The art of Simon Starling.

Tabernas Desert Run, 2004 Cell powered bicycle, vitrine, watercolour on paper, courtesy the artist and The Modern Institute, Glasgow.

By Stuart Jeffries Via: The Guardian

"Starling was born in Epsom in 1967, was educated in Sevenoaks, and did a photography degree at Trent Polytechnic before going on to study fine art at Glasgow. "I knew early on that I didn't want to study in London. I wanted to find something else, and Glasgow was the place. The early 1990s was a great moment for the city, there was a lot of buzz about the place." He currently divides his time between Glasgow and Berlin. Was London never attractive, career development-wise? "I'm not a big city person. I like to think things through at my own speed." Why Berlin? "I moved there for love." And stayed because it's an artistic hub? "Kind of." His partner is a writer and curator, and his son Vincent is 11 months old.


Starling's desire to make things that may or may not be art has flourished. Another of his prize-winning exhibits, Tabernas Desert Run, involved him making an improvised hydrogen-fuelled bicycle, riding across the Spanish desert on it and then painting a botanical watercolour of a cactus using the bicycle's only waste product: water. This eco-concept project appealed to the Turner judges, who liked how "he transforms and reframes existing objects using a rigorous process of research" and admired his "unique ability to create poetic narratives which draw together a wide range of cultural, political and historical narratives".