Proust Pin-Up: Neale Howells

  

Welsh artist Neale Howells has had not one, but two exhibitions closed down before they even had a chance to open. And yet the barely legible scrawls that run through his paintings, and have upset some Councils, usually originate in nothing more sinister than snatches of conversation from the edited contents of a Radio Wales phone-in or the afternoon play on BBC Radio 4. In Howell’s work they provide a visual rhythm to a painting; a meaningless background noise that is later obliterated by drips of paint or the outline of a figure.

Neale Howells’ dramatic new exhibition, Magic Book: all this 4 u opened at the John Martin Gallery on 22 April 2008. This solo exhibition of large-scale graffiti paintings and animation installation pieces is Howells’ second solo exhibition at John Martin Gallery, and follows on from his recent exhibition Bad company may need positive advertising, at Mission Gallery, Swansea in February of this year.

This week Neale takes the Proust Pin-Up questionnaire for Arts Hub.

What is your most marked characteristic?
if these questions are designed to make me tell the truth then its not going to work...

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
.. like what do i consider i've done well... ermmm, kids perhaps.... yeah the kids.. hiya phoenix and tezni... yeah...they just great for stealing ideas from...

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
new labour goverment of course.. bastards getting rid of blair like that... and to think it was a lot of welsh mps started it... its like have people forgotton how bad it was under the tories ... no jobs just lounging around... ummmm..! wait a minute....

What is your most treasured possession?
what is it that i couldn't live without...mmmmh let me see now that would have to be a ....time traveling machine... not really getting the idea of this am i....

Where would you like to live?
i like the eighties......

What is your greatest fear?
the ninities... yeah like the nineties but less banging.... eh!

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
had to google that word then my computer mucked up.... virtue eh..! thats being good... ain't it... overrated... look to be honest can't understand the question... reminds me when i was in neath college and this student was being being shown around the art rooms...the teacher then asked me a question again and again.. untill we both give up... some questions can just never be answered....

What is your greatest extravagance?
oh really blodwyn, yes darling howells... put that can opener away and sit back here on my lap... ok just after i've used it to open my goblin beefburgers which propable don't have as much meat in them as they used to or (in a high pitch) now much goblin... so the answer is fruit...

What is your favorite journey?
my favourite have been walking through the woods in autumn past all the browning leaves and lovely smell to sign on at the dole office... you just don't forget memories like that...

What is it that you most dislike?
do you realise how hard it is to make everyone of these answers hilarious...?

What is the quality you most like in others?
a while ago i used to think about death alot.. so i decided that if i was to live forever in the afterlife then chances are you'll end up getting bored... so i decided to bury a lot of time capsules, around where i was living... just thought it would be fun looking at people coming across these finds from my cloud and them looking inside them and going ohhh a small car, hmmm a dead battery ... arrrh! i don't know what that is... although can't really remember whats in them but what i do know is that i made an audio tape for one and it got stolen from my car... so be carefull what you say about your neighbours.... so the anwser is i don't have any preconcieved ideas about what makes a person ok to me... quality would be to nod as if listening to everything i say....

What do you most value in your friends?
you do realise whoever wrote these questions are asking themselves all this really..

Who are your heroes?
... never had heroes... tried to make all my own luck with help from others.......did you realise that most answers to your questions can be found in films...

What is it you most dislike?
punched in the face.......

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
i am now trying to work out if these questions were written by a male or female... think ill go for a female young person, seems like most people are younger than me these days.... yes and i know what you are thinking...? its blue...

How would you like to die?
god oh god, if you do exist then please forgive me and my sins... yes the big ones... all ready now to go...look, liking something and actually doing something are two completely different things.... who am i talking to...? myself thats who howells... bloody hell this is what is must be like to be a script editor...?

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
porno star... yeah thats it a great big porno bloke who can go for hours... or even minutes, actually minutes would do me at the moment ....

What is your present state of mind?
looking forward to the john martin show in london.... think we have some really strong stuff to go up and together with the animation boxes should look a pretty interesting imaginative exhibtion... 'imagination'... now theres a word not used in connection with contemporary artworks much these days... hopefully this show will help put it back...

What is your motto?
never turn a freebie down...!

John Martin Gallery, 38 Albemarle Street London W1S 4JG.