Courtesy of Gemma Peppé
If you could live with just one work of art, what would it be?
It would be a painting my father did of my mother and my older brother and sister. It’s very large, about 5ft by 5ft, and it was in the RA summer show in 1967, the year I was born. They are standing in the doorway of our house in East Putney. My sister is wearing a Mary Quant Pop art hat and dress, and my mother looks very beautiful in a typical late 1960s dress. I’ve been looking at the painting all my life and always loved it. My father died two years ago and my mother died very recently, and it’s a piece of them.
Which cultural experience changed the way you see the world?
I think Black Lives Matter has effected real change. Young people demand diversity. We will never see all-male or all-white panels or casts again. The effects on the arts have included blind casting and every single arts institution having to re-examine their diversity programmes and practices.
Which writer or poet do you return to the most?
At the moment, I’m keen on Karl Ove Knausgård. My younger brother has been pushing him on me for a while. Recently, he bought me The Wolves of Eternity, which I couldn’t put down and has a lot of resonance with my life at the moment.
What music or other audio are you listening to?
I’ve got an obsession with Depeche Mode at the moment. I recently binge-watched Guy Garvey’s From the Vaults series, and then went down lots of YouTube rabbit holes.
What are you watching, listening to or following that you would recommend?
Podcasts: an artist friend, Fipsi Seilern, features in Dangerous Memories, about a cult-like therapist; I also like The News Agents and The Rest Is History. Cinema: anything with Sandra Hüller—I’ve watched Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest and Toni Erdmann, and she’s faultless.
What is art for?
For me, art is a way of experiencing the world non-verbally. If you don’t create art yourself, you can borrow from artists to express how you feel, how you see the world and what’s important to you.
• War Child presents Sound & Vision, curated by Art on a Postcard—33 artists respond to one David Bowie lyric, 180 Studios, London, 26-27 September
