Hand of destruction

Mark Greaves talks to the artist Peter Howson about his latest commission and his demons

Peter Howson started hallucinating last summer. Lying awake at night, he saw what he describes as ‘devils, demons and goblins’. They told him there was no point in living; that he might as well do away with himself. It was, he says, probably the worst year of his life. He felt as if he had been abandoned by God. At times he says he couldn’t really walk or see. He made himself feel better by reading the Book of Job — in which Job’s children die, his possessions are destroyed and his skin covered in boils as part of a test by God.

I am anxious about meeting him in such a delicate state. On the phone he says he is getting better, but is ‘not out of the woods yet’. When I arrive at his home in Garnock Valley, west of Glasgow, a tiny dog called Tamsin yaps at the door. A sign reads: ‘Mad Hoose’. Howson is in combat trousers and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He has a studenty, unassuming manner, totally different from the glower he puts on for photographers. He makes tea and says sorry for the faint smell of cigarettes.

As an artist Howson has never had to toil in obscurity. He became famous in his 20s as one of the New Glasgow Boys. His work — dramatic, menacing, grotesque — attracted a celebrity crowd (Madonna and Bowie were fans). In the 1990s he worked as official war artist in Bosnia. He also has Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism which affects social interaction, and at the start of the interview he stares woodenly at the carpet.