Mat Collishaw: 'Young artists get a distorted view - all the sweat and struggle has been erased'

This year's Evening Standard Art Prize is now open for entries, so we've asked leading artists for their advice to up-and-coming creatives. This week, Mat Collishaw gives his tips

How did you begin as an artist?

As a child I was constantly drawing. Soldiers and warfare were an obsession until I got into football, then I started designing football comics until I got into music, when I drew guitarists bathed in stadium lights. I eventually figured out that I wasn’t any good at fighting, football or playing guitar so I stuck with the one consistent thing, which was drawing.

What was your breakthrough moment?

Freeze [the landmark 1998 Young British Artists show] was the first exhibition I was involved in but the work I exhibited, a large lightbox called Bullet Hole, ended up rusting and rotting away outside the space, so it wasn’t exactly a triumph.

What was your biggest setback?

Being homeless, sleeping on sofas and getting arrested for squatting is not the ideal way to put together a decent body of work. Having the freedom to be an artist means you need the ability to organise the environment you need to work in.

Best advice you ever received?

Don’t worry about what people think of you, as they are all too pre-occupied with thinking about themselves.

Something you wish someone had told you?

That business studies, maths, computing, science and history are all very useful subjects for an artist. It’s not all splashing around with buckets of paint and plaster.

What do you think is the biggest setback to artists today?

When my generation were at art school in the Eighties it was once quite normal to work until you were in your 50s before you got a decent exhibition; nowadays, if an artist hasn’t had a big show before they are 30 they start to panic. Because a few artists have very high profiles it gives a distorted picture of what artists can expect. It’s similar to social media, where you’re only given a highly edited view of the world. All the sweat and struggle has been erased.

If you could own one piece of art, what would it be?

La saignée by René Magritte would look nice above my fireplace.

Mat Collishaw’s The Mask of Youth opens at the Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich, (rmg.co.uk) on 3 Oct

To enter our Art Prize for the chance to win £10k go to: standard.co.uk/artprize