Robert Diamant

And it's almost like if you have a candle in front of you and the candle is flickering.

That's not a flat 2D graphic image.

No, exactly.

It's like a...

There's something about your paintings as well, where I feel like it's you with the canvas and you're having to like confront your own mortality, who you are.

Like, I know you've taken this as your subject matter because in the end it was the thing that was truest to yourself.

How do you sort of feel about that position?

Is it something that you're really grateful for, you know, in terms of this pursuit of being an artist?

And in the doing.

You have to actually paint, don't you, to become a great painter.

Because that's the other thing I keep telling younger people is I'm a bit like, guys, you just have to make the paintings.

There was a student recently at TKE who was saying to me, she had big empty canvases and she was stood in front of them and she was like, I'm just terrified.

And I was like, you don't need to be.

I was like, if it goes wrong, it goes wrong.

You've just got to actually do it.

I went in a week later and she'd started making all these paintings and she was so excited.

But I thought it was such a good lesson.

Yeah.

You just have to actually try and do it and be brave.

I know what you mean by art is for anybody because in a way it's also like beyond class, isn't it?