An Interview With An Artist | Victoria Wall

Great art doesn't always have to have a meaning, the best art is fun, enjoyable to view and allows you to interpreate in which ever way you choose. Someone who has this down to a tee is the incredibly talented, Victoria Wall. With an imagination that knows no bounds, Victoria's work is an extension of her mind, visually documenting every thought and idea. I'm a big admirer of her work and, luckily for me, I was given the oppotunity to delve into the mysterious inner workings of her imagination...

Me: Hi, thank you so much for letting me interview you.

Victoria: Not a problem, I'm excited!

 

So, when & why did you decide art was the path you wanted to take?

I’ve always been artistically inclined, I’ve always been one for making different things and trying out lots of different ways of making things but in 6th form college I really got into my art, I mean in a very life consuming way, I came in every morning first thing and I spent the vast majority of my free lessons and lunchtimes in the art studio on top of my allocated classes, just making things constantly, I was really encouraged by the people I had around me in the studio and the freedom I had in that space. It was a very happy time for me which cemented to me that this is what I wanted my life to be like all the time.

 

Where do you draw most of your inspiration from?

I like to watch documentaries about a lot of different things and learn about really unfamiliar things to me like space missions and rare sea creatures and documentaries about different people who have conducted their lives in a different way to me. I like things that make me realize how small I am in comparison to the world. I feel that by watching these I absorb them into my brain somewhere so that my ideas will always be different and informed by unusual outside sources

 

Growing up in Southport, how has that influenced you as an artist?

It’s a very quiet place with a lot of pensioners which I think has given me a sense of patience but the town looks the same as it did 100 years ago, literally, I have postcards to prove it! I think it has made me very fond of traditional architecture and the preservation of old things. Southport is also a sort of mid point between being a town itself and being close to the city of liverpool but having open fields a very short drive away, I like the feeling of space but I can also appreciate the commodities of the city, I feel like this gives me a lot of versatility for future possibilities.

 

What effect do you want your work to have on other people?

I don’t usually have a specific goal to effect people a certain way with my work. Some of my pieces are carrying messages, but everything is open to interpretation. A lot of my work is made as pure enjoyment being translated in a visual form with no agenda. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone with my work, I think I can state that as a general rule.

 

How much of your work is reflected in you as a person?

A lot of people tell me that they would love to have a look in my little world in my head just to see how on earth I come up with some of the things I say and I think that is also the place from which my work comes from, the happiness and comfort of my perception which I have held on to all my life . Ideally my work is inseparable from me like a sort of visual projection of my head when certain ideas are filtered through it but sometimes it’s hard with time constraints and technical requirements for my work to be such a high percentage of me.

As a young artist, it must be quite hard to keep yourself discplined, what are your tips on staying focused?

I find that if I love what I’m doing then it is just a case of no question of motivation my work is just being done as much as breathing must be done and I work almost mechanically with my rate of production but for the million other times when it’s tough to get into work then I would just ask myself why I’m doing the work and find my own reason for doing it and my motivation will follow suit. Failing that, if work needs to be done and there is no time left for soul searching then I draw up a time table and stick to it rigidly and just get the work done and done well.

If you could collaborate with anyone (dead or alive) who would it be?

Vincent Van Gogh is my homeboy. I used to cry about how sad he was when I was little and I may have cried going round an exhibition of his letters a while ago. His paintings are something I have felt moved by since I was three so I would love to go and paint with him in a field somewhere in France.

(top-bottom: The Starry Night & Wheatfield With Crows)

 

Helena Bonham Carter would be an absolute dream to paint (that’s a collab right?) something about her face and public attitude just makes me happy and fall in love with her a little bit. I would like to have a life drawing session with her (not necessarily in the nude) once a week forever more and I would be a happy lady.

 

At the moment I would LOVE to intern at a studio in Berlin called Hort, I heard an inspiring talk by the owner Eike Konig and I was lucky enough to negotiate with his studio manager to have a poke round his Berlin studio when I visited in February, his ethic of having a studio of equals in a space that is safe enough just to artistically play is just my absolute ideal and it just completely felt like somewhere I am meant to be when I visited it, no one was chained to a mac and there was a wall of artist supplies. It felt like my bedroom as a professional studio.

 

How would you define your style?

Artistically I feel like I make whatever is appropriate to my brief but the consistent thing through every piece of work is my imagination that goes in the completely obtuse angle to everyone else, that is what separates my work as mine.

Fashionably I wear what I want to, usually five items of different patterned clothing at a time, modest, warm and unbelievably cohesive.

 

What would be your dream job?

I would like to have a studio of my own just to walk into every day and just make things all day, probably with cats and toddlers running about through something that’ll stain everything, that’s the end goal I think. I don’t have a medium I particularly feel drawn to, I like to use clay, acrylic, water colour, lino and screen print, origami, photography, collage and I like to make small books/publications too so I don’t have any clear direction in that way.

 

What 3 items would you save from a burning building?

Cat (would have already escaped so I wouldn’t have to save it)

My sister

My cuddly toys

My box of photographs.

 

 

 

 

If you want to check out more of Victoria's work click here now!

 

Thanks for reading x