BBC - Radio 4 - Radio and the Artist

"... the words from the radio make pictures in my head in endless and often surreal orientation ..."

I am a painter, printmaker and bookmaker and spend many hours alone in my studio listening to Radio 4. The soothing quality of the human voice is often only a background to my labours but there are certain aspects of the broadcasting every day which alert me to the content and focus my attention. I pick up atoms of information often drawn from all side of the globe, which relate to the sense of fragmentation and layering upon which my images often rely. As the words from the radio make pictures in my head in endless and often surreal orientation, the juxtaposition of unlikely items land on my consciousness and weave inevitable threads around my images.

Visual and literary influences throughout history and internationally are an important aspect of my objects. Text is often a factor in my work. The poet and critic George Szirtes wrote the article "Literature in the Art of Sandy Sykes" for Modern Painters magazine, Winter 1998. The poet Steve Ellis, translator of Hell: Dante Alhigerie wrote the preface to my Artist's Book: "Paradise is Always Where You've Been", which is based around Dante's great work but investigates our own contemporary search for paradise on earth. After seeing the book, Michael Ondaatje introduced my images to the Canadian literary magazine Brick, who used them in a celebratory edition to mark 25 years of publishing in 2004.

The story has been a major factor in my life since childhood. When small I sat at the table drawing as I listened to Dick Barton's weekly adventures on an old wireless set hanging on the wall over my head. So today I seek out the Classic Serial on Sundays, Poetry Please and Book Club and the Afternoon Play. The schedules alter but there is always something similar to aim for. The pleasure of narrative, so often unfashionable in today's world of fast and instant gratifications, is still a delight and a balm to sooth the day. So the unfolding of my images, slow and tentative or vigorous and attacking as the method demands, creates its own history held within the surface of the work. Each mark and gesture erases the other and builds into a complex and intricate mapping of time and content. The paintings, prints and books provide a paradox of images, attacked and cohersed from all sides. Collages and multi-layered they hide as much as they reveal. Nothing is stated; much is questioned.

Long-term research into boundaries and demarcation lines within and around present day cultures; people who are displaced whether by choice or circumstance, provide a basis for my paintings, prints and books. Radio 4 helps to break down these boundaries and divisions in our global society by spanning the world through news and current affairs programs as well as through interviews with both influential and ordinary persons. We receive different perspectives on life and lives, loved in extraordinary and exotic or unimaginable and banal circumstances. Short but potent comments from survivors of the Omagh tragedy, taken on the day by BBC reporters found their way into the Paradise book. The immense significance of the question "Have you lost anyone?" on such a day meaning more than words alone can encompass.

So we move to the quiz, to comedy such as I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, which reassures us of our humanity, our love of nonsense and out need as humans to laugh. Play is one of the most fundamental elements in any creative process and as I play with ideas and materials and methods, allowing essential humour into my images, Radio 4 is my companion, my backdrop and often my stimulant.