You have worked and lived in very different cities and countries

You have worked and lived in very different cities and countries - from a provincial town in the north of England to Sydney, Australia; Skane, Sweden; Amsterdam and now East London. How have these different cities, countries and continents influenced your work?

Well, there’s some obvious ones, like I always say, an artist should portray what is around them. So in Australia in 2008, I did pieces on Bondi and Coogee, where I lived. In Sweden I lived in the Oresund area, that also took in the Danish side like Copenhagen and Helsingor, and Lund, Malmo, Helsingborg in Skane in Sweden and I made a body of work based on this area as well as many Swedish pastimes, from midsummer girls to snus pjoke (snus boys) made from the pockets that had the fades from the tins of snus [ed. smokeless tobacco, pronounced to rhyme with ‘goose’]. Now in East London, you see the changes. While born in Yorkshire, my grandad was from East London and he wouldn’t recognise the place now.