ARTISTS TALKING

These profiles introduce artists whose practice focuses on painting

Included are profiles of Matt Golden, who uses his studio more as a place for trying out ideas and Nicky Hodge who is represented by the Danielle Arnaud Gallery in London.

Matt Golden

After my degree I had no concept of what it was like to be an artist. All I had was this stubborn belief that I was going to be an artist. I went for one approach - the na? one - and worked every day in the studio and rummaged in skips to find materials before realising this wasn't the way forward.

A strategy fell in to place when I started working in galleries, as that's when you start to meet people and make creative friendships. You can't really do anything in isolation. That idea of artists in the studio 24/7 doesn't really apply to art today.

I wouldn't say I wasted time but I had three very unfocused years. I found myself in a rut. I had no money but that starts to fuel creativity and it gives you something to kick back against, so maybe it's not a bad thing really.

A residency I had at B16 Gallery was pivotal. I'd left college as a painter and I was struggling with carrying on painting. But I couldn't commit that sort of time to painting and needed a way of working that wasn't so labour intensive, so I could survive as an artist. The residency gave me exposure and that was important because people in Birmingham started to recognise me as an artist.<

There are so many people out there who you don't recognise as artists because they're just working away in their studio. You have to do more than that. It can be far more useful to go out with artists and have a drink, or go to private views and arts events.

I have a studio but it's more of a space for trying things out. Much work is done at home on the computer or looking through magazines for opportunities.

An important point of collaboration is OHNe. We four had common interests as artists and musicians and have worked on a number of projects. We've played at Liverpool Biennale, Ikon Gallery, Cubitt Gallery, Mead Gallery, New Walsall Art Gallery and Grizedale. I've also found it liberating for my own practice because when there's four of you you're not so precious about ideas.

I make a living from my art if you consider my practice as including being a freelance technician and running workshops, amongst other things. I think being an artist today is not just about making work and selling it or exhibiting.

Through working at the Mead Gallery I got to meet Simon Patterson. I had a solo show coming up in The Gallery at Stratford and the curator Annabel Longbourne suggested applying to West Midlands Arts (now Arts Council England – West Midlands) to get a Creative Ambition award to pay for a mentor, which I did. I wrote to Simon to ask if he'd be interested, and he was. I definitely feel it helped me to make the most out of the opportunity of having a show.

I'm currently applying for MA courses, as there comes a point when you need new challenges and you need to make new creative friendships. I need to consolidate my practice and move it on.

The crucial thing is that you can't be an artist in isolation. That romantic idea of getting a studio and working there every waking moment, it doesn't work like that.

If I was a tutor at college I would say to my students, 'go and work for a gallery or the biggest institution in your town, and go and work at an artist-led space and if there isn't one, set one up'.

Matt Golden studied BA (Hons) Fine Art, Leicester de Montfort University (1993-1996) and starts an MA in London in September 2003.

Nicky Hodge

My practice revolves around painting and drawing. I tend to work small-scale, the most recent being paintings in series, using landscape as a metaphor, playing with the idea of loss. I take Polaroids in parks of flowerbeds for example, deliberately moving the camera so that the images are blurred and details erased. The paintings that derive from these indistinct images are further enhanced by memory and are more about absence than presence.

I graduated in Fine Art and Critical Studies as a mature student from Central St Martins in 92. After college I wanted to concentrate on producing work rather than exhibiting and getting a studio was a high priority. It was through one of the open studio events at my Vauxhall studio that Danielle Arnaud first saw my work in 95 and this eventually led to a solo show at her London gallery in January this year. A solo show at Whistles in St Christopher's Place in 99 also came about as the result of an open studio contact.

I have subscribed to [a-n] MAGAZINE for a number of years as it provides essential information about exhibitions, residencies and other possible career opportunities. It was through it in 96 that my application for exhibition at The Drill Hall was positively received and I was able to show my Confinement drawings. As a result of responding to another advertisement, I will shortly be taking up residency in a sheltered housing scheme in Camberwell working with older people, as part of the Artbridge project organised by Paintings in Hospitals.

Out of necessity, I have generated a 'portfolio' approach to my work and am constantly renegotiating ways of generating income from art-related practice. Having originally studied English at Kent University, I have been able to combine my skills by undertaking freelance editing work. Between 96-99 I was the assistant editor for Make magazine and, more recently, have provided information on art galleries for a Time Out shopping guide. I also co-wrote in 96 The A - Z of Art book, and this year a selection of my Polaroids was included in the Women Artists Diary published by the Women's Press.

For an update on Nicky Hodge's career go to Artists' Profiles Index

The writers

Libby Anson is an independent professional, creative and personal development consultant, who also works as a freelance lecturer and writer.

Abigail Branagan is a freelance consultant and marketing director of the Applied Arts Agency - a retail and gallery space in Clerkenwell, London. Originally trained in fine art, she has been working in the creative sector for eight years and has undertaken projects for a range of organisations, including Mazorca Projects, London.

Mark Gubb is an artist based in Nottingham working in a range of disciplines from painting to installation to video. His installation and film commission for Grizedale Arts references classic British horror and its cross pollination with American culture. A lecturer at the University of Derby, South East Derbyshire College and a regular contributor to a-n's publications, he is also co-director of artist-led initiative Loadstar.

Wendy Mason is a designer-maker in Yorkshire who also works as an arts consultant and trainer.

Graham Parker is an artist, critic, curator and lecturer involved in artist-led initiatives in Manchester. His work has been commissioned by Henry Moore Institute and Tate Gallery, Liverpool (Artranspennine), Manchester City Art Gallery, Compton Verney, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. He has shown extensively in the UK and internationally. He is Visual Arts Officer at Salford University and co-course leader of Tate Liverpool's University Network MA course module and artistic director (with Dave Beech) of floating ip project space Manchester.

Emma Safe is an artist and writer on the visual arts based in Birmingham.