We chatted luxury, design heroes, and more…
How has your style evolved over the years? Instinctively I create portraits, still lifes and landscapes full of colour, energy and delicious, fast-flowing paint. I’ve never been good at restraint but I’m beginning to introduce more control; a more limited palette, a slower pace of working, resisting the temptation to always indulge what comes automatically. I’m slowly learning.
Who or what are your biggest influences? My father, Alexander Goudie. He painted portraits of me when I was only days old. He never formally taught me, but I absorbed his lessons just by watching the way he worked. Those visits into his studio throughout the day have been the foundation of my entire painting career.
Who is your design hero? Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The man could do everything. And everything he did was true to his own unique and extraordinary personal vision.
Your favourite building in the world is? The Glasgow School of Art, where my father studied and which I visited regularly throughout my childhood. In my opinion it was the greatest masterpiece in the history of Scottish art and it’s an international cultural tragedy that it lies in ruins.
Describe the interior style of your home: Victorian, eccentric, exuberantly messy, buried in West London.
What makes a home? Paintings.
How do you relax? Painting, preferably the view from a sun-lounger, beneath a palm tree, looking out across the Indian Ocean with a gin and tonic on the way.
Luxury is? No internet connection.
How do you invest in yourself? Occasionally I treat myself to a tailored suit crafted from thornproof tweed.
Which iconic interior product do you wish you had designed? Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s writing desk for Hill House. If you have to pay bills and write invoices, why not work through the drudgery within a masterpiece!
What are you sitting on right now? A paint-splattered ergonomic chair in front of my ratty, flimsy, very drudgery-appropriate computer desk.
What is Scotland’s greatest attribute? Across the centuries Scots have never been so proud as to refuse taking lessons from others. The story of Scottish art is underpinned by a borderless, creative curiosity.
