Best known for her unique bleaching and painting of flags and fabric,  for this show Glew uses antique and precious textiles to convey, as F.Scott Fitzgerald described, the ‘beautiful and damned.’ We had a fascinating chat with her.

Are you all set for the show?
I hit my framing deadline last week, and that was a massive relief.

Are you using flags this time?
I’m trying to avoid them, as I’m seen as the flag girl. But I couldn’t not put a couple in, so there are two US flags. But it’s mainly antique textiles, brocades, and hand-woven Crewel work, which is like tapestry with wool. They look really on-trend as these patterns, zig -zags and botanical, have come back into fashion. And there are two pieces inspired by 1920 quilts.

You were inspired to first use flags after 9/11….
… I was affected by watching the news, seeing how flags were used in New York. In protest, and in the Middle east, for burning. So I started researching US flag law and you’re not allowed to paint on the American flag. But I exhibited in America and never had any protest. It was only when I did a show in Stroud, in Gloucestershire, that there was loads of protest. I had to take down the pieces every Friday. The windows were pelted with eggs! You wouldn’t think it, in sleepy Stroud.

And now, 10 years on, we’ve come full circle with the death of Osama bin Laden, and the US flag is being waved once more at Ground Zero.
I wasn’t sure what I thought about that, they seemed to be celebrating death. It seems gruesome, but it’s different for people who were there I suppose. But it was gung ho, like a certain kind of festival.

And over here, the Royal Wedding saw plenty of flag-waving…
Yes, I’m glad I didn’t use any Union Jacks for this show. They’ve just been everywhere.

Tell me more about this show, Beautiful and Damned. Are you a big F. Scott Fitzgerald fan?
I’m reading that book now! But I thought the name summed up the age. That silent movie age with Louise Brooks, Charlie Chaplin, they’re part of our culture, part of film history. But actually the actors weren’t as glossy as we think. They had weird backgrounds, scandal, they fathered lots of kids. It was like, to be famous they had to have lots of bad luck. The title sums up the glamour and the misfortune.

This is what inspired you, that difference between their image and their private lives?
Yes, it was the people’s story. For example Clara Bow, that really cute looking silent movie star, she had a crazed mother that attacked her with a butcher’s knife when she told her that she wanted to go into movies. She had to get her to go to an asylum.
A lot were abused as children. Josephine Baker began as a street dancer and she got noticed. She grew up on the street, because she’d run away from abuse. Louise Brooks was abused as well. They had these dark twisted lives. Charles Lindberg’s son kidnapped and killed, because he was famous. It’s really tragic.

The tragedy, that double life, sounds similar to some of the celebrities of today.
Exactly, it sums up now as well. That’s my next show! It says a lot about modern times too, that schadenfrade we have, getting pleasure from other people’s misfortune. It’s similar to Katie Price, Kerry Katona, the more famous they are, the worse their lives become. It happened with Charlie Chaplin. He had an affair with someone under 16.

We don’t hear much about that side to him.
No, that’s right. But it’s the human condition, it transcends the time, these portraits of people and their frailties. The next show’s based on hotel rooms. I’m interested in the dark underbelly of movie stars, actresses. Their lives are private but public.

This show is also about the dark underbelly. And the 20’s and 30’s were when the whole idea of celebrity began.
But I wanted to avoid celebrity for this. It was also the beginning of the age of the individual.

And you’re a bit of an art celebrity yourself. How do you feel about being described as such, or as the most prolific female artist of the moment?
It feels weird! There are lots of working female Brit artists, but I guess the genre that I’m put into, which is urban art, is mostly dominated by boys with spray cans who do stuff on the streets, so I stand out. My work kind of suits that genre, although I’ve never made art on the street, and girls tend not to. They don’t want to be arrested! But there are lots of girls who do art, but maybe on a small scale, with collage, drawings. It’s obsessive, perfect but small. My stuff is girlie, well, it’s vintage textiles. But masculine in scale.

What do you think about women as subjects in art?
When I started I just wanted to paint women. It’s what you’re familiar with, it’s what you see in the mirror every day. I’ve usually painted fairly classically pretty, Hollywood faces. But I’ve done some jazz stars for this show, an old man that’s lived a good life is great to paint, and young kids too. Now I’m less into the classically pretty female portraits, but it’s that thing, everyone, even women, prefers to look at the female form. It’s an art classic. I like old men with character, but a show with portraits of old men doesn’t have the same ring to it.

And women artists?
There’s not many female artist shows, the main one is Tracey Emin.

Do you like her work?
I met her last year and we had a funny chat about flags. She was saying that she can’t get a good price on a flag any more, as the seller knows who she is and ups the price. But I can buy flags for cheap! But, I like her work, we both do textiles. I like Annette Messenger too, she’s always innovative.

The big art story of the moment is urban art. But what next for Brit art?
Street art turned into urban, but I’ve been seeing a lot of abstract stuff around. Really gritty and real. There are lots of faces in art and media, so I think there’ll be a flip back to abstract, it’ll be light relief. A lot of stuff is kind of organic and large scale, not too figurative.

Do you use social media and online to promote your work?
I’m a bit of a geek, I like my iphone, I use Twitter, I did a blog two minutes ago. Social media is brilliant for artists. Before, you’d have to send slides and letters to galleries and a panel of people would decide if you were good enough. Now I get shows through social media, it’s meant that I don’ t have to spend time looking. I’m well into it.

Pam Glew, Beautiful and Damned, presented by Mauger Modern Art at Blackall Studios, 73 Leonard Street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 4QS, 25th – 29th May. Take a look at our gallery, with some exclusive images from the show.

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About the author

Loma-Ann Marks
Loma was a performer and freelance writer before becoming a journalist on the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star and Express. She's the Founder and Editor of Culture Compass. North, South, East or West? I'll go anywhere. I like to think that I'm a pretty good map reader ( not everyone would agree ) but then I remind them that I navigated my way around the Paris one-way system with NO mistakes. High Class or Common or Garden? High class in the garden. Clothes or Culture? Culture in new clothes. My best night out ever made me feel....... That things would never be the same again. And they surely weren't the following day.