Sam Hutchinson is a skater, artist and photographer based in Leeds

 

I make work using images, sculpture and installation. I also enjoy publishing and book making and use various other mediums when necessary.

 

I feel that although I have always enjoyed creativity, skateboarding from an early age gave me my first reason to be involved more with art, and a direction to start in, as I had always assumed art wasn’t a suitable choice to progress with- skateboarding made like more like, ‘ok, so people can do this and it’s okay!’

 

I feel it’s a bit different now, and skateboarding encompasses a much wider variety of people and culture, which is dope, but that I maybe grew up in in a generation of skaters who all made art or played music, or were interested by either one or both. I don’t make too much work that directly talks about skateboarding, however, I feel you can see the influence in what I make, and the community is so vast to both that they can interchange quite frequently and share similar ideologies.

 

I guess my favourite thing about both art and skateboarding is that there are no rules, no right or wrong, and you have the total freedom to express yourself and work out what feels good to you, however cliché that may sound.

 

As well as appreciating aesthetics and form on a basic level there are way more political implications I think too and we find ourselves in these groups that often a very like-minded and active in what we believe in and how we want to live.

 

Too many, and I really appreciate all those out there doing their own thing, and working across genres and norms. I’ve found over the years many people I look up to turn out to have had some involvement with skateboarding in the past or can take some influence or understanding from the culture.

 

I think The No Comply Network a great idea to find something (mainly) unrelated to many artists practices and to find the common link that we all share.

 

So, supporting and creating a network of people that all share similar interests is amazing, especially with the UK being such a small place. We can connect and travel so easily now we need use these to our full potential and expand our experiences and share our skills.

 

I think it’s also important in a political climate like our current situation to become a part of groups that you feel make a difference and do something positive, and educationally its great to have people with who you can exchange experience and knowledge.

 

I’ve got a load of projects in the works, but mainly a few publications coming out soon.

 

Hopefully future installations with my project titled ‘I Used to Think You Were Normal’ coming up in the new year, as well as a new book relating to internet ‘clickbait’ and my blog ‘Kanye West is Art Curator’.

 

I have some unreleased projects that I’ve been working on for a few years now too that maybe in 2017 they will see the light in some form.

 

I would also like to big up a course I have been a member of this year, a free alternative art school called ‘School of the Damned’.

 

We act as a protest against fees in higher education and explore many themes surrounding this, it’s been an amazing way to further my knowledge of art and alternative art education, and meet some amazing people with whom we can skill share and push a positive agenda.