Profiles

Artist Ben Jamie on Art and Becoming an Artist (and Father)

Portrait of Ben Jamie by Jack Grange

Light streamed through the industrial windows, and the air was heavy with the smell of linseed oil. With my elbow resting just a few inches from a wet palette of deep reds and steely grays, I sat down in Ben Jamie’s studio to talk about East London, mythology, and perception.

—Beau Gabriel

 


To start, can you tell us how you became a painter?

Just that cliché… I started from a young age, when I really enjoyed drawing and everything like that, and seemed to be quite good at it. I only really decided to study it properly when it came to choosing A-Levels. I’d failed to take art at GCSE, because I thought I could do it anyway. And then they wouldn’t let me do A-Levels. So I left school to go to art college. And that was quite a long time ago now.

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