Tracey Emin’s old scaggy bed is your cup of tea, that’s fi ne!”
But is it art, questions the writer?
“It’s a concept, just like Damien Hirst’s cows and sharks. Th ey are powerful
images and powerful objects, but it doesn’t mean that they are the Super Gods of
the artistic world today just because they had the idea. Th at’s where everything
goes squiff y because someone has decided that they’re going to put their money
behind this or that and make this or that person rich and famous.”
Mind you, it has ever been so through history don’t you think, queries the
writer?
“Yes, but that’s what makes it so fascinating,” adds Melissa. “Painting the
musicians has been fantastic and hopefully will takes us round the world again.
[Th e writer presumes the ‘us’ is Lyn] At the end of the day, I’ll never stop
painting my female nudes and I’ll never stop doing those things that make it
happen for me, but all the time my work is growing, and I think, to me, it is the
one fundamental important thing in life. If you are painting exactly the same
thing in 20 years time, that you were 20 years ago, then something is wrong!
You’ve got to grow, you’ve got to develop and you’ve got to move on, in fact it’s
your duty as an artist.
“All the artists in history took art so far and now it’s our duty to take it on to
the next step, and it doesn’t matter how far it progresses because someone else
Aspen News: Goldie Hawn, Ivana Trump and Melissa
will progress it that bit further in the years to come. Th e important thing is to
keep it growing!”
And how does Melissa feel when she has sold an original? Does she feel as
though she has lost part of herself?
“Not at all, it’s the function of art. When I paint a painting it’s because it
needs a home. So for me, the most important thing is that painting fi nding an
owner. Getting somebody to fall in love with it, hang it on their wall and come
down each day and see something diff erent in it. Everything I do is painted to be
out, to be owned, to be seen.”
She concluded by saying: “I think it important to be appreciated, it certainly
is for me. I feed off the fact that people like my work. I’m not painting to make
people like my work, but at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. I’m not
into painting nasty things; I’m not into shock because we did that when we were
at school. It’s a school child mentality, a childish mentality that doesn’t really
have a place in the real art world. I think that if you have something to say it can
be deep, it can be profound, it can be fundamentally moving, but it should be
enjoyable on whatever level people want to enjoy it at. If people like my work,
then I’ll settle for that!”
Tel: 01564 783 219
email: art@mailer-yates.co.uk
www.mailer-yates.co.uk
With Paul Weller
Carol Decker and Melissa The Three Amigos: Toyah, Melissa & Carol Decker at the launch of Rock Face
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