Take cover! Exhibition of Stanley Donwood prints at Hang-Up Gallery

Detail from Happy Family by Stanley Donwood

British artist, writer and Radiohead’s in-house creator Stanley Donwood is coming to East London this month with Apocalypse Boutique, a retrospective of rare prints and one-off pieces. Featuring screen prints, etchings and lino cut prints, the exhibition also includes the last remaining original canvas from the artist’s Hail to the Thief series. 

You’ve been described as the sixth member of Radiohead. Can you tell us a bit about the creative process working with the band?

I don’t like that description; there are five people in the band, I just do the pictures. But we do usually work together, and at the same time. The composing, rehearsing, recording and producing of each record is different; in different places (often in very eerie and derelict buildings in the middle of nowhere) and with different frames of mind. I attempt to understand the music as it’s being constructed and to make pictures of what it sounds like.

When you’re working on album artwork, what comes first, the music or the imagery?

I think that I usually have some sort of pre-conceived idea of what it is that I want to do; this fragile edifice is demolished, quickly or less quickly, by the music. So in terms of what I actually end up with, I would say that the music comes first. The music is the primary driver of what I do, which is, I suppose, why the artwork for each record is so different. I find it really difficult to work without music.

Are there any album covers you wish you’d done differently, and if so, how?

No! The artwork usually changes so much. It’s destroyed and remade so many times that when it’s finally finished, it really is… finished.

The exhibition at Hang-Up includes rarely seen works. How did you go about selecting pieces for the exhibition?

Well, mostly it’s a sort of snapshot of the printmaking I’ve been doing for the last few years, although it is a selective snapshot. It’s an attempt to explore if there’s any kind of continuity. Which there probably isn’t. Some of the work hasn’t been seen before at all, and some may be more familiar. Apart from a museum show I did in the Netherlands a few years ago, I’ve not done an exhibition that ranges across as many years as this. Perhaps it’s a sort of representation of my descent into ever deeper obscurity.

Are there any contemporary artists or printmakers who you particularly admire?

I’m terrible at remembering stuff like this. There are loads of people whose work I really like, but my memory is notoriously hard to access. I’ll probably think of a dozen artists just before I fall asleep. I very much like David Hockney’s most recent work, and I like Peter Kennard, Antony Micallef, Gee Vaucher, Paula Rego, and a hundred more whose names I cannot recall.

You’re also a writer. How does one creative process inform the other?

Ha! It doesn’t. In fact, I’d say they’re mutually exclusive. I can’t write if I’m doing artwork, and vice versa.

What inspired the name Stanley Donwood?

That is a secret known only to a very few people. Unless I’ve explained it in an interview and subsequently erased it from my mind.

Working across different mediums and using a variety of production techniques, from digital imagery and wax and to lino cuttings, is there a medium that you particularly like or dislike working with?

Woodcutting is pretty challenging, and painting is really hard, but extremely worthwhile. I dislike working on a computer, although the results can sometimes be okay.

What motivated you to design a poster for the Occupy movement?

I am thoroughly, profoundly disgusted by the efforts of the rich to become ever richer, at the expense of social cohesion, of the democracy of happiness, of the social contract. I detest the right-wing ideological focus of the ruling classes.

What’s next for Stanley Donwood?

I’m currently working on the covers for a new edition of JG Ballard’s novels, which is supremely challenging. He’s perhaps my favourite author, so I’d better not fuck it up.

Apocalypse Boutique is at Hang-Up Gallery, 56 Stoke Newington High Street, N16 7PB until 1 December