Canvas Art News from The Canvas Lounge

This months Artist is Raj Verdi.

So, tell us a brief bit about yourself. Where you were born, grew up and where you are now.

I was born in the East End of London, before it was a hip place to live. I grew up in North and South London and I have been living in Central London for the last 10 years - I love it here.

How did you get into art?

I started off making 3D box assemblages, collages and mail art. I then began entering my work in juried art competitions and won a few prizes so I decided to study printmaking at Central St Martins. My first solo show was in a small arts centre in Reading. On the preview someone attempted suicide in the kitchen. Then a vagrant gatecrashed, he proceeded to drink all the beer and started dissing the show while getting his dog to go round sniffing all my work... I knew it was the start of something magical.

The short answer would be, curiosity, having the curiosity to look a little deeper at everything around me. I find so many things fascinating: cities and city-life, light, artificial or natural, films, memory, dreams, patina of old or found objects, patterns and textures in nature and the stories all these things reveal. Art is not something you just do in a studio, its a way of looking at the world. I hope my photographs encourage that kind of curiosity in others.

Which fellow artists do you admire?

Thats a really difficult question. I admire most fellow artists but for different reasons. I admire some for their drawing skills, some for their innovative techniques, some for their great ideas. Every year I go to a batch of graduate shows and Im always going to small unheard of shows in London - there is so much talent around, its quite life affirming.

Tell us about 1 of your pieces on the Canvas Lounge website, the inspiration, the colours, and is it your favourite piece on the site?

My current favourite is liquid metal which is one from a recent series of similar images. Its quite a departure from my other work. Its very unusual, it has hard, monochromatic and metallic qualities but it also has an organic and fugitive dynamic sense of movement. I like that you grapple with what you see as the scale and picture plan shifts and it takes you on quite a trip because you see loads of things in it, so it rewards prolonged viewing.

I think its a refreshing take on art websites, its more in tune with the man on the street and has its finger on the pulse.

And finally do you have any last comments?

In addition to the photographs you see on Canvas Lounge, I make 3D assemblages, etchings, paintings and site specific installations. Ive also curated shows and done some art direction.