REVOLUTION DAILY

How and when did you start making art?
Although I never did art at school etc, I always knew that I was creative and always had flip files filled with words cut out of magazines and my schoolbooks bore the brunt of my compulsive doodling. However, when my folks gave me a digital camera for my 18th, I really was able to experiment and create images from nothing and this opened a door into the creative realm. I then studied and have been creating artworks pretty much since then.

How would you describe your work to someone without them having seen it?
My work is playful, colourful and energetic. Generally character based. (but all with some level of the abstract). To the theorist, I suppose my work work could be described as an exploration of the surreal through a modern day execution and a futuristic outlook.

Who or what influences your work?
I think most of my influence comes from observing the Natural world. I remain fascinated by the multitudes of shapes plants and weird animals, I am also fascinated with the every day interactions with people. I live and work in Woodstock, Cape Town, which is an area undergoing a large amount of urban renewal and as a result, the interaction between the new and old creates a veritable treasure trove for the artist’s imagination.

How do you deal with stress?
I love the outdoors, so regularly go hiking etc, but I recently took up boxing, which seems a great stress reliever as by the end of a training session i am too tired to even think of stress.

Are there any central themes or messages that run through your work?
It’s quite difficult, as there are different themes for different paintings and designs, but in general I try to leave the viewer with a feeling of awe, as if they have been privy to gaze into private and complex universe, hence I suppose that the central theme to my work would be hope and boldness (in the context of a bustling multicultural society).
My works aim inspire joy and perhaps awaken the better side of peoples artistic appreciation, which in itself seems a challenging angle to approach in the art-world today. With much contemporary art focussing on death, money, sex, illness and the general sorrows of our world, my work aims to touch upon the lighter side of life, but one that is no less deep in essence. In light of this, arguably, my approach to the creative could well be more poignant and necessary for our souls than ever.

You majored in photography. What made you decide to do illustration and design instead?
I studied graphic design and photography ( B.A. applied design), and although I ended up majoring in photography, part of my course included illustration. Although I really enjoyed photography and ended up doing really well in my final year, the medium became quite static for me and i enjoyed the tactility inherent in illustration much more. I found it much easier to explore and experiment with the actual mediums that I chose, and hence the change. In essence the attraction to photography was merely the beauty of creating and i simply found another way to create images