you re just going to do the work you want to do. it s whatever hits me in here and makes me do something about it. so i don t actually think about cultural mores and stuff. what next for you, then? what do you mean what next? well, you talked at the beginning about the focus you ve had on water and the sea and your feelings about where the planet is going. will that be a recurring theme or.? ijust said, ask me in six months. i don t know. it s very bad luck to talk about what you re doing at the moment, and i can t possibly foretell the future. so we ll have to wait. you ll have to wait. maggi hambling, it s been a real pleasure talking to you. thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you.
now it s time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk with me, stephen sackur. today, i m in the rural east of england in the studio of one of the country s leading painters and sculptors, maggi hambling. her work has defied convention. she has won international acclaim and stirred plenty of controversy, too. so how has her creativity evolved over six decades? maggi hambling, welcome to hardtalk. hello. let me ask you about this location. many people around the world will associate you with soho, central london, a bohemian art
something i felt for mrs thatcher. so i said no. interesting. so, in a sense, if we look at your portraiture and there are so many, it is a connection that you ve had with all those people. yeah, there has to be a kind of rapport. you re also very well known for, and this is perhaps difficult to get into, but you re very well known for painting death. and indeed, ithink i m right in saying you painted your mother right after she died. you ve painted others in death, too. yes. george melly always said i d go down in art history as maggi coffin hambling. but it s quite obvious. i mean, i don t know why people are surprised, because when somebody is lying in the coffin, like my mother or my father, it s the last
possibly foretell the future. so, we ll have to wait. you ll have to wait. maggi hambling, it s been a real pleasure talking to you. thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you. hello. sunshine has been in supply today and it s been quite chilly for a late summer. we still got a lot of cloud through this evening and overnight. they will produce a little drizzle in some eastern parts of england. temperatures could dip
maggi hambling, welcome to hardtalk. hello. let me ask you about this location. many people around the world will associate you with soho, central london, a bohemian art scene in the city. but in recent years, you ve been doing your work in the middle of the suffolk countryside. has it changed the way you work and what you do? not at all. not at all? not at all. even though the atmosphere around you is so very different? not at all. i still get up at five in the summer and six in the winter and come into the studio and make a drawing and get going. if i stayed in bed, i d just worry about everything, so it s far better to be up and at it.