'Lot's of kids love to draw. I think it’s an innate, primal thing. It’s how we learn about the world, to express ourselves, and a way to let people know we were there. Which makes it pretty ridiculous that my first memories of drawing are forcing my Mum, every night after school, to host drawing competitions between me and my brother, in which I would insist we draw toilets in cheap colouring pencils. I got so good at drawing toilets.’ Dex humorously informs me. Eventually, I graduated from toilets to other mundane or domestic objects. I’ve just always drawn for the enjoyment, the escapism and the ritual’.
‘I grew up on council estates in the centre of Gloucester. As I neared my teens, I had problems with some of the kids who lived with me which meant I spent a lot of time indoors, alone. My life was wholly unspectacular. I’d spend most of my time alone doing solo tasks and hobbies like reading, drawing, obsessively playing Pokémon on my Gameboy advance or being a chronically online MSN kid. Or I’d watch horror movies at a far too young an age with my Mum’ Dex explains.
‘I have never really thought about it before, but talking about it now, it would make sense that the style and themes of my art can be traced back to exposure to horror themes, as well as struggling to get by and mental health issues that I have struggled with for most of my life’. Dex adds. In this regard, before I interview an artist, I often assume that they are familiar with the themes that they are espousing. Yet frequently, artists will tell me that they have not really thought about those aspects of their works until they are mentioned. As I was once told by the artist Chris Pompa (who featured in Issue 3) at a gallery event – ‘I love coming here to hear what people have to say about my works because they often come up with their own theories... it makes me think “well, how did I come up with that?” and set me on a deep train of thought.’
‘it was described by a fellow student as “a spaghetti nightmare”’
‘Eventually, once I had spent a good few years after school just pottering around and being a mess, I studied a BTEC in Art & Design at Stroud College... I then proceeded to spend more than a good few years after college again pottering about and being a mess.’ Dex expresses in a frank, though quite comical, way. ‘At college, I loved all the mediums we studied – illustration, photography, graphic design, fashion, and sculpture, and ultimately chose to focus on sculpture. My main interest was in making installations. I got good grades, but in hindsight this was probably mostly for enthusiasm and strong concepts, because the execution was always rubbish. One of the projects was making a peach out of ice, with a peach pit inside, with the end goal of filming it as it melted. Good concept! But I couldn’t get the cast to work – the water always spilled out and eventually I ran out of time. Another project was making an immersive journey into a person’s skin. I used latex [much like Phee Jefferies used to create her sculptures in our previous issue ] and raw meat and lard and positioned it in a
small crawl space.
Again, interesting concept, but it was described by a fellow student as “a spaghetti nightmare”. ‘I rejected an offer to study sculpture at Falmouth Uni because of mental health issues and then spent the next decade miserable and eventually hospitalised in relation to my mental health. It was around this time that I took up art more seriously again and it became an outlet for me. I’d spend hours and hours drawing hairs and other line work... I didn’t have to be inside my own body in that time. This is when I started posting to Instagram, to keep myself accountable and to find a community, which I have done, and I’m so grateful!’ Dex says inspiringly. Indeed, much like Rhona in this issue and countless other artists Art Etcetera has spoken to, it seems that whilst social media may be coming under fire recently, it is still a useful tool by which to connect with people who share the same artistic interests.
‘One day I aim to have enough money saved up to be able to do a tattoo apprenticeship’ ‘Now I work in Tech by day and as an illustrator and alt/goth event organiser by moonlight. I’ve also recently finished a creative writing degree, which I smashed and I’m so proud of! One day I aim to have enough money saved up to be able to do a tattoo apprenticeship.’ Dex informs me, again rather inspiringly though also, from a publishing perspective, rather interestingly too. After all, unless it is a magazine that focuses solely upon tattoos, the art of tattooing is scarcely highlighted in the wider media. Yet such a reluctance seems not only contradictory but rather outdated and elitist.
As mentioned within this issue in Emilia’s article, since the reintroduction of tattooing in Europe during the nineteenth century, tattoos have been seen in the Western world to be something that belonged to wrongdoers and the working classes (despite them being reintroduced by members of the aristocracy). Although such a belief has waned over the past few decades, it is one that still exists within a variety of sectors, including, it seems, the arts. Indeed, the scarcity of tattoos in art magazines and galleries suggests that most art publishers and curators do not see tattoos as being an art form at all.
Art Etcetera of course rejects this viewpoint since, as evidenced by Dex and Emilia, you need to possess an artist skillset in the first place before you can even begin to tattoo. It is a progressive sentiment which also seems to be shared by our regular readership (maybe even you dear reader), with one loyal subscriber recently writing to me saying:
'I love that Art Etcetera is including tattoos as an art form! Each and every tattooist has to be able to draw and paint before they pick up a needle. I spent a lot of time talking with my tattoo artist before agreeing to get inked.’
Interestingly, Dex’s artistic journey appears to mimic the historical development of ink itself. Indeed, so far throughout this issue we have explored how the use of ink has progressed within the arts overtime, from lampblack soot upon papyrus to modern tattooing utensils and ballpoint pens. Yet Dex’s works provide us with the final piece of the puzzle, bringing us to where ink finds itself today – upon the digital screen. ‘What started with drawing highly detailed loos with cheap colouring pencils became graphite and charcoal drawings of structures or domestic objects, like books or mugs or sections of bridges and train stations... I still love the tactile feeling of working with materials on paper, but when I started making art again, I was at my lowest point. I was so horribly depressed that, if I did use paints or get out pencils etc, they would be left on the desk for weeks as I could barely look after myself, let alone clean up my workspace.
That prevented me from creating as much as I would have liked to because of the guilt and shame and effort involved in the cleanup’ Dex rather bravely shares with me. ‘So I got a drawing tablet and pencil. It was so freeing! I could take it with me anywhere, I could draw, and experiment, and I didn’t have to worry about losing energy and then living with the mess and shame for weeks on end. I still like to use traditional mediums now, with a preference for paint pens, black ink and gold leaf, but digital art is always going to be my go-to now!’ Dex adds positively.
‘My first ever installation was inspired by a to-do list I found on the street’
On this note, there appears to be a perception within the art world that digital works, discounting AI, require less skill to create. Though, take a closer look at Dex’s works, particularly at the likes of the bone structures, and you can see exactly how much of a keen artistic eye is required to draw such pieces. Due to such prejudices however, much like tattoos, there appears to be little known about the construction of digital works. So how about we gain an insight into how such pieces are designed – and in doing so learn a little about Dex’s creative process along the way?
‘My first ever installation was inspired by a to-do listI found on the street. I was fascinated that I knew what this person’s plans were, but I’d never meet them. I put a box up in the corridor at college asking for people’s to-do lists, then I printed them all out and lined the walls with them, and filled a rug with heavy objects and suspended them over the room. It was called “Things to do beforeI die” and was about anxiety and feeling overwhelmed’ Dex insightfully tells me.
‘Even though the kind of art I make now has changed a lot, I’m still very process driven. In many ways, I approach it in the same way as I trained myself to approach writing. Basically just trying to always be switched on to what’s going on around me; my senses, overheard conversations, song lyrics and the like. I’ll have an idea and I’ll riff on it, sketching and trying things. Sometimes it will work out right away, other times I’ll go off on a tangent and end up doing something completely different. I just go with it. A tutor on my creative writing degree said something which stuck with me, about trying not to get stuck in your head when creating and drafting, which I feel applied to art and really any creative endeavour – “CARE LESS, WRITE SH*T”. Basically meaning, don’t overthink it, just do it, 99% of it is going to be absolute rubbish, but that’s the point. This is how I try to approach creativity.’
‘Whilst studying sculpture, I was really into Eva Hesse, Rachel Whiteread and Tracey Emin. Junji Ito and Japanese art, including old woodblock prints is also a massive inspiration. I love memento mori art, which means “remember you must die”, and is supposed to remind the viewer that life and material things are fleeting and to live it while you can. Tattoo and taxidermy also interest me a lot.’ Dex continues.
‘I’m also really inspired and influenced by other current, alternative creatives – illustrators, tattooists, taxidermists, jewellers etc - in Bristol and beyond, who are working hard, creating really cool stuff and nurturing an amazing, inclusive and supportive community of creatives – like Lois Goody, Snail Tears, Wasted Decay, SLAB Jewellery, Ash + Bone and Kintsugilt.’
‘it acts as a reminder to me that there’s always light with the dark’
‘I mainly draw digitally now because it is so accessible for me, as someone with mental health issues, and it also lets me enjoy my love of tech at the same time as my love of art. Growing up with mental health issues, and a love of the macabre, has all culminated in the art I make now. I enjoy the shock value of horror themes, but I also think there’s something very beautiful about it. Bones and blood are visceral parts of all of us. I like to take stark, desolate things, like skulls and skeletons, and arrange them in illustrations with things like fruit and flowers. It’s life meeting death and it’s about how important they both are, because you can’t have one without the other. This balance is interesting to me. My work plays with balance a lot – between life and death or dark and light. I think it acts as a reminder to me that there’s always light with the dark, and it reminds me of the beautiful things in the world that make life worth living, my own personal memento mori.’
‘I find the human form beautiful for this reason too, it’s so fragile and is also a system made up of balance. In college, we did a lot of life drawing, so that’s when drawing the human form started to interest me. I mostly enjoy drawing hands, if “enjoy” is the right word, because it frustrates the hell out of me. But I love how hands alone can express the full range of human emotion.'
'I tend to draw with bold, heavy lines mixed with finer lines to denote the shape or shadow on an object, inspired by graphic novels and tattoos. Though I’ve started experimenting with colour now, my work used to be purely black and white, with the objects emerging from the blackness, like a relief sculpture or painting, or being swallowed by it like a creature stuck in tar.’
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