PR: In our initial discussions you mentioned watching Westerns, as a child was this also linked?

Boo: On Saturdays we would be at my grandparents and they would leave us in the TV room. There would be western after western on television, all in black and white.

We would watch Technicolor films as well, so you’d be taking in Dorothy on the yellow brick road and it was a contradiction to the greyness but wonderful strange space of horses and men chewing straw. Brilliant. When I started my fine art degree I was aware of how fascinated I was with American imagery. It was the notion of freedom again; to use a received stereotype..

PR: I have to ask, have you travelled much within America?

Boo: I don't travel to the States very frequently unless I do a show there, I don't want to. There is this readymade imagery, an imaginary place that has colour, heat and light. It's a country that had the glamour of the movies, the development of the New World, somewhere where writing was more relaxed. Writing that had structure still, as in the obvious differences between Raymond Chandler and Edgar Allen Poe for instance. But it's also a country that spawned Kurt Vonnegut writing of his travels: I think the open road just made sense to me.

PR: How do you think your work is perceived in the US as opposed to other Countries you have shown in?

Boo: I think it has something to do with universality of the images and the global nature of stereotype; people's reactions are similar. American culture is so pervasive around the world I think it is only in Cambodia that they don't have coca cola cans. I've hoped that the American collectors who have bought my work have liked it that I enjoy their cultural output. People in Europe seem to enjoy the imagery too; I think people understand it's an English centric view on Americana.

PR: Do you see your work as playful? I ask, as there is a potential for it to be viewed as slightly sinister.

Boo: I know some people see it in a dark way and that's fine, for me it is much more playful. It's a joy, as the work always teeters on the edge of disaster. The work requires me to meet my nemesis - neat, clean and tidy.

PR: Do you often place obstacles in your path and make things difficult for yourself; are you consciously aware of this?

Boo: Yes, flirting with failure. It is more relaxing to know failure is around the corner than it is to feel I am trying to achieve perfection. Supposing one was to make the perfect piece of work [shrugs] it would be over. There would be no more work to make. I don't want that. There is a lot of laughter in the studio when making the work because things can go wrong the whole time. It's stressful but itís a buzz too, there is a definite buzz. God knows what might happen, he usually does. (Laughter)

PR: Your pictures are larger than life (literally larger than life size), they are also highly simplified versions of what they represent. I know I'm talking with a subjective point of view but are you conscious of playing with the visual perception of scale?

Boo: That's interesting, at the Royal College (London) I wrote about the Mind's Eye. When you close your eyes what does your minds eye look like? What I realised very quickly is that there are no horizon lines or boundaries. There is no limit to your mind's eye, there is only space. Mine happens to look like a desert endlessly stretching out, with a few vultures and the odd golden eagle flying in. People on horses trot passed in its boundless, limitlessness. Big or small, these are the things you locate in your mind's eye. I think in the Triptych, By The Roadside, you can see the beginning of a difference of scale, obvious differences, such as the reduction and elimination of the human is a way of looking at shapes and forms that are not defined by what they are on, the scale of the canvas.

PR: Narrative seems to be a growing motivation for you, definitely in the work showing in this new exhibition.

Boo: They are storyboards in preparation for a film. These images form a kind of comic strip, especially the triptych. The full colour work from previous years is more about how I chose to paint the imagery, for the two shows in London there is now mainly white work. Showing on two sites I wanted them in some way to be linked. I came up with an arching title 'Back- Roads Journeys'. Part 1, THE DINER is showing at the Alan Cristea Gallery while Part 2, THE GAS STATION is further west at Poppy Sebire. It's set in a stereotypical small town America. The waitress in the dinner serves food to another character, there is a trucker plus another waitress then there is the food associated with them. When we go from one Gallery to the other we find the waitress has chucked in her job and is standing at the roadside with a sign saying 'Alabama', with a hitchhiker who is now not coloured in but who was previously. The trucker drives by, picks up the waitress and off they go to a new life.In this new work I'm referencing journeys all the time.

PR: You have obviously relaxed into the medium you are working with which means you have more time to push the ideas through the medium as opposed to struggling with the act.

Boo: Yes the first bodies of coloured work were all about how to paint - some kind of notion of painting. I painted myself first on Christmas Eve four years ago, my husband took a photo and even from the A4 printout I could see this thing emerge. In this latest show the reason 'The Hitchhiker' is in white in 'By The Roadside', is that he is a scene-setter, a necessary prop but not part of the wider story. In the same piece, the Trucker has a profile that is now half-painted, I am borrowing from the cubists here, chopping and turning the subject around. Hopefully it suggests he is looking at her. Looking backwards I don't know if it works! It's interesting for me to think about.

PR: These portraits remind me of the tiny plastic models you would buy in a model shop and paint yourself, have you been looking at these architectural figures?

Boo: The thing about figures is really important; I never really played with dolls, I played with Lego a lot. We didn't have a man in the house, it was an all female world. If it's an all female world it isn't girlie, it's everything, it's male and female. I love fibreglass figures and I will be making some very soon, those things that stand outside cafes holding ice cream cornets, that very fake plasticised medium is important to me at the moment.

PR: There is the element of body disguise in your work, are you drawn to this, essentially the sitter is obliterated. Does your choice of sitter have to resonate with the character you are painting?

Boo: I have sat myself and I have painted myself as a hooker several times, read into that what you will. I think the dynamics of clothing particularly these days with fashion so ridiculously quick one can never keep up, never look right. So possibly disguise and costume are better than clothes. The politics of clothing are difficult one; can never hope to be on the outside what one is on the inside. In a sense I haven't found clothes I feel comfortable in yet. The first piece I ever did at college I came in one day painted myself orange and rolled down a piece of wallpaper. I stuck it on the wall for my first critique and my tutor said "Are you sure you want to reveal that much about yourself"? I said "No probably not" I had not thought about it like that.

PR: You have previously mentioned the work of Picasso, Hirst and Warhol as influences on you in what context?

Boo: I've a tremendous admiration for their ball-breaking attitude towards their work, the discipline that went into it. The totality of their state of mind in making the work, that's something to aspire to. They make the weighty light and handle it very, very well.

PR: Though you have chosen America as your muse, would you ever consider turning your eye to British stereotypes? i.e. where is the Chesham (UK) in your work?

Boo: I don't really feel I fit in here so it doesn't come naturally to feel a sense of joy about British stereotypes. The guy mowing the lawn on a Sunday, It's claustrophobic. In suburbia where I live one person gets the mower out then everyone does. It's a regimented feeling, the enemy within. I thought about this, it's very private where I live, in my mind. I have made my work abroad more than once and I have not noticed any change in situ that has affected a difference to the work. There's nothing of where I live in my work. I am proud of this country but it doesn't figure in my work. Maybe one day.

PR: How do you feel about the idea of an artistís responsibility?

Boo: I think there is personal responsibility, I'm not sure it is just for the artist. In talking about my work, this maybe is the first time someone has asked about some of the cultural stereotypes for instance. The fact I portray hookers, is this, what you mean?

PR: I want to know if you feel a certain responsibility in understanding why you strip away the complexity from the people and the culture you use to make your work. Do you have an obligation as an artist to know what you are doing at this moment in this place, in your history?

Boo: When I was at the RCA (Royal College of Art, London) there was a debate about my use of Americana; it was at the time of George Bush and feelings were running high. Someone thought it was disgusting I used the American imagery at all. This is a form of censorship I cannot agree with. I am clear it is Americana which as a cultural export is very different from white imperialism be it English or American. I am under no illusions about the westerns I watched growing up. My work is a fictional place of bright colour and stereotypes and some of those stereotypes are difficult. I don't think artists are special in their responsibilities, we are all responsible for our output whether an accountant, writer or waiter.

Poppy Sebire Gallery