Walk and Talk by Daniel Higgins

I have always painted since I was about 14, it used to be my Friday night entertainment before I was old enough to go out on the town. I grew up in Dorset, in the country and by the sea, tramping over old hill forts listening to The Velvet Underground on a walkman, wandering along the seashore and looking for old books and records in junk shops and eventually went to Chelsea art school to study fine art.

I live in london but paint out of my studio in West Dorset, in a beautifully ramshackle building in a old antiques quarter where it’s easy to shut the door and knuckle down to work at all hours-it’s obviously a very happy place to me. I’m in love with the sights, smells, sounds and actions of painting, all the ephemera and tools too.

I like painting surfaces, skin and textures - trying to capture a shiny surface, rough skin, fish scales. It’s quite like a puzzle, trying to figure it out. Colours are a similar challenge too, colours and highlights, shadows all made by putting colours next to each other.

Its like trying to paint the richest colour photograph , but also more than that, like trying to capture a memory. If it’s good it’s a window into a moment, if not - it doesn’t work. At best, painting is like alchemy, at worst it’s just colouring-in.

I’m very much in love with paint too, the chasing of the buttery oily colour around on a palette or on a canvas or paper, a deftness of touch is always required (and hopefully sometimes found.) I spent around 10 years as a professional musician putting out records and touring - it was a fun way of expressing myself, but pretty wearing on the mind/soul/liver at the same time.

I’m very much in love with paint too, the chasing of the buttery oily colour around on a palette or on a canvas or paper, a deftness of touch is always required (and hopefully sometimes found.) I spent around 10 years as a professional musician putting out records and touring - it was a fun way of expressing myself, but pretty wearing on the mind/soul/liver at the same time.

Playing music is a really immediate fix to the senses, instant gratification and instant expression, whereas painting is more of a slow burn, it’s calmer but the end result is a bit more fascinating to me nowadays I obsess about paintings more than songs I’ve written.

I’m always thinking or looking at people and objects for the next painting, the next portrait, next still life, there’s still plenty more.