Weef

Born in Leeds in 1955, a stones throw from Armley Prison, five days before Charlie Parker died. Educated a tunnels dig away at Castleton Primary School. Caught and re-sentenced to five years hard labour at Gotts Park Secondary School. Here he was beaten, de-bagged and beaten again - mostly by the teachers. Cast in the factory fodder mode he escaped with the help of Mr. Guy the perfect art teacher who smuggled him into Jacob Kramer Art College. Life began. He hung up his two-tone Mohair suit, bought an Afghan coat, grew his hair and bought a pair of John Lennon glasses. After a sex and drugs and rock'n'roll lifestyle, he left college and took up a career with The West Yorkshire Road Car Co, as a bus conductor. Inspired by the poetry of Roger McGough and Spike Milligan along with the antics Viv Stanshall and Kenny Everett he decided to try his hand at writing and cartooning.

After a year at Leeds University. Working not as a janitor, but in the planning Department. Gave it all up and crossed the border into darkest Scotland. A year later his drawings were sneaking into the Edinburgh Evening News and the Times Educational Supplement. For five years he trawled the galleries of Edinburgh as the Evening News's Art Critic.

One day however, every chancers nightmare, he was discovered. And the work dried up. He still doesn't know to this day if the person responsible died in a nasty printing accident as he had wished on the journeyed south to the Smoke. The Fleet Street years passed in a blur of hot metal, flat beer, warm wine and tight deadlines.

After a sojourn across Europe searching out every Picasso museum known to man he ended up on Crete. Here he made lino-cuts of local scenes and sold them around the tavernas at night. Now back in his Clapham apartment. He was employed as a designer on The Times for seven years and has just taken redundancy, so he can spend more time painting, drawing and panicking.

Weef completed an MA in Fine Art Printmaking.