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Interview with Artist Ian Wright

Artist Ian Wright

Ian Wright is a true artist. If you are not familiar with his work, just one look, and you’ll be hooked. His love for his subject matter and his working methods brings you in and won’t let go. I had the great privilege to spend some time with Mr. Wright during a chat in his studio. Jennifer and I consider it a highlight of our recent European tour. Ian is quite the host, very open and generous with explaining and sharing his work. From beads, or badges, or torn paper, to name just a few potential sources, Ian Wright creates portraits like you’ve never seen before. Click the link below to see my short film on this very special art studio visit while we were in London.

John Lennon portrait by Ian Wright

The visit began with a spark of energy and it just continued to blossom. Bit by bit, I got to know Ian Wright, from his early work up to the present. He always wanted to be a commercial artist. He got his big break not long after college doing weekly portraits for the popular British music magazine, New Musical Express (NME) and that allowed him an audience and an opportunity to hone his skills. Wright interned at the prestigious NTA Studios, similar to Push Pin in New York. NTA was run by George Hardie, Bob Lawrie, Bush Hollyhead, and Malcolm Harrison. They were illustrator-graphic designers and the connection to that work led Wright to study graphic design. Later, Wright shared a studio with Neville Brody and, at that point, Wright was working at NME. The 1980s was a great time to play and learn about various ways of working. It was a matter of endless practice.

T.I.: Paper Trail album cover by Ian Wright

As a young artist developing his style, Wright discovered that his ideas were linked to his choice of materials. It was when he pushed himself that he found himself creating his most compelling work. Early on, during his time at NME, he had a breakthrough when he used salt to represent lines of cocaine for a portrait of Grandmaster Flash. Around the same time, Wright was pushing the boundaries of what you could do with an office copy machine. For instance, imagine what you might accomplish if you manipulate the rollers? Or what might happen if you manipulate an image on the screen? Wright found out. One project has brought him back to such analog experiments. He created an album cover for the band Madness in its heyday and was recently approached by the band for a poster for a new show next month.

Madness at The Roundhouse

We began with a portrait of the wrestling legend Giant Haystacks and went on from there. Wright talked about various other portraits, like the one he did of the hip hop artist T.I. for an album cover. Wright subverted the notion of glamour and gloss in hip hop and used humble recycled paper. Another example was an amazing work-in-progress of a portrait of D.H. Lawrence made out of pages from Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  Another great work was a portrait of singer Albert Ayler which is included in the recent 100th issue of the magazine, Straight No Chaser. I asked Wright if it was more challenging to depict someone unknown or someone famous and that got him thinking over it. He brought out a dazzling portrait of David Bowie that he did for The Atlantic made out of pins. He pointed out that, without that flash across his face, it might not read as Bowie. Some famous faces are so ingrained into our psyche that we have trouble recognizing them without their usual posturing. Whatever the case, Wright has managed with each of his portraits to not only capture a likeness but to evoke something soulful from the subject as well as from himself.

Visit Ian Wright at his website right here.

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Filed under Design, Interviews

Advance Review: GLITTERBOMB #1

Glitterbomb Image Comics

Let’s say that you do go out to L.A. to chase that dream of fame and fortune. Alright, you’re walking down Hollywood Boulevard. You get a text. But it’s not your agent. You don’t even really have an agent but you know someone who does. Or you thought you knew this person. Where did the time go? At this rate, you only have enough money to last you through…the week? Ah, it can happen. Variations of this happen every day. Meet Farrah Durante. She’s struggling at cattle calls for whatever part she can get. And she actually used to be somebody. Yeah, she was Cee-Lin on that really popular sci-fi show, “Space Farers,” or it used to be popular. That was so many years ago. Close in on Farrah. She’s attractive and seems pretty agile but she’s at the mercy of youth-obsessed Hollywood. However, Farrah has stumbled upon some sort of secret weapon in “Glitterbomb,” the new comic book series from Image Comics with a Hollywood horror tale to tell.

Image Comics Jim Zub

You see, Farrah has a way to exact revenge. She is not looking to make trouble. But something has tapped her to be a vessel that can unleash horrific fury. You wouldn’t think it remotely possible to look at Farrah. And, Jesus, what exactly would horrific fury entail? Look, it’s been brewing for a very long time. Hollywood’s fame culture has already unleashed its own horrific fury, so to speak. We question our looks, our own worthiness, compared to the latest celebrity darlings. We all do it in our own way. And, if you don’t, there are others who will do it for us and unfairly judge us. Poor Farrah finds herself caught in the middle of some cosmic reordering of balance. That much I can tell you. That’s fair enough. I’m not here to spoil anything. What I am here to say is that Farrah Durante is a great character and exemplifies the tragic state of our culture when a talented woman reaches a certain age and becomes something less than worthy: unemployable, unmarketable, unwanted.

Jim Zub Glitterbomb

There are a couple of classic films that readily come to mind now: “Sunset Boulevard” and “All About Eve.” Both films came out in 1950 and each stars a woman who has committed the worst act in Hollywood: she has gotten older! Gloria Swanson was 51. Bette Davis was 42. Each character was at a dangerous point in their lives with threats coming at them from all sides. Who would love them? Who would hire them? Both films are dark with Billy Wilder’s “Sunset” decidedly noir. Neither is horror, per se, but we come close as, in both cases, these two older women are so up against it. “Eve” is far more restrained although the threat from the young Eve Harrington on the older Margo Channing reaches the level of a blood sport. For horror movie theatrics, you can’t find much better than Gloria Swanson as the aging and desperate Norma Desmond. This is all to say that both of these movies were playing with a common theme, one of the oldest in the book: the young will devour the old…and women are placed at greater disadvantage.

Glitterbomb Image Comics 2016

Clearly, “Glitterbomb” is playing for keeps! This is an ambitious work. It’s also a scary one! Jim Zub (WAYWARD, Thunderbotls) has created a script that realistically brings us into the hard luck world of Farrah Durante endlessly scrambling for an acting gig. And he melds that with some of the most inventive supernatural content that I’ve seen in a long while. Add to that the very nimble artwork by Djibril Morissette-Phan that captures the pathos and rage of Farrah quite convincingly. We see her as someone potentially so full of life but who must continue to sidestep all sorts of life’s sucker punches along with whatever that is that spawned from hell–or is it just Hollywood?!

K. Michael Russell provides some great atmospheric colors. And Marshall Dillon rounds out the creative team with well balanced, well-placed, lettering. I especially appreciate his creative flourishes in evoking the urgency of text messages.

At the end of this comic, there’s an eye-opening essay on the abusive culture of Hollywood by Holly Raychelle Hughes. As she experienced it, Hollywood made her feel less than human, more like something expendable. It is a perfect companion piece to this remarkable work.

GLITTERBOMB provides a clever horror vibe as well as great biting social commentary. The first issue is available as of September 7th. For more details, visit Image Comics right here.

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Filed under Ageism, Comics, Hollywood, Horror, Image Comics, Sexism

Book Review: REFOCUSING CHAPLIN

The Little Tramp off into the sunset. Illustration by Henry Chamberlain

The Little Tramp off into the sunset. Illustration by Henry Chamberlain

Aristotle speaks of the mimesis of the first order and the mimesis of the second order. When creating art, the goal is to distance oneself from the source. Mimesis of the first order is simply art imitating nature. Mimesis of the second order is art perfecting nature and turning it into something transcendent. That rule is certainly at play in the work of Charlie Chaplin. As Marco Grosoli points out in his essay on Chaplin, this was an artist keenly aware of his myth and in a unique position to go on to make great art from that myth. Marco Grosoli’s fascinating essay is part of a collection of essays from various writers on one of the masters of cinema, “Refocusing Chaplin,” published by Rowman & Littlefield.

There may never be another artist quite like Charlie Chaplin. However, his influence and relevance continues to evolve. And so that gives this collection of essays a great sense of urgency. In the same way that an artist of the first rank like Ray Bradbury could have anticipated social media some fifty years ago, so too did Charlie Chaplin foresee the power of a meme in a career that began over one hundred years ago. To say that Charlie Chaplin was beyond famous is an understatement. He reached the level of myth. It is not short of phenomenal that he continued to grow as an artist through a career that spanned the evolution of cinema.

Chaplin in 1941's "The Great Dictator"

Chaplin in 1940’s “The Great Dictator”

In Marco Grosoli’s essay, he examines the friction between two formidable myths in Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” from 1940. By then, Chaplin was more than ready to leverage some of his celebrity for the sake of his art. The timing could not have been more perfect. The difference between the myth of Hitler and Chaplin could not have been more extreme. As Grosoli indicates, Chaplin was not merely imitating Hitler. Chaplin was channeling the myth of Hitler. In that respect, Chaplin was getting at a greater truth. In a work that deeply explores the power of meme, Chaplin plays both the role of Dictator Adenoid Hynkel and a Jewish barber who looks identical to Hynkel. Dictator and barber are, in a sense, interchangeable. In the proper costume and context, everyone accepts whatever the Jewish barber has to say, dressed as Hynkel, even if it is the total opposite of what Hynkel would say. Push two extremes together, Grosoli suggests, and they strangely equate each other, form a perfect nothingness.

"Refocusing Chaplin: A Screen Icon Through Critical Lenses"

“Refocusing Chaplin: A Screen Icon Through Critical Lenses”

Essays in this collection feature a wide spectrum of themes including Marxism, feminism, gender studies, deconstruction, psychoanalytic criticism, new historicism, performance studies, and cultural criticism. This critical study covers a wide reach of films including The Circus (1928), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931) Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952). This collection proves to be a valuable resource on one of the leading masters of cinema.

“Refocusing Chaplin: A Screen Icon through Critical Lenses” is a 250-page hardcover, published by Rowman & Littlefield. Visit them right here.

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Filed under Art, Book Reviews, Books, Charlie Chaplin, Critical Studies, film, Hollywood, movies, pop culture, Rowman & Littlefield

SEA/PDX: Welcome to Popland

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Filed under 24 Hour Comics, Comics, Henry Chamberlain, Hotel Max, Max at Hotel Max Comics, SAM, SEA/PDX, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Webcomics