About the artist

"I'm just a monkey with a paint brush. Put something in front of me and I paint it. I can only paint what I can see."

Brett isn't at all impressed by the concept of art as something highfalutin', nor himself as someone particularly talented. I ask him, doesn't he he understand the artistry people see when they look at his boy in the egg - wasn't it difficult to carve it?

"Not really. The secret is to buy a really good block of marble - the very best. And then you have to find the object inside. It's all in there, you know. I didn't feel I was actually carving anything - I just carefully opened up the block of marble and found something that was already in it."

He's most insistent that he's uninteresting and not worth writing about. So I ask about his famlily?

"My father was endlessly on the move. An entrepreneur, a government official, a business man, an idealist. He worked for years in third world countries but he refused to take bribes. So he never got rich. I was born in Indonesia, then we moved to Thailand, then Kuching in Malaysia, then the West Indies, then Kenya. I was bought up in all those places. Kuching was best 'cos I could go and buy clay from the local quarry and take it home and make things."

How old were you then?

"Not sure! I'm not quite certain what order we moved through all those places. I know I was older when we were in Kenya 'cos I have photographs of myself in Mombassa. I went through a stage of thinking I'd be a rock star - a guitarist. So I have pictures of me with my Fender Strat."

And when did he decide to give up rock for art?

"I was about 21. There was a boy in the room and I drew him. Everyone said, 'That's what you should be doing. Forget the guitar.' So I did."

And now?

"I live in Thailand. A couple of hours north of Bankok in a tiny village in the country, miles from anywhere. I've been there seven years. Before that, for five years I had a gallery and workshop in Vence in the South of France. With a huge staff helping me to produce art, and also sell it. But it got too bureaucratic - dealing with the French tax office - the VAT man - the local council. I was no longer an artist - I was running a business. I wanted to get back to what I liked best - being a monkey with a paint brush."