When did Mr. Barmy Art come around?

I changed my name on the first of August this year, because it dawned on me that humour in conceptualism, manicity in conceptualism was a good idea and I was reading art magazines and looking out for what was done at this time. I've only been an artist a year. I painted when I was 18, which was figurative work. I've been a conceptualist a year really. I had concepts before that but I've called myself a conceptualist for a year.

The reason why I'm called Barmy Art is two reasons. One, because it's humour in art, pure humour in art, it's going to be comedy in the art gallery, that's the idea.

Also barmy as in mad. Barmy has two foundations - it's humourous and mad, so barmy is barmy humourous, barmy mad.
It's basically the manic depression in the art world/manic depression in comedy relationship, because there's a lot of great manic depressives who are comical, like Spike Milligan, John Cleese, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers to name but a few. And so there's a lot of manic depressives who are artists, where it's basically the relationship between manic depression and comedy and art - the triad.

Can you give us a definition of manic depression?

Manic depression is, well, you get depressed sometimes; you can't do anything, you lie in bed, you wish you hadn't done half the things you'd done when you were manic. But the interesting part of manic depression, the most creative part of manic depression is the manicity, being manic. Now that's when you get a bit high. You get racing thoughts, creative thoughts. They say that mild manicity is a little creative, when you get a bit more manic, it's more creative. When you get very manic you can get into very creative sort of stuff, original stuff, and then when you get too manic you go over the top. You either get beyond genius or you get just lunacy, whichever you prefer to call it.

Is the depression then the price you pay for that rush of ideas?

Yes, the depression is the price you pay.

Also when you're manic you get yourself into all sorts of scrapes because you lose touch with what is normal. You get on the boundaries of what is acceptable, like writers and artists. You might go running down, like I did, running down Trinity Street naked. Of course later I called it an installation work but the police didn't see it that way.

So that was an early piece?

That was an early work, yes. That was a particularly grotty work.

Often when people are depressed or normal they think over the ideas they have when they're manic and put them into practice. Often people don't realise that manic depression is not just being manic all the time or depressed, often you're just normal most of the time like anyone else, like I am now. It's just like being anybody. There's a book by Jamieson in the States called "Touched by Fire", and Barmy Art sort of came out of that really, it came out of the inspiration I got from it really.

It wasn't a conscious decision, you know, it just rose out of the unconscious.

You found yourself doing it one day.

Yes its almost... a calling, you know, in almost religious terms. Yes

Did that become more deliberate and thought out later on?

Yes. I thought "Why am I doing this?" and analysed it and thought of reasons but basically I had a dream one day. You go in the town centre and become a comedian. Then I was singing in the town centre and painting, it's becoming, it's coming out from the unconscious. My astrological chart says I've got a lot of creativity in the unconscious that just comes out. I don't know if you believe in astrology - I don't particularly - but I think I've got all this creativity in my unconscious that's just coming out. I have to do it, in a way that's legal because obviously when I first started putting things on my head everyone thought I was potty and the police were quite interested. Now they just leave me alone.

That's quite an achievement in itself.

Yes. I'm looking forward to wearing a salmon on my head in the town centre.

I must admit the first time I saw you in the street with a pair of knickers on your head I thought - 'village idiot'

Exactly, there you go. This is challenging conceptions in the community, about art, about mental illness, because obviously I'm making sense now about what I'm saying so therefore you don't think 'village idiot'. Well, you might do, I don't know.

Because I've talked to you, and obviously you've spoken to a lot of other people I know, I've had to reconsider my snap judgment. Does that matter to you? Are you deliberately confronting people?

It's certainly thought provoking. I wouldn't say it's shocking, it's not like making a picture of Myra Hindley out of handprints. It's not shocking in that way but it is confronting in a gentle but a very firm way.