Sorcha Dallas

Covers

There was a really good Marc Almond record cover – Marc and the Mambas. It was his band after Soft Cell and its called Untitled. I really like the back cover that’s a montage of his face; underneath it says, ‘it’s my happening and I’m freaking out’. It’s one of my favourite records. The front of it has got quite an interesting painting by Val Denham but it just seems to point to a seedy horizon. I like things which point to maybe some sort of shapes into the future.

Metal

I know people that do music and you can’t help but see bands and stuff like that. Funnily enough, I went to see a heavy metal band in Glasgow’s Stereo called The USA is a Monster. They’re American and I would never in a million years have gone, but I’ve got to say it was truly impressive.

Musicals

I’m quite into musicals – they’re some of my favourite films. There’s a singer called Chita Rivera in West Side Story. She’s absolutely brilliant. The director Wise did very imposing shots and I like that guy Bob Fosse who did Cabaret. He was really good at showing things from unusual angles. I don’t do as much composing in the picture point but I think in totality that sort of attitude comes through with me somewhere.

Records

I’ve never owned a record player. I do have records now, but when I was growing up, we weren’t a big musical family. There were a few records in the house, but I was always left behind in that sort of thing. It never occurred to me to put the radio on to listen to music. But I can remember things like watching Duran Duran on Top of the Pops, but it was never a big part of my adolescence. I used to actually lie and say I was really big into Siouxsie and the Banshees, but I’ll come clean now.

The Fall

Now it’s a bit like catching up, with music. So I’m listening to things I should have consumed earlier. In the last couple of months I’ve been working my way through the work of Mark E Smith and The Fall, which is absolutely electrifying to me. If you’re in any way interested in art, it all makes sense.

When I Listen

I put music on first thing, to get me going. Then I have to turn it off again, because I find it hard to concentrate. I’m really bad at buying awful floor-filler CDs. Like the Ministry of Sound Annual.

Favourite Song

My favourite song of all time is probably Eric Prydz song ‘Call on me’. It’s a complete by-the-book house Ibiza song. I don’t know what it is that’s wrong with me, but that just does it for me.

Sampling

‘Sampling’ is not really applicable to me because I wouldn’t recognize it as something that I do. I’d rather call it ‘cut and paste’. Sampling just reminds me of electronic music. I find it too easy-going. I’m instead thinking of cutting out a bit of paper in my work. Sampling to me is aligning yourself with the world of happy chance and the enjoyment of juxtaposition, which isn’t the sort of pleasure I get out of what I do.

Positiva

The show I’m doing for Sorcha Dallas is all text, without any image. The font and the form of the pictures are taken from the dance record label called Positiva. My paintings are structured in the format of the Positiva logo and font with a Latin phrase: ‘apologia pro vita positiva’, which means’ defence of a positive way of life’. It’s a play on the way that phrase was originally used, which was – defence of my way of life. It’s a big title. I mean there you go, that is music in my work. I choose it because of its high-streetness. I chose it in the same way I choose shoes, because hopefully, you get directed away from it, not into it.