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People often mistake you for being a street artist, when you are in fact, not a from a street art background. You have had work alongside prolific street artists like Banksy and are often categorized as an urban artist. Does that sort of categorization frustrate you? How would you best describe your work?

It’s funny really, in 2003 Micallef and I were showing in Leonard St gallery, before it all went crazy in 2005/6/7 - there were no labels, -I was aware of this figure called Banksy who did some stencils outside a club in London, and outside a pub in Brighton. He was just a cool guy - there was no scene - then when things went crazy with Antony and then me, I was being bought by Banksy fans, and was just happy to be selling all my work so quickly. It was after a while I was thinking, ‘Hey I’m not urban or street, but now I don’t care, if people love my work that’s great by me’. But when I get slated I guess it’s hard to read, as I’m a trained illustrator, who works in a fine art, mixed media approach. I happen to use spray paint out of a love of colour, not from a street background. I use many materials. Also my work, I think, is hard to place - it has been in both the Royal Academy and on a pair of Vans in the last year; on a fashion range and on album artwork. It crosses over...maybe there are no rules nowadays. I don’t want to be labelled, [my art] can work on many things...ultimately I’m a painter.

You describe your art as an organic, spontaneous journey. What is behind that philosophy and the thought process that goes into your pieces?

The organic part is because I’ve never planned my work. I often get ideas for pieces, or a feel for something, but when I’m in the studio, I start by playing with colour. I have to keep pushing it with every piece: I love abstract expressionist form and shape and mark making, splashes and experimentation – this gives the work real energy – I’m not even thinking about what it will become, I’m just enjoying the colour and the feel of it. I often experiment: I am currently throwing gloss spray paint onto still-wet water based emulsion, then once dry maybe some controlled fades and shape and some details – I may feel gold leaf or whatever is good...then I’ll start to form the piece. In the past I made gloss paint on gloss paint backgrounds, using a stick to dribble in a Pollock or Twombly way. I’ve always worked in an organic way. I collect a lot of mixed media. In the old days, I’d lay all my collected bits onto a nice old bit of wood: a cat skull, a fag packet, a spring. I made collage for years – maybe it’s from Peter Blake, or Raushenberg, or Joseph Cornell, or maybe [because] I collected things when I was a boy – badges, stickers, etc. Then there are the themes: life and loss, beauty and sadness, decay and innocence, politics and religion, everything really. I think maybe its channelling and feeling and being true to yourself so you capture an energy.

In much of your work, you juxtapose themes of death and mortality with childhood: images of skeletons, razor blades and machine guns sit side-by-side with portraits of children, butterflies, swallows...it seems a little odd at first, even menacing, but at the same time, there’s always a sense of wonder, magic and innocence. Where does this come from? What does it mean to you?

I want my work to trigger off a feeling within everyone who sees it: a young boy, or an old man; a woman, her child, her husband. At my show, this woman was really freaking me out, she grabbed me and said ‘I need to know that what I’m thinking is what you meant,' so I asked her and she said 'A child’s nightmare'. Now, I wasn’t aiming to create that, I was aiming to create a scene, a situation, and then let you look into that and let your mind wander. I find it really fun to put an innocent child next to something really sinister, take it one way or the other.

But I mean, in war, it’s the innocent children that are being blown up, or in Mumbai they just drive the train over the children, life is really fucking hard and it’s also really beautiful. We have decay and war, pain and love all going on all the time - I just put it all together and make it all work in harmony and let you feel what you like, it’s all about harmony for me. Also I don’t see an anatomical skeleton as sinister, I see that as a comment – we all have this underneath, we will all die, we are all skulls under our faces! With the 3D references, it’s because its real, like the razor blade – that’s exciting. But its pink or blue and gold and pretty, so its fucking with your senses. A real gun, or shooting the work with a real gun, I find that exciting. Goes back to the masters I grew up with, like Peter Blake. Toyshop was the first piece I ever saw at art college. Ultimately, I want my work to be about life, and mainly that it’s a harmonious arrangement like a composition, like Mozart fighting Motorhead.

Who or what influences and inspires you? Do you find fatherhood inspiring? In what ways?

Well I’m not a father yet, but it’s coming. I find it terrifying, I never thought I’d have it, want it, or accept it, and now I’m forced to accept that it’s heading my way. I think it’s the ultimate acceptance: I gave up smoking, I can give up drink, but this is forever, for life, it has forced me to assess me, my everything, and naturally the work changed again, like it has with every show, like a new collection.

I have a great woman and she is scared, too, but we are together and it’s exciting actually. I’m inspired by this journey I’m on, meeting good people, and working with great people. When I get emails from students or collectors who LOVE what I do, it really means a lot to me as I’m in solitary confinement most days, I mean, I’m making my work and I don’t know that such and such has a print and loves it, I just keep remembering the people who love it, it keeps me pushing through.

Seeing the world inspires me, with my work – like in 2010 I’ve shown in San Fran, NYC, Sydney, Denver, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, LA and more – and the cool projects I’m doing, all this stuff makes me feel like what I’m making is good and that people dig it and get it. That goes a long way. When Shep Fairey said he loves my work, I was buzzing for ages. I mean, in 2006 I treated myself to a Shep print, next it’s 2009 and I’m in his Hollywood studio! That’s crazy! I love the way it works – that’s what’s inspiring: living a totally creative, free life.

Like Shepard Fairey, you come from a skating background. In what ways did/does this culture inspire you?

Massively - I skated for seven, eight years, but the weather in the UK is so shit that it was frustrating, as [skating] was my life. I made a halfpipe, was great, had lights in the trees, a roll-in deck, steel coping. I collected all the Powell Peralta, Bones Brigade stuff, and Dogtown. The graphics on Powell Peralta were so exciting – the tshirts, the decks, the whole thing was massive. We were a gang, all in our Bones Brigade get up, kind of miss those days too. The graphics on Powell Peralta were the best. I met Mike McGill, Steve Caballerro, Lance, Guerro, - I was obsessed, reading Thrasher and Transworld, all this cool American terrain. We had shit in the UK - now every town has a skatepark!

That chapter was a huge influence on me, I think, without realising it. Some of the skate art was groundbreaking. It’s still collected now and recognised as a huge, important time in our culture. Being in LA was mad. Stacy’s mate, Craig Steckyl , from the original Dogtown, was at a show. I didn’t want to meet him. It was like, ‘What the fuck can I say to you?’

 When I learned to drive, all my mates stopped skating. Then I was obsessed with VW beetles and never skated again, then went to art college. Shep had a pic of him skating in his office too...a reminder of where we were before our knees started creaking. .

You’ve been very busy in the past few years with countless sold-out exhibitions. A couple of years ago, your piece Apocalypse Wow sold for £25,000. What sort of pressure does this put on you as an artist?

It’s cool. It doesn’t mean every work from then on has to be that price, my new work is a lot cheaper than that. I’m trying to be real, and not over inflate my prices, it’s pointless. That was a massive piece, but that auction sale was amazing for me...very important, nothing will change that, I think it summed up the time well.

A New Life has just opened in London and a lot of the pieces feel quite different to your other works – they don’t seem as “full”, but still maintain classic Dan Baldwin elements of edginess and fun. What’s the significance to the name itself and what direction are you taking at the moment?

The thing is, the work looks calm and spacious, on the initial look, but look deeper and you realise the work is loaded with activity. They are really busy, like every bit is fighting with the flow. I find I can keep looking into these works and not get tired, they have a lot going on you don’t see at first.

‘A new life’ is in reference to 'my' new life: One, away from people, two, in the country and three, accepting I’m gonna be a dad. And then literally 'the new life' as in the baby, the new chapter, all round. I like double meanings. The work has naturally just changed to a lighter period of playfulness. Last year we hit a recession, my gallery went down, so naturally the work went really dark, especially in the winter times...really dark...severed heads and Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenes of terror. Now I’m in a new place.

You’ve worked on a whole heap of projects ranging from paintings to CD artwork to ceramics to skate decks and I believe you’re also working on some fashion projects. What have been your favourite projects so far?

The Sara Berman fashion collection is beautiful, stunning to see a painting on silk. That’s ongoing so really, is just beginning.  It looks fantastic, I saw it on Gok’s Fashion Fix the other week, hung up in Brix Smith’s boudoir, that was fun! I’m buzzing to be working with thisisalimitededition.com on the cushions and cups and bags. It’s beautiful and fun. Atomic have made some amazing skis with my work on them, that’s just nice and just looks great, It doesn’t pay a lot, same as fashion, but that’s not why you do it – it’s getting it out there that’s fun. I’m looking forward to this project in Hong Kong with 'van d' the store, as it’s a new country for me. Equally, I love doing album artwork for a cool band like Kill Kenada, as I think they are great. As I trained in communication media and illustration – that’s my background anyway - I love collabs. I just had an email today about making tshirts, but every project I do has to be right, all about quality and the right thing, like the hand- painted Vans I made for Red Bull/Sole Trader/Zero Cool gallery, that was a good event. I just painted a wall for Signal gallery, and I’m no street artist as we know. That was really daunting, but I totally enjoyed it. Had to have a can of beer first, then it was like, ‘fuck it’, and started throwing paint all over the mean streets of Hoxton. Looks good.

What’s next for you?

OK, well, a big group show in Denver in November, a work-on-paper show at Inkd, Brighton in October, a group show in Paris in September, the Hong Kong project in November, Eddie Lock’s big schooney event in September, new prints with Eyestorm and then for the van d project in Hong Kong, a tshirt with the guys from DEDass, a solo in Tokyo in Gallery 360 who I’m currently showing with too, a solo in Paris is being talked about, as is a solo in London - obviously we mean in 2011. Donating a few pieces as I always do for charity events this year: the Willow Foundation and Shelter again...oh, and some little event in October which I believe is called 'fatherhood' . .. .! x d

For more on Dan and his works visit danbaldwinart.com.