Andrew Bracey Interviewed by Emily Musgrave
Andrew Bracey (born 1978, Bristol) is an artist, curator and lec-
turer, who is based in Waddington, Lincolnshire. Bracey graduated with an MA in Fine Art in 2001 from Manchester Metropolitan University and has since exhibited widely. His solo exhibitions include; Usher Gallery, 2014, Nottingham Castle, 2014; Manchester Art Gallery 2009; Transition Gallery, London, 2007; Wolverhampton Art Gallery, 2007; and firstsite, Colchester, 2006. He has exhibited in group exhibitions, in the UK, Europe, USA, China and Thailand. Andrew Bracey's practice hovers on the fringes of painting as it crosses over and expands into installation, curation, sculpture, drawing and animation. He often uses existing sites and the readymade as alternatives to the traditional canvas support for painting, creating tensions between the hand-made and the man-made. Within his work Bracey questions the role of the original, the reproduction (in print, online or in a catalogue for example) and exhibition display.
www.andrewbracey.co.uk @braceyandrew
AB: It's a piece of blue glass that is round and it has a blue thread that goes through a hole in the top of it. And then it has a white circle with a blue in it, all made of glass and it's something called an Evil Eye. It's about 8cm diameter by about half a centimetre in thickness, roughly. EM: So it's an evil eye? What does that mean exactly? AB: Okay so, an evil eye comes from the east Mediterranean region I think. I've come across it in Greece and Turkey and it's something that a lot of the people there would have either in their houses or they'd wear normally around their necks as a way of warding off evil spirits or evil forces. So the idea is that it looks out for the evil and thus kinda keeps that evil away because it's always looking for it, for you in order to deflect that away from you. EM: Does it have that representation for you, do you believe that? AB: I thought about it quite a lot about what I wanted to bring and I don't think I'm a superstitious person but I kind of do believe in something like karma. And I've got two weird kind of traits where I'll say that I do do superstitious things; I will salute a magpie if I see one magpie on its own and I've got an evil eye. So when I was about 11, just going up to secondary school, my brother gave me an Evil Eye, a little bit of glass to wear around my neck. Both of my brothers are older than me and had left home, I kind of look back now and psychoanalyse kind of a way of protecting me. Both him kind of giving it to me possibly, whether he would agree with that or not... and of me feeling protected from childhood. And then it broke and I lost it and so when I was about 15 I bought another one. And did the same, had it round my neck, and then when I was on my MA I went to Istanbul and I’d lost the second one I had bought in Greece and so I hadn’t had it for a couple of years when I was a student on my BA. And so I, I went to the market in Turkey
to buy a new one and then I read that you should barter in the market so I bartered so extensively that the person ended up giving it to me for free cause actually I realised I was bartering over pence. And then I'd had it round my neck again but I went back the next day and felt so guilty about the fact I'd bartered so much that he gave it to me for free that I bought the most expensive, biggest Evil Eye that was there with no bartering whatsoever. And when I came back from there and I put it up in my studio and it's been in my studio ever since. Wherever I've been the Evil Eye has pretty much been the first thing that I've put up. I kinda see this completely tying up with how I feel about the studio. The studio is a place where I'm consistently happy. Although there are lots of places where I'm probably happier at times or people I’m with. EM: Would you feel uncomfortable without it there? AB: Yeah I've thought about this a lot as well because it's not going to be there. So, I'm kind of seeing this as a bit of a test as I don't really believe it. I'm sort of not really superstitious, I kind of go 'Nothing bad will happen to me if I don't salute a magpie' but its something that I kind of choose to do and thus believe it’s something that I choose to do and the Evil Eye is the same. I don't really think that I'm going to be any less happy when it's not there, but this (the exhibition) is almost like a way to test that. EM: So when you were talking about bartering, was you going back to the stall sort of your own, enacting your own personal karma? Maybe you were making it for it before... AB: Yeah, completely yeah. I mean I felt awful so as soon as the person said to me ‘Have it for free’ I was like ‘Oh no, no, no, course not! I will give you the full amount’ and he wouldn’t have that he was like ‘No you take that it’s my gift to you, it’s my gift to you.’
So yeah, it was completely about me making up for something that I felt was unjust by taking it too far, yeah. I felt very guilty about that and this one was my way of appeasing my own guilt was to go and spend far more money on something I didn't really want at the time but, it's turned out that something, that actually the Evil Eye that I bought round my neck, I lost again and I never got another one for my neck but that’s always been in my studio and I've moved studios about and it's always been the thing that goes up. EM: What feelings do you associate with it? It sounds like you associate comfort? AB: Yeah, I think its comfort, its safety, its happiness. It's somewhere... I buy into the fact and I want to believe the studio is a place where good things happen and the Evil Eye, it's kind of story of its origins and everything buys into something that enables that to happen, so... I try to bring that sentiment that is kind of associated with it into the studio. Cause that's what I want the studio to be for me, so that's a way of enabling that to be. I guess it's a way of something physically imbued in the object and bringing it into the space and my mind set when I'm in there. EM: Do you also associate it with your brother? AB: I think that certainly when I wore it around my neck and that definitely was. With that one (glass) I don’t think I’ve ever looked at it and thought ‘My brother’ but it’s probably something maybe in the deep, so... EM: Yeah, I mean if it’s originally something that was comforting and protecting, it’s still kind of...
AB: It is but I don't think of it in that way. It could be that it is, but... EM: Would you consider it playing quite a large part in your identity as it's so involved in your... well not involved it's got a presence in your studio and therefore maybe your practice? AB: I think if I lost that one I'd have to get another one. So, but that's more about the Evil Eye and what the Evil Eye is as opposed to that object so I was thinking about that, you know, I was kind of going 'Maybe I shouldn't give this because I don't actually feel that precious about that single object, it's about that object stands for.' But then I was kind of going, 'Actually, that's the best example that I could think of that encapsulates what I think you're trying to do with the exhibition with it'. So, I think that what it represents with the studio is definitely part of my identity and I think that the fact that it's always something that's present in that studio space, apart from a little interlude where it's going to the church, I think that's when it becomes very much part of my identity, that's the thing that's most present in the studio. It's there all the time and so I think that that I suppose would be object itself, but as I'm saying that aloud I kinda go 'Well hang on a minute, I've had an Evil Eye for... how many years? Like 25 years of my life. It probably is part of my identity.' But I don't think so, it's not something that I'd, that I would say... maybe its principles of what I see in it, are. So the studio, the calm side of karma are definitely something that are part of my identity. EM: Would you be happy with it representing you, let’s talk hypothetically that you pass away and this object is left. Would you feel happy that this is something that might represent you, could it represent your trajectory?
AB: It’d be fine, I wouldn’t be there. (laughs) That’s kind of what other people would bring from it... yeah. It’s fine. EM: See, it’s quite interesting cause your thing is quite... It’s not disposable but when I’ve talked to other people there’s are things that they want to treasure and if it was lost they’d be quite upset, but because you have a pattern of just replacing it... AB: Yeah. It’s what it stands for, that’s the important thing. EM: Yeah, so you do think it works? It certainly does something, clearly but what is it? Can you define, for you? AB: I can’t think of anything else that I own that I have for such a kind of specific reason that isn’t a functional reason, I have it because of this meaning. I’m a bit of a hoarder, I’ve got loads and loads. Far too much stuff. The whole thing of the fire happening, like I’d save my kids. I wouldn’t go and save an object cause I kind of think well... ‘Everything is important and nothing is important.’ I don’t think I’ve got anything that I feel hugely sentimental about, if it was one thing. Like I’d be distraught if all my art books went. But I couldn’t pick one art book. I’d be distraught if all my art got destroyed but I couldn’t pick one artwork. And it’s the same with the Evil Eye, I’d kind of, I’d replace the Evil Eye I don’t know if there’s anything else that I’d replace. EM: One of my questions was, if you were in a fire what would you choose? AB: Yeah, my kids. EM: But what if they’re 25 and they didn’t live there anymore?
AB: Um... What would I save if I was in a fire? Um... I don't know. I kind of of- I'd try and save myself. EM: So do you have any thoughts on materialism then, cause you seem to be someone who isn't too bothered about object, exactly. AB: You see I guess it's contradictory cause I kind of say I've got lots and lots of stuff but actually I buy an inordinate amount of books but I don't really buy anything else. So I do, I buy food and I buy things for my kids and my family but I don't really buy anything else. I kind of think its contradictory because I've got a lot stuff, I've got far more stuff than my partner. But it's pretty much of one kind. I guess I'm quite a compulsive person, I'm quite an obsessive person. But it tends to be in a very directed way, but I also kind of have this attitude that is... what's truly important? That the fact that we're here and we're able to kind of talk to one another and be with one another and actually, that's you know, everything else isn't as important as that. I think that our culture puts far too much importance on material goods and objects. It baffles me why so many people want to go shopping on a Saturday and buy shitty clothes that they’re gonna throw away after wearing them a couple of times, I just don’t get it. It’s not something- let alone, I can’t see the attraction of going shopping, it’s like, worst things I hate doing. Give me a book, put me in a little bookshop and I’ll be as happy as Larry squirrelling away. Yeah I find our materialism baffling but it’s completely understandable as well. EM: Do you think that the association of memory is stronger than the object? AB: Yeah. EM: Why’s that?
AB: Because our lived experiences, what we've truly got. And for me I guess I forget quite a lot. But the things I remember and hold on to are very kind of dear and profound and meaningful and... objects are just there. And yes they can have meaning, associative meaning etc. etc. and I'm an artist I create objects, so it's contradictory what I'm saying, but it's always been, for me, what we experience, what we live through is so much dearer. We can't kind of replicate that or live that again, what we've got up there and it's truly ours as well, and objects are just... I don't know, I just don't have that relationship to them in the same way. It's the same thing, like we've moved house quite a lot recently and we've got stuff that's still in boxes that are unpacked and the longer they're in the boxes you kind of realise that you've just done perfectly well without all that stuff that if we unpacked it all would be about, you don't actually need all that stuff it's just that... we have it around us to make us feel better. Louise (Chalmers) said this morning about meeting the person, I forget where she said, in an African country and they had the necklace and a banana in their house and they gave the necklace to her...yeah... and then you twin it with that amount of stuff with the amount of stuff I’ve got at my house and I don’t really feel much of an attachment to it... so why don’t I just get rid of it? I don’t need it. EM: So do you, do you have sons? AB: Yeah, I’ve got two. EM: Do they know about the history behind this? AB: Yeah, I’ve talked to them about it, but... whether they were listening or not is a different matter. EM: Do you think it’s something that you think that they will associate with you?
AB: I wouldn’t have thought so. EM: But it’s something that obviously plays quite a big part of you. AB: I think they’re more gonna associate it. Because it’s connected to the studio, I think they’re more associate it with that... ‘That’s the space that daddy does his work, that’s the space where we can go and draw’ I don’t think they’d really associate the Evil Eye with me it’s more about doing things there. EM: When they’re older do you think they will? AB: Maybe, yeah. EM: Cause it’s all... it’s got its place, hasn’t it? AB: Yeah, maybe. I think they’re probably too young for that, one’s three and one’s seven. EM: And do you think it’s ever had its own role in your actual practice? Has it had any influence? Maybe the feelings that you associate with it or even the aesthetic of it, has it ever...? AB: Maybe. I draw a lot of triangles. But when I was on my degree course I drew a lot of circles, a lot of circles, like millions of them probably. And, obviously the Evil Eye is a circle thing there’s circle within a circle and that imagery was there quite a lot. Yeah I’ve never thought of that as a thing, but it could have been something underlying that maybe... I think that would be more about thetalking more about the ubiquity of the circle across different cultures and across different things of what it can stand for but that’s certainly contained within the Evil Eye.
EM: And what's the longest you've kept an Evil Eye. AB: I believe three or four years. They normally break, so, because they're generally like a glass and hallow to allow the thread to come through, so it only takes the pressure of somebody treading on it or... I tended to take it off when I was having a shower to protect the thread cause the threads like the leather, thong type stuff that you have so I normally take that off to have a shower so that it meant it lived, or was there for four times as long and then often I’d tread on it- well not often, but once I trod on it by mistake, once I lost it... Once it broke and I can’t remember how it broke, I think I fell on it or something that was really painful. EM: You’ve said you’ve moved house a few times recently... AB: Yeah. EM: ...so, you’ve obviously not lost it. AB: No. EM: Is that a conscious effort, I mean things do get lost quite easily. AB: So, I mean it’s, it was in the studio so... so it’s life has gone from when I brought it back from Turkey I took it to my MA studio... and then I set up a studio with the fellow MA students and it went in there, and then I moved to another studio and it went there, and then I went back to another studio and it went there, then I went back to the original studio I set up in a different building so it went there. And I was there for a long, long, long time for probably like 11 years there. And then it moved to the studio when I had one in the city centre in Lincoln, I didn’t have one to start with so it stayed in the studio- I kept it in the studio in Manchester. But as I soon as
I started using the studio in Lincoln then I moved the Evil Eye And then I've now got a studio in my house so it's now in the house, above my desk where I work. EM: Do you ever feel like anything bad has actually happened as a result of it not where it should be? AB: Um... no. EM: So, why do you still...? AB: Because of what it stands for. So like I sort of say I don’t really believe in superstition and what that kind of stands for, that’s what I that associative with, I completely buy into that so the studio can be that space for me and that’s associated with the Evil Eye. I don’t think that it’s actually imbuing that sense of warding off evil spirits but I think it can help create a space that does. And so maybe it does. I don’t think that it is that one off object... although I’ve said I can replace it I think the principle of what the Evil Eye is and... That’s probably something I’ll have for, always in life. I’ll probably always have an Evil Eye in my studio. EM: Well what if someone did do a book on you and they knew that this Evil Eye was a constant theme in your studio... AB: Yeah. EM: ...and they chose it to represent you on a book cover or however else. Would that be okay? AB: Yeah it’s their choice. It’s fine with me. EM: Would you choose it?
AB: I wouldn’t choose it, no. EM: What would choose to be on your book cover? AB: I’d choose it to be blank. EM: Why? AB: If I was to have a choice and not one thing would sum it up so to me the thing about a great book is the flipping through the pages of it. My parents always used to- you know when you have a hardback book and you have the cover, the paper cover on the hardback but you can take off so then it’d be just the blank cloth normally... they would always take the covers off so then it was just the blank...and I guess that I’ve always liked that, getting the books and they’re like that. Cause I kind of think, it’s ‘What’s in the book?’ Rather than what’s knowing... I understand completely that it’s to draw you to it that you need something that’s eye catching but if I were to choose, then it’d be blank. Maybe with some nice like, white lettering. There’s a beautiful book. Edmund De Wall wrote a book called the White Road which is all about the pilgrimage over, um, porcelain and the story of porcelain and you get this little case, that’s what it’s called, the slipcase cover which has got this picture of something or other on it, but if you take that off then... the book is pure white with this embossed, very small lettering of Edmund De Wall and the White Road. That would be my choice. That’s the perfect cover. EM: Even though it’s in your studio, and you tie in your studio with it, do you not acknowledge it? Or is it just present? AB: I would say that it depends on the day. Sometimes, it’ll be present in what it stands for and everything like that and then other times I won’t have even noticed it.
EM: What has to happen for you to look at it? What kind of day do have to have? AB: Probably a day when I’m getting distracted from making work. EM: So does it inspire you? AB: I wouldn’t say it inspires me but what it stands for... there’s a real thing for me that I’ve kind of talked about, with this fear of being- where the studio is where I’m consistently happy. So, a place where I feel good. I’m not although I’ve had odd occasions of it but not really had the kind of, the tortured artist thing in the studio or anything like that. Normally I find the studio very productive and enjoyable and all of those things. And so I’d say that was also a very much a choice that I wanted the studio to be that. And I think that that’s mapped up probably with the timing of when I brought it to the studio. So, I’d say that it is an object that hasn’t inspired me...but, maybe that’s a being a bit disingenuous because I think its part of a wider choice that I was making that that was definitely part of that choice. EM: Is it possibly part of a spirituality? AB: Yeah. Probably I’m quite sceptical of lots of things despite being a very optimistic, positive person...I think. But it’s funny, I’d have said a year ago if I was asked that, absolutely not because I would have said that I’m not a spiritual person. And over the last year I’ve probably realised that actually I’m not giving myself credit for the fact that I probably am, it’s just
not on the terms that I thought of that spirituality probably meant. And so I’d say what probably I’m imbuing into that object is something that is spirituality and it is linked up to a maybe a character that I’m starting to learn about myself. EM: ‘Cause you did talk about Karma as well... AB: Yeah. EM: ...and obviously that’s something you’ve believed in for quite some time - in Turkey you... you felt so guilty... AB: Yeah, yeah. I’ve got big beliefs that what you put in you will get out. What I found out about Karma the other day, in fact my brother told me that the Buddhist belief, where obviously the principle of Karma comes from, they completely believe that. But maybe the result of good deeds on your part in relation to karma won’t happen in your lifetime because they believe in the afterlife. So, the thing is if you do something good in your lifetime then maybe in two lifetimes time then that could be what you do in life could come back to you so... whereas I kind of think much more short term than that, I kind of believe in this thing that if you are genuinely a good person that does good things to other people than that will come back and- not all the time, not consistently but that will be the balance of your life. If you are an evil wrongdoer then that will eventually come back to bite you. EM: So you have had a spiritual kind of philosophy in your life for quite some time, maybe not necessarily conscious of it...
AB: Yeah... Yeah. EM: Are you religious? AB: No. So that’s, that’s exactly why I didn’t think that I was a spiritual person so that’s why I associated being spiritual with... EM: That’s interesting cause not everyone, while the two go hand in hand, they’re not necessarily associated all the time. AB: Yeah. But I think that... it’s funny. My brother asked me, my other brother, asked me if I was a spiritual person and I said ‘No, absolutely not.’ and he kind of went ‘Oh right, that’s interesting’ and then just left it hanging there. Then I then went up and looked up what spirituality might be and there’s no clear definition of it whatsoever. So some will talk about it in purely the religious sense, some won’t mention religion at all in it, some will talk much about what you give out, some will talk about doing much as a thing within you. So there’s not one definite way of defining what spirituality is which is why it’s maybe something that’s struggling.. So that also means, to me that it’s about what it is for you... and what you make it for you. Which is how I guess that started to think that maybe I could be... maybe I am a spiritual person because there’s definitely things that I would believe in that way it’s just I was, I had a closed definition of what it might be that was right from only a certain point of view. EM: It’s incredibly interesting that you’re not actually that
bothered about it (the Evil Eye). But yet you’ve chosen to display it as an object that’s got value. But it’s the association... AB: I can only repeat that it’s what it stands for. It’s the only thing that really made sense. Like, everything else would be this kind of falsehood of why I’d bring it in, do you know what I mean? I was kind of going there like- I thought about- I’ve got like a, one of those nice cafetieres that’s um, which is you know, that’s a regular fear of making that up but, again that could just be anyone. It’s not actually that specific object. I don’t think I own anything hat that would be so precious to me as that one single thing... sounds quite bad doesn’t it? I haven’t got the, the object... that one object from my childhood that’s there. I haven’t got the one thing that that my dad passed on to me that... you know, I kind of associate with him that’s like that. I haven’t got those things. But I’ve got lots of other things that are great and important, it’s not like I live in this minimalist palace in any way. You know, my home is my home for the things that are in it. I’ve got lots of other things that are great and important, it’s not like I live in this minimalist palace in any way. You know, my home is my home for the things that are in it. EM: Do you think people would be surprised when they see the object or hear the association? AB: Do I think they’d be surprised? EM: Do you think they’re gonna know this about you?
AB: No, probably not. I think there’ll probably be people that have been in my studio that’ll go ‘Oh yeah, there!’ but they probably wouldn’t think that it meant so much to me. I mean it kind of does and it doesn’t... I’d just have to replace it, it’d be annoying having to replace it. EM: It’s just inconvenient? AB: Yeah. Particularly as I’ve got no plans to go to Greece or Turkey and maybe that’s the thing that I’ve always gone there to get it, so maybe there is a thing of being sentimental or spiritual with that. That it’s not just that it’s the Evil Eye that it comes from the place that I associate the truth of what it’s meant for there. So, I wouldn’t get one from England, so it would be annoying. EM: Karma isn’t something that you put into your artworks? AB: I don’t think so... I think it probably is there, I don’t think it’s something that I consciously put in should I say... no I don’t think so. I think we all make autobiographical work but I certainly don’t put autobiography consciously into my work...I think it’s just there and I certainly accept it and I could probably delve into it but it’s not the thing that I think of as present of needing to share that with anybody else. EM: So does your personal life and your art practice, do they overlap at all? AB: Yeah, because I’m quite an obsessive. Art is my life, I kind of very rarely switch into the mode of somebody else, maybe
when the footballs on sometimes.
extraordinaryobjects.co.uk