As bass player with The Clash, Paul Simonon was in the vanguard of the punk rock revolution that shocked late 1970s Britain. But the only thing likely to shock in his new artistic venture is the subject matter — bull-fighting.

Although Simonon still performs — most recently with Blur’s Damon Albarn on The Good, the Bad and the Queen project — he has returned in recent years to his first love, painting. A new exhibition, which opened this week, presents a new body of work mostly inspired by a trip to Madrid.

“I had a regime of painting nudes — every week, twice or three times a week with a model and sometimes her boyfriend,” he said.

“But a friend of mine telephoned and asked if I wanted to go to Madrid and I went and saw a bull-fight. I saw an individual being just thrown around by the bull. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. So I came back and cancelled the nudes and just went back to Spain and into research mode.”

The Brixton-born star, who now lives in Paddington, said he had studied art “as far back as I can remember”.

He was about to start a second year at art school when his music career took off. But he maintained his interest, visiting galleries wherever The Clash played. He painted a giant mural in the rehearsal studios they used in Camden. And he was acknowledged as the creative mind behind the band’s look.

Now he spends as much time as he can in his studio under the Westway. “We were considered to be the sound of the Westway back in our day and there’s me under-neath it now painting.”

Having failed to make a fortune in his decade with The Clash, his art is not a hobby. “People think if you’ve got a number one single you’re loaded. But I have to make a living. This is not some sort of feet-up, chuck paint around thing.”

This is his third exhibition in just over a decade.

At Thomas Williams Fine Art, 22 Old Bond Street, W1, to 9 May. Admission free. Open 10am-6pm tomorrow, 10am-6pm Mon-Fri. Information: 020 7491 1485, www. thomaswilliams fineart.com.