My friend John Hardie, who has died of cancer aged 67, was an artist, drummer and satirist who used his warmth, wit and rebellious spirit to challenge convention.
He joined his first band as a drummer aged 15 and was later a member of the Barnsley-based Travis (“The best thing to have come out of Barnsley,” according to the local paper), not to be confused with the more famous Scottish band of the same name. Travis supported a number of leading groups of the 1970s, including Roxy Music, the Kinks and Chicken Shack, playing at the Marquee and Speakeasy clubs in London.
John was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, the son of Donald Hardie, a master builder, and his wife, Ennis. After Barnsley grammar school, John studied at Barnsley, Stourbridge and Coventry schools of art.
As well as drumming in bands, he worked variously as a caretaker, teacher, designer, gardener, industrial cleaner and cartoon animator. He lived in London for 20 years, but returned to South Yorkshire in the 90s to live in Penistone.
John’s knowledge of the Dada movement formed his commitment to the absurd. His bedsit became a living art work in the manner of Kurt Schwitters, whose Merz Barn collage of found objects was his enduring inspiration. Ordered rows of small notes on the walls commented on the paradoxes of life. “If I don’t work harder I will have to sack myself.” “Remember that I put a lot of effort into this work so that people will have something with which to forget me by.”
His mainly grey paintings and drawings of second world war naval ships were interspersed with grey model ships and washing lines on which were suspended grey T-shirts and tea-towels. His flat contained numerous milk cartons that vied for space with colourful bleach bottles, jars of paper clips and rubber bands that he ordered with exquisite attention to form and line in the manner of pop art sculpture.
His performances included walking through Cardiff wearing a pointed tinfoil hat and placing a telephone in a bowl of washing-up liquid “to see if it would work afterwards”.
Most people given a terminal diagnosis would be in despair. Not so John. In his final days he found humour in drawing cartoon dancing skeletons in a notebook bought specially for this purpose.
He is survived by his son, Ben, with his former partner, Anne Hardie, his grandson, Sam, and his sister, Jo.
