Sit Down With Our #090 Featured Artist

Stuart Semple

Instagram / @stuartsemple
Featured Artist / #116 ScrawlrBox 

Stuart Semple is a multidisciplinary British artist whose practice spans painting, performance, internet art, and installation. His works adopt a sociological lens to explore themes of youth politics, mass culture, image, technology, and anxiety. Often activist in nature, his broader projects frequently strive for fairness, equality, and access, particularly within the arts.


Semple has enjoyed numerous solo exhibitions worldwide and has presented projects at international institutions, including the Denver Art Museum, The Whitworth, Barbican, Hong Kong Arts Center, and Dulwich Picture Gallery. He is the author of ‘Make Art or Die Trying’ published by Quarto. Semple regularly speaks on art and mental health, with appearances at Oxford University, The Southbank Centre, Frieze, RCA, and the ICA.

What motivated you to start Culture Hustle, and how did it evolve into what it is today?

Well, I always made my own paints. That all started when I was a small child messing about in the kitchen with food colouring and oil. It grew into making my own pastels when I was a teenager. Then, as I went through art school, I started to understand the basics of making acrylics. I always made a new colour for each of my exhibitions. So, as my art career expanded and I started doing more shows, I’d be making more and more colours.

 One of those was the Pinkest Pink. I heard that the artist Anish Kapoor had obtained the exclusive rights to the blackest material ever made. I thought it was unfair that other artists couldn’t use it. So, I made a website, called it Culture Hustle, and put my Pinkest Pink up. It was a bit of performance art, a protest. I never expected anyone to buy any, but they did. You had to promise you weren’t Kapoor and wouldn’t give him any before you could buy it. It went totally viral, and the community started to ask for other paints. Ultimately, it led to me spending about eight years developing our own affordable blackest black for everyone. Before I knew it, Culture Hustle was a thing

Culture Hustle products have such a playful and rebellious spirit—how do you keep that energy alive?

I think I just have fun with it. I mean, I really enjoy it. I see the whole thing—the packaging, the concepts, and everything—as an extension of my art making. I love the community, and it just makes me feel like I’m making stuff with, and for, my friends around the world. I want to make stuff that they will enjoy too.

What’s the wildest way you’ve seen someone use your pigments?

Haha, well, one guy painted himself entirely in the Blackest Black (please don’t do that—it’s dangerous to suffocate your skin with nano-pigments). He went outside and got really angry that he didn’t disappear. It was hilarious.

Other than your own brand, what is your most used art supply?

Brushes! It’s all about the brush. The world’s best paints, really good quality stuff, fail if you’re using a cheap, scratchy brush. So, for me, that’s a really great quality, soft, bristled synthetic brush.

What first inspired you to become an artist?

When I was eight, my mum took me to the National Gallery, and I saw Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. Something weird happened, and I totally freaked out. I just started painting every day after that. I didn’t really know what artists were then—I thought they were extinct like dodos because they were only in museums. Anyway, when I was 17, I died for a few seconds from a severe allergy. It was really traumatic and shook me up. After that, art was a way to cope and understand myself and the world around me. I need it. Making art was what I was. I don’t think I ever considered it to be a job. It was something I needed to do. Obviously, I’m unbelievably lucky and grateful that I’ve been making art every day for 25 years, and it’s taken me around the world, and I’ve been able to live from it. That’s a huge thing that I don’t take for granted.

Who are your dream five dinner guests, dead or alive?

Andy Warhol, Ramana Maharshi, John Lennon, Cyndi Lauper, Seth Godin