S. A. Von Hell: A New Day (c. 1985-87)
One of the few things I have in common with Adolf Hitler, is that I too failed to get into art school; though in my case, this was St. Martin's, London, not the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and I don't remember being particularly shocked or devestated by the decision, unlike Herr Hitler, whose rejection would prove fateful.
For one thing, I had no training or background in the arts, and no discernible talent, skill, or competency as a painter. In fact, when I went for the interview at St. Martin's, I didn't even have a proper portfolio; I just had ideas and a kind of occult-pagan aesthetic that was heavily influenced at the time by D. H. Lawrence, Killing Joke, and Franz von Stuck.
My interviewers, unsurprisingly, were not impressed and weren't shy in telling me that they found my views to be disturbing and the handful of sketches for hand-painted t-shirts that I did bring along to be puerile. The punk insistence that all that mattered was attitude - who cares about composition and colour - failed to convince.
For one thing, I had no training or background in the arts, and no discernible talent, skill, or competency as a painter. In fact, when I went for the interview at St. Martin's, I didn't even have a proper portfolio; I just had ideas and a kind of occult-pagan aesthetic that was heavily influenced at the time by D. H. Lawrence, Killing Joke, and Franz von Stuck.
My interviewers, unsurprisingly, were not impressed and weren't shy in telling me that they found my views to be disturbing and the handful of sketches for hand-painted t-shirts that I did bring along to be puerile. The punk insistence that all that mattered was attitude - who cares about composition and colour - failed to convince.
Anyway, long story short - and as I've said - I didn't get a place on the course and the very small number of canvases I produced in the mid-1980s - including the fairly large phallic landscape above - have all been destroyed by damp or thrown away by my sister who was supposed to be looking after them for me in her loft.
For better or for worse, I decided post-St. Martin's to reinvent myself as a poet rather than a painter - and then, later, as a philosopher-provocateur. But I miss playing around with paints and have promised myself to one day produce some new pictures, if only for the sheer pleasure of covering a surface with something other than words.
