Vince Laws

***First ACCESS... I live in a small old cottage, there are thresholds and single steps down into some areas. People in wheelchairs are welcome, you can come in the gate and my studio is a shed in the garden, a table in the garden, and there will be art hung around the garden. If there is work inside you can't access I'll bring it out to you. The toilet is on the ground floor.

Vince Laws is a poet, artist, performer and campaigner.
Poetry pamphlets: Beckham by the Balls, the small frayed knot, and Out Write (a queer anthology edited by Vince). Signed copies on sale.
All contain adult themes and language.

Artist: I've been an artist 20 years, but only began using oil paints 8 years ago, and love the sculptural gooey texture of the medium.
When the first Lockdown struck, I decided to paint myself, but to avoid gloomy introspection, I made up some rules. I had to be smiling or laughing in the paintings. I called the series Painting Myself Happy. I went on to paint myself alongside artistic giants Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Schiele, De Lempicka, and others. The Painting Myself Happy series was chosen to open Disability History Month by Together 2012 which is great because it is well archived here: https://www.together2012.org.uk/archives-2012/2021-archive/together-2021-disability-history-month-festival/festival-launch-and-exhibition-openings-thursday-11-november-7-8pm/vince-laws-painting-myself-happy/
Visitors can see most of these paintings during NN Open Studios. The paintings are not for sale, but there are signed limited edition prints of some.

Sunflowers are great aren't they?! Of course I paint them because Van Gogh did, as did many others, and Oscar Wilde loved a sunflower, so they are my go to thing to paint, I've painted hundreds, I like looking at them, they give me solace, writing this I feel the urge to go and paint a few more... I paint other flowers from around the garden.

Performer: I was a performance poet for a while, my art and poetry didn't really meet. Then I started to put on happenings, usually as art show launch events, with a bit of poetry, music, song, speech, theatre, put together in the best order to create a buzz. Then I wondered if I could write a happening with a narrative, long story short, I wrote A Very Queer Nazi Faust, (contains no Nazis), subtitled The Tragic True Life & Deserved Death of a Benefit Scrounger by Himself, John Faust, and with a community cast we sold out Norwich Arts Centre darlings! http://avqnf.co.uk

Campaigner: I've campaigned for LGBT rights here and abroad, often creatively. Adopt-A-Pansy gave you a chance to adopt a pansy potted up in a tin bearing the name of a country where homosexuality is illegal. BANNED face-painting involved getting 86 people and writing the name of a country where homosexuality is illegal. Umbrellas of Love, again highlighted countries where homosexuality is illegal. I lived in Brighton for 25 years, before moving to rural North Norfolk to be a poet and artist.

More recently, along with many other people, I've tried to highlight the deaths of benefit claimants while dealing with the DWP. I began making DWP Deaths Make Me Sick protest shrouds to hang across the stage during performances of A Very Queer Nazi Faust. I realised they were powerful as individual shrouds, and since 2019 they've been seen in Battersea Arts Centre, The People's History Museum Manchester, The British Textile Biennial, Attenborough Centre Leicester, Cambridge Junction, plus Norwich, Wakefield, Bristol, and more, so it will be good to see them up in my own back garden.

Currently: I like exploring new creative avenues. I gave myself a tarot reading in December to consider how I'd like to mix my creativity with my campaign work, and came up with anarchic puppet theatre (!) because I need no actors but myself, I need no funding, I can make work from home, and that's exactly what I'm doing right now. Experimenting with filming short clip of puppets with a view to making a puppet film version of The Tragic True Life & Deserved Death of a Benefit Scrounger by Himself bit by bit as I learn. If you want to follow that project it is only on Facebook as Sick Puppets.

Come and visit! Make a simple puppet. Spray paint a banner. Chat to the artist.