Image with face and several geometric shapes on a blue background. Printed in grey, green, two blues, three yellows, purple, buff, black, cerise, red, cerise, brown, pink and orange-brown ink.
In an interview with Glasgow Print Studio on 21st June 2010, the artist explained “In 1995 I was asked to do a series of projects in Middlesburgh and one of them was to design flags. I designed twelve flags and they weren’t for any specific place. They flew in Middlesburgh and then they flew three years later at the Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp. It was great doing it, but I thought, ‘Well, how do you design a flag?’ rather than do a line drawing and colour it in, that’s not how you design a flag! I thought ‘How do you make a flag?’ You get big bits of colour and cut it out. I thought, ’in that case I’ll get bits of coloured paper and cut it out and design flags with it’. So I had this standard shape and cut out shapes and put them down and just let each of them come to rest. And once it was done, it was done. And it became quite clear, without thinking, without pushing it, things became what they became. It was very liberating for me. It meant that I was freeing colour from line, in a way. I’ve got the actual flags in my studio. They’re about ten feet by about sixteen feet.”
