This section is an attempt to explain where some of my ideas come from. I do my best not to be derivative, though sometimes it seems I fail. Of course if you don't think I am you should have a look through this and it might change your mind...
The Early Days...
I don't think I was ever that artistic at school. Art teachers certainly didn't marvel at my abilities. Being a sad little fellow, the equivalent of a nerd - except PCs were well out of everyone's price range back then, I was into role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Tunnels and Trolls (hmmm a rip-off perhaps, but still good)... With that came all these wonderful illustrations of monsters and mythical beasts... I liked those.
I probably started scribbling properly when I was about 16... and I kept on scribbling from then on, usually in lessons and then later in lectures at university... It was around this point that I got into:
Surrealism
Ah... what a bunch of nutters they were - the surrealists. Sure there were the serious types like Andre Breton, but he wasn't really a painter so I wasn't that interested... No I went for the obvious: Dali, Magritte, Duchamp (yes - I know he was a Dadaist...); the less obvious: Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Delvaux; and the usually unheard of: Victor Brauner, Hans Bellmer (a depraved pervert but with a wonderful drawing style), Dorothea Tanning and more besides...
It was at this point I started painting. I also started implementing some 'surrealist techniques' in producing images (and continue to do so): Frottage - taking rubbings from random surfaces and using them as a starting point; Collage - using pictures cut out from magazines etc. to create weird combinations of elements (my favourite was putting human eyes on pictures of monkeys); Automatism - never really did this properly, but I still use it - just letting the pen run at random over the paper in an effort to drag something out of the subconscious... now I just scribble until it starts to look like something and let the conscious take over again...
I've got to say that Surrealism is without doubt my favourite art 'movement', sure I like some of the old classical stuff and of course those artists that apparently inspired the surrealists: Bosch, Arcimboldo, Durer etc., but I just love the bizarre imagery they were able to produce - and it still seems to have a huge influence, in art, film, and especially advertisements!
Links:
Surrealism,
Andre Breton,
Dali, Magritte,
Duchamp, Max
Ernst, Yves
Tanguy, Delvaux,
Victor
Brauner, Hans
Bellmer, Dorothea
Tanning, Bosch,
Arcimboldo,
Durer.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi Art
I really feel for those that get labelled as fantasy artists - it seems to mean they don't get taken seriously by the artistic establishment. Yet they produce some wonderful images... sure no dirty beds or sharks in formaldehyde... but displays of enormous talent nonetheless. You have to wonder about these modern artists... I do like some of them, including Mr. Hirst and his pickled animals, but I find myself agreeing with my father (that doesn't happen that often) when looking at their work. They might be taken a lot more seriously if they displayed some 'classical' art that they had produced alongside their more modern pieces just to show they are capable of doing it but chose not to work in that style...
Which brings me on to the undisputed master:
HR Giger
Yet another weirdly depraved and bizarre individual - you have to wonder what goes on inside his head - but a genius nonetheless, and a definite successor to the surrealists. If you've not heard of him you just haven't been paying attention. He's most famous for creating the monster in Alien and he's worked on other films too (with questionable success in some cases) - he created another excellent creature for Species (though the CGI version wasn't so good) and also worked on Poltergeist II. But it's his airbrush artwork that does it for me - I can't even begin to describe it, but it's not always for the faint hearted or timid...
Music
I like to listen to music when I'm working and sometimes pictures land up being named after titles of songs I happened to be listening to at the time... laziness, but sometimes it works quite well. I guess this is just a little tribute to those artists that I enjoy: PJ Harvey, Ween, Barry Adamson, The Cure (yeah - I went through a goth stage when I was younger), David Bowie (in particular the Album: Outside), Whale and more besides... I certainly can't be doing with all these hideous manufactured bands... though I must confess I did have a penchant for Shampoo...
Film
Predictably I prefer sci-fi to the mainstream action films: Bladerunner (of course), Alien, Dark City (a neglected film that has a similar plot to the Matrix (well I think so...) but is far more intelligent), Twelve Monkeys; the more thoughtful and slow paced films like 2001, Gattaca and so on; and I do like anything that's bizarre - in particular films by the Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer (his animations are superb and films like 'Conspirators of Pleasure' are even better), the animations of the Brothers Quay (even better than Svankmajer - The Street of Crocodiles is simply stunning), and films like the City of Lost Children... I'm not averse to a little cel animation either, particularly if it has Japanese origins... I really haven't seen enough and saying I like Akira is a bit obvious, but Ghost in the Shell is certainly as good if not better....
Links:
Jan Svankmajer,
Brothers
Quay
Well don't know what else to add at the moment... apart from that if you read all that you must be very bored..