John Currin

17 Jun 2026 · 1 h 27 min · 33 chapters

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In short

John Currin discusses how portraiture and his paintings’ sexuality, masculinity, and “European” elegance are shaped by childhood imagery (especially Sears/Montgomery Ward catalogs), 1970s clothing culture, and his marriage to Rachel Feinstein. He also connects his artistic development to moving from Santa Cruz, California to Stamford/Connecticut, later seeing “real” grand painting (El Greco) at the Met, and his parents’ influence (including pornographic work as a suppressed rebellion that stopped after they died).

Guest backgrounds

John Currin is an American painter whose work is widely exhibited and held in major collections including MoMA, the Whitney, and Tate. His paintings often feature highly specific, beautiful clothing and sexual themes.

Key claims

He builds portrait clothing from catalog sources and childhood scenarios; he frames his imagery as a “child’s misunderstanding of sex” and an “adult’s misunderstanding of childhood.” He says his paintings pursue masculinity ideals (James Bond vs. Clint Eastwood) and the construction of gender/perception rather than political gender. He claims his pornographic imagery was partly meant to unsettle his parents, and that desire evaporated after their deaths (2017–2019).

Notable examples

He borrowed his wife’s violet plaid jacket (Tom Ford/Tom Ford pants mentioned) and repurposed it into a double-breasted coat in a painting. He cites Sears lingerie sections as visually “contemplative” and uses a childhood memory of a teenage girl mowing the lawn as inspiration for nude-back imagery. He references album covers as early art models, El Greco at the Met as a turning point, and his Pulp “This Is Hardcore” album cover (created largely by Peter Saville, with casting by Currin).

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Fashion Choices and Travel

0:15 to 1:17

John Currin discusses his clothing choices and the challenges of traveling.

“Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes?”

Fashion Choices and Travel

1:21 to 1:53

John Currin discusses his clothing choices and the challenges of traveling.

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Artistic Influences and Portraits

1:53 to 3:46

Currin explains how he chooses clothing for his portraits.

Childhood Memories and Themes

3:46 to 6:04

Discussion on childhood memories and their influence on Currin's art.

“So the clothes sadly come from, you know, double-knit pantsuits and stuff from those catalogs.”

Artistic Aspirations and Family Dynamics

6:04 to 10:41

Exploration of Currin's early aspirations to be an artist and family discussions.

“Maybe the reason it persists is because I don't completely understand it.”

Influences of Music and Culture

10:41 to 14:01

Currin reflects on how music and album covers influenced his perception of art.

“Because you said you knew you wanted to be an artist from the age of 11, And I wondered if wanting to be an artist was also connected to the sexual, the lack of sexual expression at home in your childhood.”

Early Inspirations in Art

14:01 to 17:44

Discussing early influences and experiences with art, particularly album covers and famous paintings.

“I think that was what I thought an artist was.”

Childhood Clothing Memories

17:44 to 22:05

Reflecting on childhood experiences with clothing and societal pressures regarding fashion.

“And if I think about, you know, you just showed me some pictures of your son's paintings and drawings, and they're extraordinary.”

Fashion Influences from Family

22:05 to 24:15

Exploring how family influences shaped personal taste in clothing and style.

“because you have the most amazing taste in clothes.”

Fashion Influences from Family

24:38 to 25:10

Exploring how family influences shaped personal taste in clothing and style.

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Exploring Masculinity in Art

26:55 to 28:07

Discussing themes of masculinity in John Currin's paintings and their societal implications.

“And some of these portraits have a masculine authority, but with that look of insecurity that women notice and feel protective towards.”

Contrasting Masculinities: Bond vs. Eastwood

28:07 to 29:39

Explore the differences between iconic masculine figures in film.

The Construction of Gender and Sex in Art

29:40 to 31:19

Dive into how gender and sex perceptions influence artistic expression.

“But on the other hand, I'm fascinated with its construction as well.”

Cultural Reflections: Men in the 1970s

31:20 to 33:18

Discuss the cultural implications of masculinity in the 1970s.

“I was reading about when you talked about wanting to paint like James, like Sean Connery, but being more of a Clint Eastwood.”

Parental Influence on Artistic Development

33:19 to 37:45

Learn about the role of family support in shaping an artist's career.

“They seem so much more old fashioned than people from the fifties really, don't they?”

A Love Story: Meeting Rachel Feinstein

37:46 to 42:00

Hear the romantic story of how John Currin met his wife Rachel Feinstein.

“So you're married to the artist Rachel Feinstein, who said that you'd seen her before you ever met and had started putting her in your paintings.”

A Life-Changing Car Accident

42:00 to 43:00

The speaker recounts a pivotal car accident while reflecting on a significant person.

“She was walking away, getting onto the platform.”

Artistic Collaboration and Discomfort

43:00 to 45:20

Discussion on the collaboration with Jarvis Cocker and the discomfort expressed in Pulp's music.

“because jarvis cocker saw your work in the turner prize in 96 and asked you to create an album cover for This Is Hardcore, and it's incredibly romantic and suggestive, the image.”

European Elegance vs. American Identity

45:20 to 49:20

The speaker explores the contrast between European elegance and their American identity.

“There's a kind of a sense of glamour that you've just missed out on or something, and that you can't quite join that party, you know?”

Memories of Travel and Aesthetic Revelations

49:20 to 54:20

A nostalgic look at travel experiences and the beauty seen in different cultures.

“And, you know, my house is done up, you know, as Johnny Pagazzi would say, fake old, you know, by Studio Paragalli, these wonderful Italians.”

Rebellion and Parental Influence

54:20 to 56:00

An introspective discussion on the impact of parental presence and the desire for rebellion.

“and then it's, you know, like a factory or something.”

Repression and Its Impact on Art

56:00 to 1:02:42

Explore how personal experiences of repression influenced the artist's work.

“Anyway, for whatever reason, I never really rebelled.”

Repression and Its Impact on Art

1:03:25 to 1:04:02

Explore how personal experiences of repression influenced the artist's work.

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Repression and Its Impact on Art

1:04:06 to 1:04:16

Explore how personal experiences of repression influenced the artist's work.

Meeting Lucian Freud: A Starstruck Experience

1:04:59 to 1:10:01

Hear about the artist's memorable encounter with the renowned painter Lucian Freud.

“I sat next to you once at dinner and you told me about a conversation you'd had with my father, Lucian.”

Reflections on Artistic Inspiration

1:10:01 to 1:11:39

John Currin discusses his artistic process and inspiration drawn from his wife, Rachel.

“So he must have really liked the whole thing to be there and to say those things to you.”

The Essence of Rachel in Art

1:11:40 to 1:13:20

Currin explores the influence of Rachel's features in his artwork and the tenderness he feels towards his subjects.

“And I guess with Rachel, you know, she has these like gigantic eyes that droop.”

Fashion and Personal Preferences

1:13:21 to 1:16:34

The conversation shifts to Currin's thoughts on fashion choices for Rachel and his specific tastes.

“And so, I mean, I would hope that people would feel in the images of mine that might be read as misogynist or is I feel tenderness toward those figures.”

Childhood Perspectives on Femininity

1:16:35 to 1:17:46

Currin reflects on how childhood perceptions of femininity and sex influence his work.

“Because you talked earlier about the view of adults from children.”

Exploring the Concept of Sex in Art

1:17:47 to 1:20:08

The discussion delves into the representation of sex and bodies in Currin's paintings, contrasting constructed vs. actual representations.

“And, uh, so I think there's something going on there between, um, constructed sex or imagined, imagined sex and, and then the, and actual, and the actual sex.”

The Gaze and Body Representation

1:20:09 to 1:24:00

Currin explains how the gaze and perspective affect the portrayal of women in his art, including some influences from dance.

“or a manneristic intertwining of figures.”

Exploring Powerful Imagery in Art

1:24:00 to 1:27:48

John Currin discusses the impactful imagery in his work, drawing connections to dance and film.

“Like I looked at it too long and they started, it was like putting a ultraviolet lamp on a marijuana plant or something.”

Reflections on the Experience of Lying Down

1:27:48 to 1:28:41

A light-hearted conversation about the peculiar magic of lying down and its effects.

“There's something magic about lying down.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:15Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, John Currin. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? gee i didn't think that was going to be the first question let's see i um it's um an old uh i think it's paul smith this jacket it's a tom ford shirt uh and uh tom ford pants and uh i can't remember the shoes they're really old and uh probably amazon socks I like corduroy jackets, I've always have. And it turned out to be perfect for England. It's always terrifying traveling. I never know what, you know, I'm going to be hot. I'm always dreading being hot. So it turned out to be the right thing to wear.

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2:19and read reviews all on the app. Download today. And you're an American painter and your work has been widely exhibited and is held in collections including MoMA, the Whitney and Tate and your paintings have sold for millions of dollars and the subjects in your pictures are often wearing the most specific and beautiful clothes and I wondered how do you decide what someone is going to wear in a portrait? Well, I think I showed you. I was doing a painting recently, and I had a kind of red jacket on, and I thought it, I don't know, it wasn't interesting, and my wife has this beautiful violet plaid jacket, it and i borrowed it and i realized it was by you and and um had this lovely pink and pink and gray and um white and black uh tartan kind of plaid and i um i hope it's okay i i made it i turned it into a double breasted coat but it was the most beautiful color on the uh on it had a kind of greenish yellow sky and the purple was was really lovely kind of made the painting but I mean I guess I'm I make up well a lot of my paintings now the sources

3:55like Sears catalogs or Montgomery Ward catalogs from from the the time basically from the time I was a I was a kid so so you know early 70s uh mid mid 70s and and uh there's something about those scenarios and the and the faces and the expressions and the hair and um even the ugly clothes like I I I find transcended I I can just those I don't know they they seem to be endlessly applicable to almost like mythical creatures. So the clothes sadly come from, you know, double-knit pantsuits and stuff from those catalogs. They look really good. They do look mythical. It's interesting. And you described your home as the opposite of sexually expressive, which is quite an unusual comment on home life.

5:02And most children don't want to think about their parents as sexually expressive. And what did you mean by that? Well, I mean, I don't remember saying that, but it's, I guess, apt. In many ways, when the Sears catalogs would arrive, I would, of course, as a kid, I'd immediately turn to the lingerie and underwear section. look at the you know and and the funny thing is in those in that section instead of like bright smiles and everything everybody's very contemplative and and uh sort of meditative meditative in their underwear and um uh but i guess i don't know you know it was um for better or worse it's always been a i you know that's been a Big part of my work is sort of sexual themes, I guess.

6:04Maybe the reason it persists is because I don't completely understand it. Yeah. Was it very taboo or silenced or was it just completely? Not particularly. I wouldn't be comfortable talking about sex with my parents, certainly, but it wasn't overtly forbidden or they were not religious. for instance or uh I just think it's something I thought about since I was you know four or five I you know some of my I remember there's a there's a painting in my show actually of a two women seen from behind nude women yeah and um the one the one on the right has a kind of a well-defined back and I remember when I was a child in in Santa Cruz California so I would have been you know maybe six or seven there was this girl a teenage girl um and she would mow the lawn with like a hand you know like and and she would always wear a halter top and and I would look just stare at her back and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen you know just you know jeans shorts and and this lovely sort of glistening back I it's what I was thinking about when I made that and I think actually a lot of the imagery in my paintings is a sort of child's I mean the one sort of facile way I would put it is, you know, it's a child's misunderstanding of sex and an adult's misunderstanding of childhood and like a sort of retrospective misunderstanding of childhood.

8:00And to my mind, that's what the gigantic breasts, for instance, is just a theme that kind of popped up in the 80s in my work. and I don't know why. I still don't know why, but it was, I guess, a way to get the vulgarity out of the way, you know, first thing. And then I could think about making something beautiful after that. That kind of 70s seemed to specialize in misunderstanding, really, everyone. I mean, I grew up in that era as well, and it just seemed no one got it. They didn't get it about children anyway. Well, as a small child, I grew up in Santa Cruz, California, which is an idyllic beach town.

9:12with the university and and and uh it was just it was it was really kind of paradise and and uh then um my family moved when i was 10 my family moved to stamford uh connecticut which is is sort of an awful place it certainly was an awful place in the 1970s um and you know sort of instantly like the first day of school you know i i got into a fight and and uh and basically got into fights you know every day thereafter and and uh um it just the kids were so mean and and uh i don't know i i guess i was the new guy but it but but and and getting picked on for that reason But it was a rude awakening after this kind of, my mom was a piano teacher.

10:14So I always imagine, in my mind, Santa Cruz was always a sort of Debussy piano piece. Sort of Claire de Lune played over and over again. and Stanford. I don't know what the musical equivalent of Stanford would be, but it wouldn't be Debussy. Heavy metal. It'd just be like, I don't know, yeah, it would be, you know, some crappy, crappy 70s pop song. Yeah. Because you said you knew you wanted to be an artist from the age of 11, And I wondered if wanting to be an artist was also connected to the sexual, the lack of sexual expression at home in your childhood. Even though I know you say you don't remember saying it, but I read it in a quote, but it just seems somehow like it could be like a breakout.

11:17out well i do think as much as i lament you know moving to to to the east coast how much i hated the east coast as a as a teenager i sort of think that's why i you know i i guess i would have become an artist one way or the other but i think it um was a the right kind of irritant to to to to make that happen i perhaps staying in california i don't know i mean i always love to draw on and and but but i think i'm not sure i would have had the the ambition um and the and the sort of um the drama that would have been that i think is maybe required and and just just the irritant of an unhappiness can be a good thing in that sense.

12:18And so, you know, in many ways, my family was maybe, I mean, maybe, I wouldn't say repressive, because actually, you know, I talked to my father constantly. And it wasn't like a silent, you know, strict. They were strict, but unlike anybody else. But I guess the thing is with my father, we would talk a lot, but only about either physics. He was a physicist. either about things like that or about politics or about intellectual things you know and so so uh he was very smart and and and um love to argue and and love to to take a contrary position and on anything and and um so so i think maybe the maybe the sexual expression maybe was a counterpart to what we talked about.

13:48Maybe that was a counterpart to that. Because you got some of your first ideas from album covers, and I was very affected by album covers. I think that was what I thought an artist was. you know that was my first sort of um um um idea of art was was was album covers and um i i actually um i had a book one of my the first art book i had was uh was a book of on frank frazetta who was uh um famous for for doing um the these illustrations for like conan the barbarian and muscular savages and busty yet muscular, like weird, kind of the more I think about it, really strangely constructed women, but like sexy women in his case, in his sense.

14:51And so, you know, and I remember like I flipped through that book when I was like, you know, 10 and imagine, I'd imagine, you know, sort of a weird version of air guitar i would imagine a girl looking through this book and and they're my paintings and she's admiring my paintings or something so um and then i and then i uh i think my second book was like you know mc escher and and um but i did imagine maybe i would be a you know album cover artist or something like that um but um because i didn't really know that that art existed that was another actually very fortunate thing about about moving to to the east coast was you know i went to the metropolitan museum and for the first time in my life saw you know a real painting yeah i had grown up well i had grown up with paintings um my parents had these reproduction beautiful reproductions of um you know famous famous paintings that they had bought on their honeymoon in Florence.

16:02So I had a very good reproduction of the Portonari altarpiece by Hugo Vandergoes, which is still kind of almost my favorite painting in the world. And I think they had also had Primavera by, you know, the Primavera, you know, they were like 20 inches by 18 inches or something of Botticelli. And so when I was really little, I just kind of thought those were strange photographs. God, how interesting. But then when I saw a real painting, I saw a big El Greco painting, and it was just astonishing. astonishing i i just i couldn't believe my eyes that i the you know you know it's roughly painted and huge and i you know it was it was not so much beautiful it's just like way more exciting than you know an album cover and and uh just terrifically exciting you know anyway when i once i saw that i i thought i'm gonna do that i'm gonna make something like that although I carried on making like dumb album cover art for years.

17:25But that seemed to me, that was the first time I saw a real art, like a real kind of grand art. It's incredibly ambitious, your aspirations from, you know, not seeing art. And if I think about, you know, you just showed me some pictures of your son's paintings and drawings, and they're extraordinary. I mean, they're so, they're not just accomplished, they're just completely remarkable. You seem, your family seem to have art in your kind of, in your ancient history. It just seems to have been born into you. It's really fascinating and it's affecting. And were your parents strict about clothes when you were growing up?

18:22I remember one. My mom, when we, I guess we were temporarily pretty poor, I think, when we moved to, not poor, poor, but, you know, tight with money. when we first moved to the East Coast and my mom would make my clothes. I remember she made me this pair of pants that from a bedspread or something, it was from a material came from, it was green, like the color of this wall. And it was fur. It was like plastic, you know, it was like polyester fur. Oh, gosh. So they were green fur pants. And I didn't think anything about it. I wore them. Actually, you know, that was in California. But I wore them to school without thinking about it.

19:25And the kids, I guess, justifiably totally made fun of me. Although they would probably be pretty amazing now. But I remember that was a terrible humiliation. And I didn't have much. You know, I don't know. And that's the thing about the 70s is I do remember strict rules, not from my parents, but from, you know, other teenagers about you absolutely couldn't wear pants that were too short. That was kind of the worst thing you could do. and they had to be flare. If you wore straight leg pants, you got made fun of. And if you're like things about weird things about like your sneakers, if they were too clean, that would be something that you got made fun of.

20:22Oh, God. Like you dirty them up after you got them. And I don't know. It was like, you know, that's another interesting thing about the 70s as a teenager, as the clothes are just such a total disaster. But the girls were shockingly sexy and revealing. I remember tube tops were a big thing. Yeah. And it's like, I look back at pictures, and I just can't believe girls wore stuff like that.

20:56And I mean, I remember I really wanted a pair of, of what are the shoes um not adidas but um puma i wanted some suede puma shoes but they were like 22 or something and it was like i couldn't no way you know like i couldn't get them so so uh so i had to get like the the crummy the crummy ones from caldors and oh and the worst was um fake jeans so like you get and my sister would call me fake fake fake jeaner and and uh so there were those there was the denim that never that never fades so so it's like it's it just stays that color till it gets holes in it and um like you know it's polyester and and so uh so i had the the horror of fake jeans.

21:56Yeah. So my clothing memories are not good from my childhood. But it seems to have influenced you because you have the most amazing taste in clothes. Thank you. You're always dressed in this kind of fantastic way that is so subtle and seems so natural, but it's like today. the one thing that's been kind of disastrous for me is is when I have a my studio now is is is just like a few blocks from my house and so I don't have any incentive to wear a nice you know I used to never want to be I I mean I just wear my painting clothes now every day you know I put them on in the morning and wear them to the studio and then wear them you know so they're just my kids make fun of me it's just amazon essentials you know like like a you know a short sleeve shirt and and some pants and um so i i guess i don't dress that well on a daily basis anymore uh it's just it's just work clothes but um but um yeah i mean you know my dad did have a weakness for nice clothes he always dressed really well like like burberry you know like kind of expensive things when you think about it for his budget so um really you know really great and he'd always have really amazing jeans like like like like levi you know because he was from oklahoma and and um you know always had like fantastic jeans from like the 60s or the 50s you know wow so he was the dresser rather than yeah actually yeah and he always had these fantastic jackets with leather elbows and and um um i don't know he he always dressed pretty well because this is great the blue check shirt with the with this kind of subtle kind of what would you call that color it's got so many i i it's um i let's be like a cobalt blue i guess and the the corduroy the needle cord it's like it's a really it's a great color because it's got a kind of blonde with a green undertone to it.

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26:54Because your book Men contains some of my favorite of all your paintings. And some of these portraits have a masculine authority, but with that look of insecurity that women notice and feel protective towards. And you said, my paintings are, if not self-portraits, a quest for masculinity. and I wondered how do you want people to see you I always think I always think about it this way like like there's like James Bond right and there's and and um and um I'm thinking that and I'm not I mean the James Bond of of Sean Connery because I think uh like Daniel Craig actually extended it very cleverly to to a different place but but i think the the james bond of of um of of connery you know you never see him like walk down down a street you know what i mean like he's either try he he and i often think about this like almost every day i i think You never see James Bond walk to the corner and then wait for the light, wait for the walk sign or something like that.

28:18You can't imagine it, really. and uh and he's you know he's the the teeny weeny little indignities of of of of sort of social uh modern social life just never happened to him and and and that's one way of looking at a man at a sort of ideal man no compromise no not even being even aware of it and then i then i was thinking of of clint eastwood um especially in the dirty harry movies um where that's all it is is is this amazing looking man um who is constantly like waiting for walk signs and you know you see his icky apartment and and and and there's like a rotten apple and a beer in the fridge and you You know, and, you know, as a sort of American, I guess, version of James Bond or an American, you know, and I always, I've always like, those two, you know, sort of ideals of masculinity have always kind of battled it out in my mind.

29:37And I kind of love both. and um and then there's this kind of um i think in my paintings a lot there's there's a kind of a mr potato head version of masculine you know a man being sort of made from from spare parts you know of of you know nine different handsome men and and um slightly mismatched parts or or or um you know and i wouldn't say and i i don't feel about it in the in the kind of way that people talk about you know gender now it's not really to me it's still sex um and i don't think of and i don't and i personally you know kind of do believe that sex is a is is not really constructed, that it is rather essential.

30:35But on the other hand, I'm fascinated with its construction as well. The gender, the construction of it. But I don't think about it in a political way. My paintings are filled with things that are really more about the construction of the perception of sex, which is gender, rather than, you know, or rather maybe mixing a kind of essentialist Venus with then the construction that you see in, for instance, a clothing catalogue. Yeah. I was reading about when you talked about wanting to paint like James, like Sean Connery, but being more of a Clint Eastwood. It's not so bad being Clint Eastwood, I can tell you.

31:35It's not a huge comedown. I mean, I think, you know, really though, there's another character in there which would be like game show host from the 70s, you know, like one of these sad, like plaid jacket wearing game show hosts from the 70s. I remember there was this guy named Gene Rayburn, And he was this terrifyingly white-toothed sideburns. That's another thing that interests me, was those men from the 70s that had just missed the youth movement. You know what I mean? They were close enough to taste it, but they're like 40. You know what I mean? They're like 35 instead of 25. And so they can't get it on with the hippies, and they can't go to Woodstock, and they can't go to, you know, they can't.

32:38There's no free love for them, you know? And instead, it's just a kind of swinging or something, you know, like, I guess that was my parents, you know, would have been that generation. So, or maybe they were a little older, but like you could feel it in the culture of like this desperation of wanting to take part in this like, you know, everybody wants to be like Mick Jagger or something, but they're instead they're like Ed McMahon or they're like, you know, Johnny Carson or something like that. So, so, so, um, They seem so much more old fashioned than people from the fifties really, don't they?

33:26They seem like they're made of plasticine or something. Completely. I just think men, men got really, that was a, you know, not a heroic decade for men, the 1970s. So, so, uh, um, and I, and, and I think the clothes are a big part of that actually. did your father like your work i don't know i think i think i'm not sure actually i i don't know i think he i think he liked um

34:03i'm not sure i i i uh he you know he certainly i think he understood it and he was very um um pretty sophisticated uh artistically and um you know his but his main uh he was a physicist but but his main enthusiasm artistically was music and and uh uh like he would camp out when they when they would do the bjaroid festival and play wagner yeah i mean he's a weird he was a weird guy that way because i he would constantly talk about how like like all he can hear is you know the first thing he thinks about of when he hears wagner is is nazis and but but but he would he was dedicated to wagner to listening to wagner and and um he disliked um warhol warhol's work but he but he understood it very well and um how so how did he He understood what it was about.

35:10Yeah. And he understood, I don't think he liked Picasso very much, but he understood it very well. Weirdly, what he did like was, what he really liked was Kirschner. He really liked those paintings. I don't know those paintings. You know, Ernst Ludwig Kirschner, German expressionist. Oh, right. A spiky orange and purple and blue women in 1920s outfits. And he liked those a lot. And I think, I mean, I don't know. He liked some of my paintings quite a bit. I remember he was put on when I did a period. For a period I was doing kind of pornographic paintings from pornography. Yeah. And he was talking to someone.

36:14Someone asked him how he felt about it. And he said to him, people who like this sort of thing will like it very much. Which I'm sure is something he read in Macaulay or something. you know he he would remember things like that so yeah um but i'm i i i'm not sure whether he liked my work he was very uh both my parents were very supportive i hate that word by the way but you know what i mean they were very uh on board with me becoming an artist and they encouraged it and my mom you know got me paid my violent teacher's husband 25 a week to paint with me on the weekends you know at his I could paint in his studio on the weekends and uh that that changed my life that that really helped me and and um you know and they let me go to art school and paid for it I mean I think they thought I was a real artist yeah from the time I was a teenager and it was a totally respectable thing to do like there was no like like there was none of the kind of cliche of like like like come back when you want to get a real you know when you want to have a real job or something nothing like that none of the cliche of of of you're wasting your time and yeah and you should be a doctor or something like that that's really impressive Oh, my God.

37:46So you're married to the artist Rachel Feinstein, who said that you'd seen her before you ever met and had started putting her in your paintings. And she shows up as the love of your life in so much of your work. And what happened when you first saw her? This guy I knew, this guy that I barely knew, called when I was sharing a loft with Sean Landers and Kevin Landers, two artists, and we had one phone between us all. And he called that phone and said, I barely knew the guy. And he says, oh, a very close friend of mine is having a show, is doing a performance, and she's very beautiful, and she looked like she stepped out of one of your paintings.

38:39And so he had told her that he was a close friend of mine. And so it was kind of funny. And so I went. She was doing a performance where she had built a kind of a gingerbread house. And she was sleeping in it in the daytime. So people could sort of spy on her while she slept. And I went to see her. It was arranged that I would go meet her. And I think I had seen her once before from a distance maybe. But we just, and this sounds like bullshit, but we actually walked up to each other and looked at each other's eyes and kissed. Wow. That's really the truth before we said anything. God. And then I said, I sort of broke the ice after we kissed.

39:35I said, I sure hope you're Rachel. And so, yeah. And she was wearing underwear. She was in her underwear, by the way. And she looked crazy. She had a crazy look.

39:57And so I remember I went out to dinner that night with my art dealer, Andrea Rosen.

40:07And I said, I met this girl. And she's in her underwear. I guess she's kind of a bimbo or something. I don't know. She's very young. She's much younger than I am. And I said, but the thing is, I think I'm in love with her. I had a 10-minute conversation with her. And I think I'm in love. and and um i want to i i i and and and so i was supposed to have a show and i was having a show in france and so so andrea she she she bought her a plane ticket she gave me money to buy her a plane ticket and and uh so the next week i we went to paris and i proposed to her in there um and she said no but because she had it she said no but she said well i have to talk to my parents first and so so uh but um yeah it was it was literally love at first sight it really does happen that's so the most romantic story it's fantastic and it really is true i know it doesn't sound like it's true but it but it really is i've seen you together i can see it's true and because you described how being with her gave you what you described as freedom from the petty things in my own personality i remember when i first um when i when i took her to stamford to meet my parents you know maybe a couple weeks after that maybe a month after that i i took she had to go back uh she had to go back to new york um before i did so i was in my my dad had this lovely bmw um 320i And I took her to the train station.

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41:58And I still was just in shock at how beautiful she was. And I couldn't believe it. And I was driving away from the train. She was walking away, getting onto the platform. And I was looking at her in the rearview mirror. And I got in this terrible accident. I went right into the intersection. And this car just T-boned me. And I didn't get hurt. nobody got hurt but it was like i wrecked my dad's car like while looking at rachel in the rearview mirror um that's like a but uh perfect movie scene anyway but um like the car like spun around like five times so uh but yeah i was i was in um definitely i i i felt like i i felt like i've been wanting to paint her for a long time and i do and i and i she still is you know my favorite obviously my favorite subject so because jarvis cocker saw your work in the turner prize in 96 and asked you to create an album cover for This Is Hardcore, and it's incredibly romantic and suggestive, the image.

43:19And Jarvis said, without being too literal about it, you communicated the general discomfort that was being felt by Pulp. Was that a discomfort of a particular moment in the life of a man? well i thought i i it should be said that the the cover was really more created by by by um by peter savile um i mean he really i i did what i did do is i did a lot of casting of of um characters of these fantastic characters yeah i think though that they but peter really came up with a pretty beautiful image for the cover. But Jarvis's songs, they're so, you know, kind of this amazing combination of sleazy and innocent and, you know, dark and funny and, you know, beautiful and and um so so uh and i think i i i can't speak for jarvis but i do think it was there was a um strange i think he was going it was you know being that successful suddenly well suddenly right they've been working at it since the 80s but getting what you've been dreaming and fantasizing about fantasizing about and it's and it's uh of course not what you thought it would be and and so i thought it it did uh it did at least to my mind it it's it seemed those characters this kind of you know disappointing disappointing awkward glamour you know i don't know i that's that's what spoke to me and yeah and uh uh you know the nice thing about jarvis is there there there there's there are not i've never liked coolness i never liked um cool cool art yeah and um and the weird thing about jarvis is he's kind of like i want on one hand the most cool person you'll ever meet in your life and he's also very vulnerable and awkward and um and And at the same time, and anyway, I, you know, in a way, it is a little bit like what we're talking about, 70s clothing.

46:05There's a kind of a sense of glamour that you've just missed out on or something, and that you can't quite join that party, you know? Yeah, because there is a feeling of poignancy about that image. You know, there she is. She's so beautiful with this blonde hair and this, you know, amazing cleavage that you can't quite see in the red she's leaning into. And yet there's a wistful feeling you get rather than just, oh, that's impossible and I'm left out of that. There's something touching and that's why it's... I remember seeing someone writing, this is sexist, instead of this is hardcore, whatever.

47:02I read in an interview that you said, no matter how good I can paint, I lack the aristocratic style of a European. And given that your style is internationally revered, whose style do you like in that respect? well i think what what i was referring to when i said that i remember saying that and what it was was i was i was um i became i still am uh my very obsessed with with with um francis picabia oh yeah and and uh you know and i then i saw i i saw a show a large show of his for the first time, a lot of his work together. And what struck me was that even when he tried to make sort of ugly paintings, and I should say also, I always loved Martin Kippenberger's paintings.

47:59Oh, yeah. But anyway, it's like he would try to be a vulgar American, and he just never could shake this beautiful, elegant, arabesque or something. You know, like, it just, he couldn't, you couldn't, there's this fantastic movie, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, where, what's his name? Michael Caine. Michael Caine is sort of teaching Steve Martin how to be a, you know, a louche European in Monaco or something like that. And it's like Steve Martin almost gets injured, you know, trying to cross his legs in a chair like a European. I don't know. It's hilarious. And, you know, in a lot of ways, Picabia, I could just see he couldn't stop being like effortlessly elegant European.

49:00And it was kind of upsetting because I realized, you know, conversely, I'll never not be a kind of blockhead American. And so that's, you know, I try to not suppress that, I guess, even though I am obsessed with European elegance and the sort of, or I'm a sucker for it. And, you know, my house is done up, you know, as Johnny Pagazzi would say, fake old, you know, by Studio Paragalli, these wonderful Italians. And, you know, so I kind of live in this like mock European house. and I love every square inch of it and and I I spent every penny I ever made to make it and but there is you know it is kind of sad you know I come home from the studio in my Amazon essentials you know clothes and and you know I I feel like I should have dressed up for my house but but I don't, you know, so, so I think a part of being, part of becoming a good painter for me was, was accepting, uh, you know, my Americanness and, and my, and, and my sort of, um, trashiness and trashy, not in a like cool, like Lou Reed way, like, like, like just cheap cheapness, like, like I'm not European and I never will be.

50:51And I, and I, And I can't really even imitate it. But in the way, you're so much more, you have so much more elegance in your house. I mean, I've been to your house and trashy is the last word I've used. I mean, it's the most magnificent. It's the most kind of awe-inspiring. And it's so generous that you bring Europe and these kind of fantasies of Europe into, I can't remember the area you live in, but it's really fun and really disarmingly beautiful. And it seems amazing to be able, in a way, I think Europeans can be kind of complacent or, you know, take for granted all these kind of curlicues or whatever it has, wherever, you know, if they're in Venice.

51:45But it's, I love what you do with it. I mean, I remember when I first, the first time I ever went to like another country was my girlfriend and I took the night train to Montreal, to the old Montreal. It was wonderful, actually. You get on this sleeper train and you wake up in another country. It was the first time I'd ever been in another country. And I was just amazed by the beautiful fire escapes outside the – they are actually very beautiful in the old Montreal. And I also went with her – I went with her then later, actually, to Europe, to Holland. And I just – even ugly buildings, I don't know.

52:32So there was something magical about them. I don't know. I, so I don't, you know, in terms of my house, it's not like I'm pretending to be a European aristocrat. It's just, it gives me joy, like, every day. I think there's more chance of a European pretending to be a European aristocrat than, well, than you. It is weird. the one thing about Europe that I find really weird is they, they seem to have never mastered electric light. Like, like they can't seem to light play, you know, it's, it's like, like you were pointing to the, that book men. So that painting on the cover, it was, it was a memory I had from the first time I went to Germany and, And we went to a, I forget where it was.

53:31I forget what city was. I guess it would have been Cologne or something. And we went to a pasta restaurant, and it was just hideous. It was just fluorescent lights and, like, icky chairs. It was weird. It was Europe, but the lighting was just so hideous. And I do find that in a lot of Europe.

54:03It'll be like a beautiful room lit so atrociously you can't have an anxiety attack being in the room. Yeah. Italy specializes in that because the food is so good and the room is sympathetic. and then it's, you know, like a factory or something. And both your parents died between 2017 and 2019, and you described losing the desire to paint pornographic imagery, and that part of you that painted these images was to make your parents uncomfortable. And you said their presence has been so enormous, the reason for me making those paintings suddenly evaporated. I think I only became conscious of that after they died.

54:53Really? Yeah. It was like, I guess I had been sort of, at the time, I didn't think it was anything as dumb as that, that I was freaking my parents out. But there was more to it. Yeah, I was in late middle age by that time. And, you know, I don't know. It revealed something to me, I guess, that they had been, I mean, of course they were a huge presence in my life and still are. But I guess it was a kind of suppressed rebellion. Yeah. And because I didn't rebel as a child. I wasn't like wild and I didn't. And I was, you know, especially with my dad because he just had me so, it would be like I'd want to go to a party and be like, well, why do you want to go?

55:59And I'd say, well, just to see. You're like, well, you know, I want to hopefully, you know, unhook a bra or something like that you know like that's my that's what I really want but I I'm embarrassed to say that's why I want to go to the party and he would sort of I it was a sort of almost like a you know almost like um darkness at noon you know like I I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm sitting you know in in a Soviet prison I I supported the regime and I can't figure out why I feel bad. I feel like, yes, I deserve to be here. Anyway, for whatever reason, I never really rebelled. And I guess it always bothered me that I didn't.

56:50And I guess there was a sort of double plus ultra secret repression of that urge that carried over into my paintings. How interesting. Did you feel like a freedom when they did die or was it just that realization more? I didn't feel freedom. Certainly didn't feel freedom. I guess I felt, I don't know. I don't know. It was... And, I mean, apart from feeling sad and all those things, of course, it was that feeling of like, wow, I'd been painting for them way more than I thought. Yeah. And I'd been painting about them much more than I had realized. uh so um and you know that they were templates that were hidden and and uh and still are and and uh you know they come to me in my dreams and and and you know and i'm more and more um you know i've become much more sort of superstitious or rather less rational um you know my dad was very um well that's the funny thing my dad was was always very anti well anti-froid to tell you the truth um and uh i think my dad was you know and and uh uh he he was so weird you know he he so in retrospect kind of strange like Like he was very, very enthusiastically, he really admired Darwin.

58:58He had a first edition that he'd spent a lot of money on, of the Voyage of the Beagle. And he really thought Darwin was something, intellectually something special. And yet he started making noises, increasingly making noises that he was somewhat skeptical of evolution. It was weird. And he was a theoretical physicist. So it wasn't like. And he understood. He had read everything of Darwin. But he would keep saying, like, the older he got, he said he would just be skeptical of it. And he really disliked, one thing that really pissed him off was when, you know, the New York Times would make fun of creationists, you know, of dumb hick creationists in Oklahoma or something.

1:00:03And he really liked knowing a lot about it. Yeah. And then, and then, and then he would play the dumb hick, you know, and, you know, and, and, uh, I guess that was, you know, my parents were both from Oklahoma. And so when we moved to, um, um, um, Stanford, Connecticut and the East coast, you know, they still had these acts, they have Oklahoma accents. so i think they got i think there was some feeling like he was kind of a hick you know and not a hick but like they weren't as sophisticated as my mom's you know these wealthier wasps that that took piano lessons for my mom and and you know my dad would always make fun of them for you know having these gigantic suvs and couldn't they couldn't do a three-point turn in our driveway way and and and the husband's always worked for like Clairol or something like that and you know or like like you'd say like he's in ladies underwear you know or or you know these men and I think that rubbed off on me also these men you know these kind of wealthy men suburban men who who have slightly humiliating jobs like their corporate jobs or their advertising jobs or they're you know, doing something that's, that's, you know, that's, although ironically, my dad was also employed as a abstractionist in a way.

1:01:34Um, so, so in what way, well, in that he dealt in, well, ultimately he dealt in reality in the most, in the most extreme form, but, But it was all abstractions. He wasn't building furniture or even painting pictures. He filled up books with Greek letters and equations and literal abstractions. And so, but I think he, but these men that were employed as managers and corporations, you know, in Stanford selling shit and, you know, I think he really didn't have much respect for it and found it very, found them clown-like. And I guess I inherited that a little bit too. I suppose they're quite easy targets.

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1:04:59I sat next to you once at dinner and you told me about a conversation you'd had with my father, Lucian. I wondered what you talked about.

1:05:11Well, honestly, it was very loud. it was funny it's a funny story i i i i think i told you is you told me but i rachel and i rachel and i were were i was having an opening at sadie cole's and rachel and i were just like sort of luxuriating at the hotel you know and and having a drink and and and it was a little bit after the beginning of the opening and sadie calls calls and says get your asses over here lucian freud's here and and so i i you know oh shit you know so we kind of ran and um i was more starstruck the the truth is i don't quite remember what we talked about because i was very starstruck um to be to see him and to be talking to and that he's talking to me and then and that he's at my show it was he he gave me some compliments but i on on on a couple of paintings but i was i was so uh starstruck that i that i that i the truth is i don't think i had a meaningful conversation with him it was more i was just more like i can't believe i'm talking to lucian freud he was quite hard to talk to because he was quite shy so when you said that I was so excited about the idea of you both talking and talking to each other and and I remember you said he'd paid you some compliments which he certainly didn't do without meaning them and being completely sincere and it was it was it was well it was too it was too chaotic uh and allowed a scene to um to to have a a meaningful conversation it was just i had thought about this guy you know more or less non-stop um um for most of my adult life and and so uh there was a beautiful when i went when i went to Carnegie Mellon University there was a it's still there a very beautiful um very early uh Freud small painting of a of a Greek of a bust of a Greek bust from the from the period of the of the of the zebras although there was no zebra in this one and it and I just remember the the weird just a strange, very unusual cubism of the Greek bust.

1:07:46It was Picasso, but it wasn't anything like Picasso. And it's just a gorgeous painting. And so I've always, and he wasn't, he wasn't, back in the, this would have been in the, well, yeah, this would have been like 1980 or 1981. He wasn't as hugely famous then, at least to art students and things. No, he didn't. As he became. Yeah. But I loved that painting. And then I would just see the pictures and books and things. And so anyway, it was just, you know, and I also knew his face from the Francis Bacon portraits, from Francis Bacon's portraits of him. Yeah. And it was a little bit like, to return to a point I was making earlier, it would almost be like I was having a conversation with Clint Eastwood or something.

1:08:50Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, I was in Vail, Colorado, because my uncle had a place there, and we'd go there for the summer. And I saw Clint Eastwood. It was like, Clint Eastwood was standing like 80 feet away with some people. And it was the first time I'd ever seen a celebrity. and it was just, I still remember, it was just, it just, so in a way it was a little bit like an experience like that. Actually, I meant to say that when I first saw that El Greco painting, it reminded me of having seen Clint Eastwood. It was a similar feeling to seeing Clint Eastwood. Yeah. And so. That's wonderful.

1:09:44So I'm sorry. I certainly didn't say anything smart or anything. Because he would be so hyper, kind of tense and alert. He didn't talk that much. He didn't go out that much. So he must have really liked the whole thing to be there and to say those things to you. It's a nice thing to hold in my thoughts. It certainly is for me. I can sort of just picture him. You know, when he did talk, he would sort of go in and out of, he would sort of say something and then almost step back. Oh, it sounds so pretentious. But it was like his adrenaline was, he'd say a few things and then stop and look down and then come back with the rest of what was in his head.

1:10:47I do remember that. Because you said your wife Rachel's face is always present in your images because she's your ideal of an ideal woman. And it's just somehow, it's not that she's, I mean, with Rachel, it's, for some reason, her face just comes out of my hand. You know, it's a little bit like, I always loved, I always loved Lucas Kranach because I love that woman that he makes over and over again. that little sort of pointy-chinned, sharp-eyed, kind of snake-eyed, or not snake-eyed, you know what I mean, but like a sort of slit-eyed blonde woman. And I guess with Rachel, you know, she has these like gigantic eyes that droop.

1:11:52Actually, they're not like cat eyes. They're not like Audrey Hepburn eyes. They're a little bit awkward. And these big llama eyelashes and heavy eyebrows and this very long nose. Anyway, I don't know. I just found her easy to draw. I was thinking she's a bit like a composite of some of your favorite painters, like with her Botticelli hair and her face has some dura and then she has this amazing crannic body and then she has this some Robert Crumb sexiness and attitude. She's also kind of awkward and in a really touching way, I think, And, you know, I think mainly is Rachel has an open face and open.

1:13:02I'm interested in other women's faces, and I'm interested in different bodies. I'm interested in a different look. But there's something, I don't know. But there's always some kind of Rachel-ness in any kind of, even or especially in the grotesque women, there's Rachel's in those too. And so, I mean, I would hope that people would feel in the images of mine that might be read as misogynist or is I feel tenderness toward those figures. Yeah, that seems to come across a lot, I think. I don't really feel scorn. And I hope that doesn't sound disingenuous, but I feel tenderness toward them, and I'm trying to express tenderness.

1:14:14Do you ever choose clothes for her to wear with your brilliant eye? I always have to say, listen, Rachel, I'm not gay, but I really think a wider belt would, would, would be better. You know, I really think the, you know, and I'll, I'll do some sort of fake, fake stylist type things, but, but, but she's always, she's, she's all, it's always been a sort of running argument, you know, she wants to wear something i don't like it and but she'll wear it anyway you know and and uh you know because i've always been a bit of a jerk about i don't do it as much now but i but i but i but i i was really treating her a little bit like a doll you know for a while i think i mean this sounds so shallow but i you know it gives me so much joy to look at her that uh you know uh Oh, that sounds fun.

1:15:21I mean, I can't think of anything better myself, but. Oh, I think it's pretty irritating sometimes. It's really like. I only ever had one boyfriend in my life who was that specific about, you know, the wider belt. That's really, that's niche. That's good. It drives me crazy. And the one thing I'm always, it drives me crazy is that it seems to be very hard to find a tailored shirt, like a tailored white shirt. Like one that has a waist that just, that breaks over the hips, you know, a few inches and just does a slight. it's she seems to only have shirts that stop that that stop at you know just below the the belly button and and and create a rectangle and i just it drives me crazy i was like like isn't i don't know i i i i that's one of my peeves and she's so sick of hearing me talk about it i said well you know what would look good she's like how's i said it'd be nice if you had a white shirt it was like it's like you know i don't john so and if you fancy someone and don't like what they're wearing does it kill your attraction it doesn't kill my attraction it just but it but it uh but it just i find the white shirt problem conundrum the most frustrating i think darts are out of fashion these days so people make these short shirts or longer but less fitted but uh because your new paintings show women with benign and friendly expressions and they're standing unselfconsciously but with these gigantic breasts and they're they're so vast they seem to be bearing down on the on on the viewer and the women in in these paintings are older and And they have that thing from the 70s of wearing something that's unwittingly revealing.

1:17:35Because you talked earlier about the view of adults from children. And was this your view of adults when you were a child? um i think maybe uh it's not that i had that view of of i think it's i think for me it's a metaphor for some reason that's a persistent image in my in my in my work i have a i have a drawing i made in like 1986 of of that same exact woman it's and it's i guess it was um without analyzing it to as symbol too much i i i i think it was just again this idea of a misunderstand a child's misunderstanding of sex or of of or a sexiness or of um or of women i guess you know and um and also like um a misunderstanding of abundance or of um you know of wealth or of or of any of those kind of things and and so uh these were mostly you know instinctive things you know just kind of the best ones were were were made from i would make these you know i'd flip pages through these catalogs and i'd something would get me about one and so i'd make these drawings very very quick millions of them and and so some of them and some of them it just so it's really not thought out i i think but but i do think that the the the in all the cases their their actual sex their their their their crotch you know if it's revealed is is um is presented as as real as as um as natural and real.

1:19:38And, uh, so I think there's something going on there between, um, constructed sex or imagined, imagined sex and, and then the, and actual, and the actual sex. And, and, uh, you know, and so much of it is just the, the opportunity that those crazy looking breasts give you for overlaps and, you know, formal things actually in the painting. And so... How do you mean formal? Like it'll overlap the other woman and then her arm will come out from underneath and overlap here and you'll have this kind of, again, I guess a kind of a ham-fisted American version of a beautiful European arabesque. or a manneristic intertwining of figures.

1:20:36I think it's actually in the National Gallery. There's a painting by, damn it, what's his name again? Mabuse. Oh, yeah. It's an Adam and Eve where their legs are tied in a kind of square knot. It's a really amazing painting.

1:21:00Sorry, I'm blanking out on his name. No, I mean, you've got some. Anyhow, it's these beautiful constructions that these artists would make. And in my case, I like that it's made from a kind of a grotesque social, that it's very unnatural and it refers to modern life or blah, blah, blah. I like that it's awkward and it kind of ruins the chance for the painting to ever be in good taste. But there's something so tender about them. I really like them. Thank you. It's meant to be. Believe it or not, it is meant to be tender. Yeah, well, that comes through very much. Because when I saw the first painting of the, and it's like, what's going on with these crazy breasts?

1:22:05But they reminded me of my teacher when I was six. She had this enormous self and she was so intelligent, kind and dignified. And I like the expressions. There's this kind of camaraderie and this friendliness between the women who were the portraits of two women together. And then these gigantic breasts which somehow seem like, I don't know, they just seem touching and comforting and weirdly normal in a kind of outlandish way. I think also it's a kind of, I think one way I've thought about it in the past is like the presence of my uncontrollable eye. Like I stared at it and it got bigger as a result of me staring at it.

1:23:05And I made a few of these paintings 10 years ago of sort of fish eye, a convex mirror paintings of a woman's butt, a nude woman, and her butt becomes this gigantic circle, almost filling the round canvas. And to me it was like partly on a mental level, It was a kind of a parody of that essay you had to read in college of, forget her name, Laura Mulvey, The Gaze, the male gaze, and this objectifying gaze. And I thought of it as a kind of like my eye is changing what it's looking at and making it. And there's part of that in the breasts. Like I looked at it too long and they started, it was like putting a ultraviolet lamp on a marijuana plant or something.

1:24:13And I should also say the imagery had showed up in my work before then. But I did see something in the early 90s. I saw, it was something by the German dance, damn it, what's her name? beautiful, surrealistic dances. Yeah. Piena Bausch. Piena Bausch, exactly. And it was a Piena Bausch thing. And at one point, there's this very tall, older woman comes striding out in a long dress with gigantic breasts, like basketball -sized breasts under this long, I think it was a dark dress. and she had a very severe angry face. And I remember just that was a spectacular and terrifying image

1:25:17of, I don't know, a big combination of aggression and vulnerability and sort of evil and good. And I don't know, it was a really complex image. And it reminded me also of another image that stuck with me from around that time was I saw a, do you know who Dennis Potter was? Yes, God, very much. So it was a, I loved, it kind of blew my mind when I first saw his things in 1980. Is that Pennies from Heaven? Pennies from Heaven was the first thing, the BBC one. And I also saw the Steve Martin one. And then, but this was called You're the Cream in My Coffee. And it was like a three-part TV thing. And it was in his style.

1:26:20Anyway, this guy, his mother, he has a domineering mother. And the way she was photographed, it was terrifying. I remember just that woman in that TV show. And I haven't seen it since. But it just really stuck with me. She was also wearing something dark. She was wealthy. She's in a fancy house. And she's talking on the phone, admonishing her grown son. And that image also just burned something into my brain. And so that woman, the Pina Bausch lady, I don't know. There's some of that in the big breast sort of, you know, it's also an image of authority I guess and and and and a kind of you know I don't really think I don't really think about the symbol so much it just I just I enjoy that it that it I enjoy and accept that it that it persists yeah I guess well I really like them I'm looking forward to seeing them later thank Thank you so much for being on Fashion Neurosis, John Curran.

1:27:46It's so great to have you here. Thank you so much. There's something magic about lying down. I've never done it before. Yeah. No, there seems to be some. I had no idea, but it seems like there is something magical. Every now and then I lie down for a few seconds and think, oh my god I'm just going to go somewhere else or I won't be able to come back from. This reminds me of those New Yorker cartoons you know there's like a goateed shrink you know and there's the person's on the couch and always his diploma is like his like diploma from medical psychiatry school you know is on the I just I love that that scenario you know.

1:28:35I love those cartoons. They're fantastic. Well, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you for having me here.

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From the publisher

John Currin is an American painter. Currin is widely recognised for his figurative oil paintings in which themes of sexual personae and historical painterly genres appear in surreal and sometimes disconcerting guises. Oscillating between a graphic sexuality and playful symbolism, Currin captures the tones and textures of everyday life with an acute sensitivity and a meticulous attention to detail.

Currin has exhibited internationally at galleries including Sadie Coles, Dallas Contemporary, Museo Stefano Bardini in Florence and Gagosian in New York. His first solo show was at White Columns in 1989, and in 2003, a mid-career survey of his paintings travelled to the Serpentine Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. 

His most recent exhibition is Opening Credits at Sadie Coles HQ in London. 

In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and John Currin discuss the importance of clothes in his paintings, Jarvis Cocker, and the nuance of Sean Connery vs Clint Eastwood.

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