Introduction: Croydon born Londoner Alec Saunders talks us through his journey as an artist, being a proud South Londoner, artist expression and all things related. He is the 4th person to talk to us in our on going feature ‘Talking to London‘. If you hear background noise that’s because we conducted the interview in a department store, that’s just how we do.  As you can see we have real diverse group of humans in South London alone. Let us and Alec know what you think about what he shared with us. Alec has also kindly sent over some of his work which is scattered amongst the photographs below. Enjoy. Peace & Love.

Audio interview is below, accompanied by photographs and selected quotes. Enjoy.

Alec – www.colour–blind.co.uk – Website
Alec – Instagram – Personal
Alec – Instagram – Artwork
Alec – Twitter

04 – Talking to London – Alec by Hark1karan on Mixcloud

Interview Highlights

12 seconds: Hello! I’M Alec Saunders. I’m working in Croydon at the moment. Live in Croydon. Born and bred in Croydon.

37 seconds: I’ve always loved art… and I’ve always got on well with art. I’ve never really had to try.

48 seconds: My father was a graphics designer. He designed a lot of famous packaging. I.e. the Channel 4 logo, Snickers logo, Mars bar logo…

 1:09 min: I’m kinda old skool do everything by hand.

1:55 min: I think I’ve sold 100% of what I’ve made… A lot of the stuff I do is physical, texture so yeah.

2:40 min: I think Croydon isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be…. The best thing about Croydon is the different cultures and the different types of people, and I’ve met them all… Croydon’s gritty and you can see that in my artwork… I use a lot of metal and rusty picked-up-things.

5:05 min: If I’m not playing football or going to the gym, then I’m doing artwork… My playstations a bit dusty.

5:49 min: Even when I was 5 or 6 he (Alec’s dad) would ask for my help on it…

6:40 min: I mean at first, when you’ve realised… look at yourself and I am the best artist in this room, why am I writing about it? I think that’s kind of a naïve look at how it is… I think once you actually start to look at it, how to describe and go on a journey, I  think your art improves… you can change the way you think and your art actually has meaning to it, substance to it as opposed to it being a pretty picture. I think that’s when the true artist inside of you comes out.

8:02 min: If you’re a true artist you need to have some meaning behind it.

9:30 min: I celebrate the urban background I’m from. I’m really inspired by… obviously they’re really well known now, they weren’t really well known then… Banksy, Obey (Shepard Fairey), Anselm Kiefer. If I had to describe my work… it would be if them three had a baby.

11:25 min: (Tattoos) It’s a way of expressing what you believe and it’s a reflection of your personality on your skin… Everything on my arm has a meaning to me… There’s a story behind every tattoo on my skin… I was even considering becoming a tattoo artist before as well. Most of the work I do is in ink. In ink you don’t get second chances to do it.

13:22 min: I know I can do things but then it’s hard to do it in this modern day…

16:36 min: I’ve only been drawing a bit more seriously for 11 to 10 months really. Obviously I’m still learning and picking up techniques myself. When you stop doing art, it’s like anything, when you stop doing something you forget it little bit and you’re not as good as you were. The more you do something, the better you get.

19:19 min: (About his art for others) Everything has undertones of personality in it, of that person.

 20:30 min: I never really used to draw. I wasn’t really a massive drawer. I was more collage work and sculpture work as opposed to drawing. I kinda mix it all up as mixed-media now.

22:12 min: The obvious ones which never used to be obvious, when they first started inspiring me… It’s now the coolest place in the world, Brick Lane, Shoreditch, places like that never used to be hip when I used to go there with my dad.

23:23 min: I did used to like a lot of photography…. but I was never really a photographer.

24:20 min: I love Instagram it is my favourite social network. It’s just simple and photographs… I did have a couple of celebrities like my photos.

26:18 min: I would love to. I can see some of my work, if was in a gallery it would command some money in there… I would love to be in a gallery. The worst thing is that most of my stuff has sold.

27:34 min: I think people are still very narrow minded in Croydon still… I still love Croydon.

29:10 min: My stuff… it is better than and has a lot more meaning than a lot of the stuff people have in galleries, it’s just that they know the right people.

29:20 min: We’re lucky to be like a stone’s throw away from London. We’re literally in one of the best cities in the world… There’s so many places to see and Croydon is one of them.

29: 58 min: Why can’t a boy from Croydon command some money? Why? I don’t understand why? Why does it matter where you come from? I’ve had it just as though growing up as anyone else has, any other artist has. It doesn’t make any difference. I had to leave my journey… because of financial reasons…

31:49 min: There are two love to my life really. Football and art.

32:47 min: I know that people from Croydon can go far.

33:18 min: I’m excited for the future. The good thing with art is that there is no age limit on it. But with football there is an age limit… I enjoy doing it, so even if I don’t find success I’m happy to keep doing it. Making other people happy with art.

35 min: Do what you believe in. There are no rules when it comes to art.