Initially childhood entertainment/escapism I try to communicate humour through my work to appeal to wider audiences that are outside the art elite, which can seem exclusive.
2 What do you intend your work to convey to an audience?
A sense of humour and an instant appreciation of weather you like what you see or you don’t, I don’t want to mystify the viewer I want to entertain and stimulate.
3 Why do you work in your chosen medium and format?
Initially I was attracted to screenprint for the quality of flat colour it can give. Through further research I have a great respect for the history of print especially the way it made images accessible and more democratic.
4 Technically speaking how do you go about constructing your work, that is the image or object itself? What devices do you employ?
I draw first then produce prints usually screenprints or etchings on a range of materials that have allusions to historic craft techniques or an inherent sense of faded glamour.
5 Which period(s)/artists/specific works of art are you influenced by and how directly? How does this manifest in your work?
I reference a lot from the days of popular print so Hogarth, Gillray, Cruikshank and French artist from Epinal. Comic book artists that are a continuation of the popular print Crumb and Charles Burns also influence me. I also have researched ideas of the carnivalesque and the grotesque image of the body, which influences all aspects of my work.
6 What stimulates/informs your work from the world around you?
I do a lot of visual research in alternative nightclubs documenting performance and transgressive behaviour.
7 What stimulates/informs your work from your own personal experience?
I have many friends and family members who see galleries as elitist and never set foot in them. I hope my work will be accessible to these audiences as the gallery and public arts system fails large sections of the population.
8 From where do you derive your other visual source material (i.e. non art historical) and how do you implement this material within your work?
I draw a lot from imagination so the world around me ends up in my drawings mainly the seedier side of the nightclubs I document.
9 What are the main problems that you face in making your work?
Time and access to printing facilities.
10 Where do you intend to take your work from here?
I am working on larger scale narrative drawings and have a series of performances planned that I hope inform these drawings.