Horace Panter, best known as bassist in The Specials, has been keeping a secret. In between touring and worldwide performances, Horace has been quietly nurturing his artistic talent behind the scenes, creating a collection of work highly influenced by a fascination with traditional forms of conventional iconography. Here he talks to us here about robots, icons and dream collaborations:
How long have you been nurturing your artistic talent?
I always say that the reason I went to Art College was so that I could be in a pop group, but I genuinely was interested in art, and have been every since I was in single figures.I graduated from what is now Coventry University in 1975, and joined The Specials two years later!
Who and what inspires you to paint?
I tend to go for solitary figures in minimal landscapes, but that’s due to the influence of traditional icons. Icons fascinate me. They have their own rules which are totally at odds with the rules of painting. Actually, Icons aren’t ‘painted’, they’re ‘written’ (kinda like graffiti)! As to who inspires me, I would say, Peter Blake, Henri Rousseau, Joseph Cornell, Robyn Denny, Wayne Thiebald and, of course, the forms of traditional iconography.
Robots feature heavily in your work, can you tell us more?
Again, it’s that solitary monolithic image. Plus, robots are a fantasy product from a time when science-fiction was a product of an optimistic imagination. In America, robots are generally malevolent (‘Open the pod bay door, Hal’) and want to destroy us, but in Japan, they are benevolent beings who battle huge monsters and save the (Japanese) world. Odd, that! Many of my other painted characters also have an anonymous robot-like presence, for example, ‘Fruit Girl’, ‘Sailor’, ‘Punk Rock Girl’.
Can you tell us a bit more about the individuals in your work – such as ‘Brooklyn Dread’, ‘Punk Rock Girl’ and ‘Beijing Street Cleaner’?
‘Brooklyn Dread’ and ‘Beijing Street Cleaner’ are real people, and the man in ‘Brooklyn Dread’ is actually related to Neville Staple from The Specials. ‘Beijing Street Sweeper’ is a woman I photographed in Beijing when I visited China earlier this year. I harbour a fantasy that I shall go back there one day to find her and present her with the picture! ’ I suppose I’m trying to give these people an ‘iconic’ status by elevating the mundane.
How long have you been working on this body of work?
The ‘Robot at the Beach’/'Fruit Girls,’ goes back about three years whereas the paint on ‘Big Robot #1′ is hardly dry. As for ’Big Robot #2′ it is hardly finished!
What are your artistic plans for the future?
What I would love to do is spend equal amounts of time playing music and painting. In terms of artistic plans, I’m moving into ‘process’ rather than plain painting. In terms of music, I intend to keep playing/touring until I drop! I consider myself to be very, very lucky to be engaged in two creative and immensely enjoyable occupations.
When touring, do you find any time for artistic endeavours?
I’ve stumbled upon some exquisite museums and galleries on my travels and I always make it a point to visit art galleries in whichever city I end up in.
Do you have plans to exhibit your work any time soon?
Yes, the London exhibition, entitled ‘Robots, Saints and (Extra)Ordinary People’ is from 22nd November – 3rd December at The Strand Gallery on John Adams Street.
And if you could collaborate with another artist, who would it be?
I suppose Peter Blake, but I don’t think it’d be much of a collaboration, more like me asking him ‘how do you paint like that?!’
*Featured above: Beijing Street Cleaner, Robot at the Beach#1 and Brooklyn Dread. View Horace’s full collection of work on CultureLabel here.
