Interview: Arik Levy, artist and designer

I'm like a triple-headed, schizophrenic person. One is a family person: I have kids, I have a wife and I cook, which is very important to me. The second is the artist. The third is the designer. But they're not really in any order. I had my first outdoor sculpture exhibition in 1988 in Tel Aviv. At that point, art was not what it is today in terms of the business around it; you're not selling a sketch for US$5,000.

I'm a surfer who used to have a windsurfing shop. I created logos and drawings for the industry out of necessity. I started to design for my home, for my business and for my surfing hobby. In time, I realised that people — at least in the world I lived in — were more willing to pay for a logo than they were for a weird piece of art that I did. Design gives you incredible tools to deal with structures; I would never build my sculptures the way I do if I didn't have the experience in design.

I do what I do best — my artworks — and I work with the galleries, the collectors and commissions of museums. There are some things you cannot control, like the secondary market. If somebody decides to sell one of my works at an auction, I can't prevent that. A responsible auction house will call me, then I'll trace where the piece comes from and advise them how to present the work as best they can. I'll inform different collectors and galleries and hope that it'll go to the right hands. But it's not very good for us.