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Dog Fighting
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John LeKay: How long have you been painting for
and do you use oils?
Joe Machine:
I’ve been painting on and off for about eighteen years. I keep
mostly to the same style as I always have, using events from my
life, watering down acrylic, painting heavy with oils. I try and
depict as much of my environment as possible, my version of the
truth. It’s usually like that.
JL: The one of the
pit bull is very bloody and disturbing. What inspired this painting?
JM: I painted this
picture as a response to watching the 48th dog fight at
Southall Market, a gypsy horse market in London. My family are
Romanies; and dog fighting, along with bare knuckle fights, cock
fights and hare coursing, is part of English gypsy culture.
Brutality of this sort is acceptable with the gypsy fraternity. I
don’t endorse it, but it’s part of my past and something which I
have had to work with over the years. After this contest (the one in
the painting) I decided never to watch another dog fight. During the
match, one of the dogs was mauled so badly it had to be put down
afterwards. The other dog, the victor, ended up having one of its
ears removed. I painted it as I remembered it. I had to do it this
way. You don’t take sketches at dog fights. Romany people are very
suspicious, even of their own kind. The title of the painting
Until the last dog is hung relates to animals fighting to the
death, as is usually the way.
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JL: Is the woman
with beehive hairdo and red dress (with the Skeleton in a suit) a
portrait of your mother? Why the skeleton?
JM: My mother’s
last cigarette is a painting of my mother smoking herself to
death. My mother died in 1995 in a cheap hotel in a suburb of
Athens, while we were on holiday in Greece. I was very close to my
mother. She had a heart condition that nobody knew about. I found
her dead in her room one morning. Her death completely altered the
course of my life. Up until then I had been involved in crime and
thieving. I was self-motivated and mono-interested. After my
mother’s death, I began writing and painting about my experiences;
the fear of death and life became my subject matter. This painting –
my mother is gaunt and stick thin, fag in hand, skeleton leering
over her shoulder – was an attempt on my behalf to illustrate my
fear. I had to paint my mother as I felt she was before she died.
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JL: This one looks a
little like Egon Schiele, or a deflated blowup doll. Who is the nude
woman with the boney knees, yellow hair in a bun and choker?
JM: The blonde woman
in the choker is an ex-girlfriend. I could blather on about the
destructive relationship I had with her but it is probably
pointless. It’s a fairly early painting. I tried to show her as a
two bob slag, which was what I thought of her at the time. Painting
her and other women I have had relationships with is a way of
working out insecurities attached to myself rather than other
people. Painting this particular woman made me realise what I was
actually trying to get at was my own cheapness. People who paint
only paint themselves regardless of whatever else they might tell
you. Any similarities to Schiele are accidental. I don’t look at
other artists’ work. I don’t go to galleries. There’s a reason for
this.
JL: What about other
influences on your work?
JM: I don’t like to be influenced,
although it’s impossible to maintain complete originality. The style
of my work depends more on my physical or financial situation. I
work with few colours and mix them, usually because I can’t afford
too much paint. My grandfather painted like this, and his work has
influenced me more than any of the “old school” artists. Most modern
painters are mugs because they are obsessed with being artists
rather than finding meaning in what they are doing. What these
people are really after is celebrity, even though they might say
otherwise. They are compelled by a desperation for love and
acceptance. They make caricatures out of themselves.
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JL: Who is the sailor
with the sinewy oriental hooker in blue?
JM: The depictions
of the sailor are usually me. This is not so much from life.
JL: Were you ever in
the navy? You seem to paint quite a few Navy pictures like the one
of the sailor slashing the mans throat.
JM: I never stood
any chance of getting into the navy because of my criminal
convictions. To be honest, I would never have even tried. I never
had the bottle. I grew up in a navy town. Some of my school friends’
fathers were sailors. They were violent men. During my childhood I
often saw these men drunk and fighting each other, sometimes with
weapons. Some of my earliest memories are of violence. I remember
chucking-out times in the seafront pubs on a Friday night. Blood all
over the pavement, women screaming. For this reason, sailors have
always frightened me. They turn up in my paintings so often because
I like to address my vulnerability in relation to these men. When I
resurrect these men, I often give them my face, probably because of
my own involvement in violence and my nervous and often cowardly
behaviour.
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JL: Who
is the woman with the stockings sitting in the fancy red velvet
chair?
JM:
This is a painting of my wife Elise, painted while I was out on bail
in 2004. During six weeks, I managed to paint fifteen paintings and
did around eighty drawings while I was sitting around waiting for
the crown prosecution service to assess my case. In the end they
threw it out due to ‘unreliable’ evidence against me. I painted
Elise a lot because I spent almost all of that period with her. I do
tend to paint women a lot more. They are easier than men
JL: Do you usually work on wood and do you work
from photos, modals or memory?
JM: As I said earlier, what materials I use
depends on what I can afford. I started working on wood initially
because I had a load of plywood lying around in my back yard. I made
my own frames and bought some acrylic paint. In the past, I worked
like this out of necessity, but it’s something that I’ve developed
and carried on with, even when I’ve had a bit more cash. I work from
a combination of life, sketches and painting from memory. I tend to
paint people or scenes from my life.
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