in different directions. I needed to find a way of uniting them. As I was not capable of uniting them intellectually, I hit upon the idea of creating a place, where I could articulate them spatially instead. That was when the Islanders project was born.

SN: Do you intend to revisit the project?

CA: Well I will never leave 'Islanders', so visiting will not be possible. I intend to dedicate the rest of my life to its expansion.

SN: You have quoted a few writers and poets as inspiration in the past – William Blake, PG Wodehouse etc. Is literature an important source of inspiration for you and, if you hadn't been a visual artist, do you think you could have been a writer?

CA: Yes, although I am not well read. I'm not good with novels as I resent having to pour over four hundred pages just for a few choice insights. That's why I like Wodehouse. His structure is amazing and it is peppered with great language, although the books are repetitive I admit. JD Salinger is the writer I most admire. I have some very good friends who are writers. It is immensely attractive from an outsider's perspective. Just being able to go anywhere and ply your trade with nothing more than a laptop appeals to one's minimalist sympathies. But I know it's not as simple as that actually. A large part of my Islanders project is writing though. I write well I have been told, but I am slow. I need to find my own voice. When I draw I just draw in my own way. I never think, 'right, how I am I going to draw this'. I need to have the same approach to writing. I guess it's a question of confidence. I have some very good mentors though, so hopefully they will help me through.

SN: What are your plans for future work, after Venice?

CA: In September I am participating in the Athens Biennale, and directly afterwards, in the Lyon Biennale. I will be taking part in a group show at The Drawing Room, in London, called 'Every Eye Sees Differently As The Eye', a tribute to William Blake, and in July I will be in a group show curated by the artist Matthew Day Jackson at Alexandre Pollazzon Ltd, London. In September 2008 the first major show of 'The Islanders' project so far will take place at Parasol Unit London.

SN: Finally, you work in London now. Do you have a favourite place in Scotland? Do you get back here often?

CA: Not as often as I would like, but I plan to try and move back to the Island of Mull as soon as it is feasibly possible, specifically Gorten, which is where my Uncle lives, and where I hope to one day.