Our #99 cover artist on his dutty collage work...
Eat Out Often
My medium is hand-manipulated collage. I created the cover and poster for this issue, which are all about the modern left lion. There are multiple stories embedded into the artworks, with some cool, young lions off to a Notts screening, as well as some headed home for Netflix and chill.
There’s also a stylish lioness facetiming a friend, being watched by a gadget-laden cub; a bored lass, trying to get her mate to pay attention to something other than his gaming; a data-driven head of the pride, capturing it all on his cameras; two big cats looking on and checking out silly videos on their snazzy phones; and don’t ask about the yoga fox.
I tend to only use images cut from magazines, rather than from the internet, which can be frustrating when I can’t find the image I really want. Although, I feel like I’ve worked harder that way.
This piece is called Eat Out Often – it’s advice I recommend to everyone – and I made it to make myself laugh. I enjoy collage, and I enjoy a crude pun, so I just put the two together. I’d like to say that the piece is some comment on sexism but, to be honest, that would just be word-padding and art bollocks.
I have a stash of images already stolen from magazines, so it’s just a case of sifting through them and putting them together until I arrive at a vaguely strong concept; only then will I search for specific things. Cutting out and placing the images can take a long time, especially if I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine. Then it takes a couple more hours.
When I graduated from university, I was making conceptual pieces of work, but wasn’t really enjoying it. It all seemed a bit boring, so I decided that I was going to make collages to amuse myself instead of making work to exhibit. I like words, I like jokes, and I like sex; so I created crude puns to start enjoying making art again, and it worked. My themes are a bit broader now, although I always come back to cock jokes. There seems to be an unlimited amount of images of objects that are phallic, but maybe that’s just me!
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