WAVING REBEL FLAGS
           

                                                       
I've always painted straight from the gut, without worrying unduly about ambiguous interpretations that might interfere with my subconscious energy. I produced Gettysburg in 1997. It is also a self-portrait. I'm the guy riding the stuffed donkey on the left, alongside the charging Confederates. My hat is a paper sunshade advertising the Spanish liqueur Anís Tenís. My flag's battle honours read 'Shit Creek', as in the phrase 'up shit creek without a paddle', and 'Fraggle Rock'. Fraggle Rock was a manic children's cartoon series on British television in the 1970s. It was also underworld slang for the psychiatric wing of Brixton prison, where I was once held on remand for 14 days. 'Fraggle' had an alarming suicide rate among its inmates. It was wild. At the time, in 1976, I remember some of the screws wore neo-nazi National Front emblems on their uniform lapels and half the prisoners were black, proportionately over-represented in England as elsewhere.