Simeon Barclay came down from Leeds for an evening to discuss both his own practice, and talk through our current lines of inquiry in the studio. Simeon started the evening by describing his beginnings and the roots of his career. As the son of a tailor who had an early education working in metalworking and manufacturing, we talked through the importance of materiality, how the relationship between the two labour roles, of ‘worker’ and ‘artist’, is often seen as a rigid dichotomy and how this influenced his concerns as an artist. The conversation centred around the elasticity in usage of material in art-making, particularly in relation to his questioning of identity as a performance, and how these define our positions in society.
He offered us honest thoughts about London and its perceived centralised position in the art world, globally and in Britain – and how the attitudes in Leeds, his resident city, differ from this. From this was prompted, from us, some reflection on the position we have in the Associate Studio Programme and its immense benefits to help keep us in the city. Gillies Semple Adamson
