Danny Fox: the Cornish artist inspired by LA’s Skid Row

Self-taught artist Danny Fox was born in St.Ives, Cornwall, a seaside town made famous by its numerous artist residents. Despite moving from the town many years ago, Danny’s cornish lineage remains visible in his work, most pertinently in the parallels between his oil paintings and the so-called “naive” work of 19th Century fishman-painter Alfred Wallis, who also lived for a time in St Ives. But where Wallis’ paintings are simplistic, executed in muted greys, creams and blues on tiny pieces of driftwood, Fox’s work is the opposite: huge, brightly-coloured canvasses which demand attention.

Recently, Danny swapped his tiny live-in studio/flat in North London for a vast gallery space in LA. We catch up with him to talk about San Pellegrino, the characters of Skid Row and what’s next for the Cornish artist.

It’s a long way from Kentish Town to Skid Row. How has moving there influenced your work?
There has always been a colonial interest in my work but I’ve been thinking about it more and more since moving to LA. I can’t help but imagine what it must of been like for an Englishman arriving here a couple hundred years ago, or a Cornish miner coming over during the Gold Rush: it’s all relevant because it’s all so evident in today’s society.

Kentish Town always had a bit of an “outpatient” feel to it. Living there over the years I got to know all the characters on the street. The lady with red lipstick all over her face, the man with the wheel on a stick or even my neighbour with his five cans of Holsten Pils for breakfast writing poetry about WW1. These people make a town more bearable, they give it some style. Now I live in Skid Row where there are thousands of those people living on the street in tents or just lying on the ground, going about their daily hustle in a community that has its own rules or maybe no rules. So, in that sense it feels like the Wild West to me.

Your previous work was heavily influenced by your travels across America and to Thailand. Is it still the case that?
More than ever I have been making paintings of people and situations happening on the street outside. It has taken me along time to be able to do that — I’ve always wanted to having been so influenced by Paul Gauguin but just never got it right. I think I got some good ones here. I’ve been painting people that sell things: ice cream, shoes, cage birds. I went to Cuba on the way here and that changed my colour palette for a while afterwards.

Where to next?
I’d like to go home for a bit, honestly.

In your past work, your canvases have been thick with paint, layered up until you had the image you wanted. Do you still work like this?
I still edit heavily. I made some pictures about my Grandad recently that were much more planned so I didn’t really use any layers, I just got it straight down.

In your most recent paintings, San Pellegrino mineral water features pretty heavily. What’s that all about?
It struck me when I arrived here — the absolute lack of water. California was in a drought, still is. If you are on Skidrow in the baking heat you can’t just get yourself a cup of water. I could be in a bodega and someone would come in and ask for a cup for water and get turned away but there would be a fridge with ice cold san pelly standing there. It started to look like fine wine. Also, on the label there is an image of the San Pellegrino mountains, which almost look like the San Fernando mountain range as seen from Skid Row. I don’t need to explain why I put every little thing in the paintings, but I could.

And what have you got planned for the rest of this year?
I’ve got a show at Sotheby’s S2 in LA in October, a show at V1 in Denmark in November, and some big paintings at Saatchi in London next year.