About the Paintings
My works are all about cracking jokes and telling stories. I set mysterious, whimsical fantasy scenes to which I hope the viewer will bring their own narrative. I embrace popular culture with a conformist spirit and no ironic intent. I like to draw on cartoony, illustrative styles, because they're a common ground for all of us aware of our culture. They've been tried and tested and proved popular. I’m not so much making art about pop imagery I’m making art that enjoys pop imagery.
I myself, refuse to live in reality. I think demand for fictions, fantasy and escapism is growing in all sectors.
I would never expect to produce work that weighted toward either the conceptual or the visual. I find the two aspects impossible to separate. However, I am passionate about visual art and the power of the two dimensional image. I have aspirations for art to be more evident in society.
I tend to think of my paintings of metaphysical images which are equally real when photographed, remembered or otherwise reproduced and do not exist solely on the canvas.
I take care that I am never dictated to by the medium I work in. I see oil paint as a means to an end in reproducing the images in my mind. That’s not to say I don’t respond and adapt as I’m working or try to eradicate evidence of the medium. I aim for painterliness and like to stay firmly in control.
I am fascinated by tension and duality on the canvas. In shape and texture and even style. I also have a catalogue of reoccurring motifs which I will keep re-using until I feel I’m done with them.
About the digital works
My dirty little sideline! I use a tablet and digital-painting software to make my digital works. For many years I have confused myself trying to reconcile them with my fine art practice thinking that they must be illustration and therefore separate. Now I’m not sure. I find digital art much more immediate and thrilling than traditional media and I hate to see it sidelined as a tool purely for illustration. I am currently thinking of my digital works as one gesamtkunstwerk – to be taken as a whole.
Influences and Interests (in no particular order)
Lowbrow art, Max Fleischer, Ero-Guro, Cartoons in general, hip-hop, Maki Kusumoto, ghosts, Osamu Tezuka, Francis Bacon, Dada, Surrealism, primal magic, science, Takeshi Murakami, Inka Essenhigh, Dennis Wheatley, B-movies, The Bizzaros, rock & roll, crime, horror, Saki, the internet, fashion, history, jokes, comics, desktop publishing, computer games, clowns, Ronald Firbank, toys, semantics…
Contact me
Talk to me about networking, commissions, exhibiting or existing works for sale.
velvetbird {at} hotmail .co.uk
16 Sackville Close
Beverley
East Yorkshire
HU17 8XF
England