I
was born in Derby, England and graduated with a BA Hons in
Illustration from Lincoln University in 2010. Since graduating I have
been focusing on selling portraits both of celebrities and people’s
family members along side my illustration paintings.
I
work almost exclusively with acrylic paint, either on canvas for the
portraits, or wood for the illustrations.
What got you started? What keeps you in?
I’ve
been drawing and painting as long as I can remember. My interest in
painting most likely stemmed from my family, my mother paints
regularly and my grandfather used to too. I eventually decided
it was something I wouldn’t mind doing for a living, despite being
pretty awful back then, although I guess you always think your older
work is bad.
As
far as staying in goes, other than the obvious answer of enjoying
painting I’d say I love knowing people have got my paintings on
their walls across the world. It still seems pretty crazy to me that
I have sold far more out of England than in, but I guess that’s the
power of the internet. I’d love to have a painting on every
continent one day, even if I had to do some for free to get to that
stage. I really appreciate some of the responses I get when people
receive their paintings, so that’s a good feeling too. I still
worry when I first show people their painting though - just whether
it’s up to their expectations or not!
What/who inspires you? In what way?
I’m
get really inspired whenever I see anything I find especially
impressive. I’m like, ‘Damn that’s impressive, I wanna do
that!’. Sometimes if I’m getting fed up of painting I’ll just
look at some cool work and I’ll want to get back to painting and
improve myself.
As
far as specific artists go, for my portrait side of things I’d have
to go with Sebastian Kruger, he paints in acrylic too which is rare
for portrait artists. His work tends to be caricatures of famous
people, in various ranges of exaggeration, but they are painted so
realistically it really blows my mind. His paintings are huge; I only
paint around 16”x20” and would like to see how one I’d done
would look that size, I’m really slow at painting so I dread to
think how long it’d take though.
For
my more illustrative pieces it’s got to be Jeff Soto, I love how he
includes a lot of design elements in his paintings while keeping them
rendered incredibly well. I’d always hoped one day I’d be able to
paint as well as he does, then I saw some of his more recent stuff
the other day it’s got ten times more detailed. I guess you always
need something to aspire to.
What is art for you? Examples of "real art"?
This
is a discussion I truly hate. People go around in circles around in
circles trying to define what they constitute as true art, which I
find very elitist. Art to me is anything that was intended to be
such. Something can still be art even most people see it as bad
art. People are always going to like different things so to
exclude something from being art based on your own personal
preferences seems rather self absorbed. I’ll stop talking about
this now before it turns into a rant!
The most powerful/your favourite medium: picture, words, sounds?
Anything else?
I
wouldn’t say any medium was more powerful than another. There are
people who are creating powerful pieces in all mediums; I feel it’s
more what you do with it rather than what you do it with.
As
far as my favourite however I’d have to go with acrylic or oil
paint as they’re something I can relate too, I like getting up
close to a painting so I can see where and why the artist chose to
apply the paint in that particular area. I feel acrylic gets a bad
rep as being too hard to achieve complex results with so I like it
when an artist like Sebastian Kruger as I mentioned earlier, comes
and proves the naysayers wrong.
Plans for future (of your work)?
I’d
like to add something a little more creative into my portraits, maybe
to exaggerate slight features, but while still keeping them far away
from being a caricature. They’ve helped me improve technically a
lot so I only think it’s far to try and improve creatively as well.
I’d love to get back to working on illustrations again too, I’ve just completed one and it was a welcome change. I’d quite like to look at doing some weird creature (as most of my stuff seems to feature) but painted as realistic as I could make it. I don’t get any time to work on anything for myself these days so I’ll just have to hope someone commissions me for something like that!
Anything you'd like to add? Maybe a song, a picture, hello to friends
and family?
Just
thanks for the interview and that I feel really privileged to be
featured alongside the great artists you’ve interviewed in the
past. If anyone likes you can check out my website here,
or my facebook page here
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