Creative Times

Is there such a thing as a typical day?
I’d like there to be, but no, not really. I sometimes just work in the studio, but not that often. But it’s handy to know that things are where you’ve left them. When I did the project for The Lowry, I spent two months going out – when I’m doing projects, I just work where they are. I do work when I go away, and find other ways of working: taking photographs; writing things down; altering things that I find.

Are there specific things that inspire your work?
Generally, things that I see, and that I’m not looking for. So, I may be going from A to B, and something catches my eye. I make a note of it, and take a photograph, and try not to make any judgements about it, but just see what stopped me in my flow. I come back to things I was looking at five years back, so there’s a network of things I’m interested in. I’m just looking around my studio now and it’s a complete tip, so if it’s a library, it’s random. I sometimes think it’s all the same thing.

I’m interested in stuff whose main function is to carry information, from billboards to packaging and signage. It’s repulsive and attractive in equal parts.

Do you have a set method of working?
The work depends on each idea. Sometimes you don’t do any work – some of the photographs were taken as notes, but when you put them together, they’re more than the sum of their parts. Other things require making, so it’s about being sensitive to the potential of something, and thinking how I’ll go about it.

Is there a theme that connects all your work?
When I was at college, I was a painter, and it was never quite satisfying. I ended up more interested in the objects I was painting on. I was looking at sculptors making stuff out of waste material, and that wasn’t it, either. I’m interested in a hybrid – stuff whose main function is to carry information, from billboards to packaging and signage. It’s everywhere, it’s repulsive and attractive in equal parts, and I’m interested in breaking the language down so we look at it in a different way.

What are the tools and materials you need to work?
A camera and notepad. I have stuff in the studio to take stuff apart – scalpels, scissors – and I’ve just bought a circle-cutter. This morning I bent a beer can, so I didn’t require any tools, though I did need a straight edge. I haven’t got regular tools, I basically wait – I’m hesitant about buying a set of tools because it implies I know what I’m going to be doing to the things I find. I pick up a lot of stuff, off the ground, or in shops, or recycled, but sometimes you can’t, so I photograph it, or make notes that act as text-photographs. For me it’s about seeing a reinvention of something everyday – seeing it afresh, unweighed by expectations. It’s giving them a new lease of life.

Transformations 3: Panoramia, until Sep 5, Promenade Gallery, The Lowry, Salford Quays. www.thelowry.com

Image: Transformations 3: Panoramia at The Lowry

Leo Fitzmaurice was talking to Tina Jackson