About
Shugville has taken his own path artistically. A child of the 1970s and coming of age in the 80s Shugville grew up heavily influenced by first the mainstream and then the underground comic art scenes coming from the U.S.A and continental Europe at the time. From ‘Peanuts’ by Charles M. Schulz to Jean Giraud ‘Moebius’. But it was the discovery of 70s underground comic artist Vaughn Bode’s work that appeared in early New York graffiti art and the comic anthology Epic Illustrated that kick-started him into taking his drawing more seriously.
His early 20s saw him apprenticing to a blacksmith, working on farms in rural America, and attending the renowned L’Atelier De La Bande-Dessinée in Angoulême, France. He was published in Ego Comme X as part of the burgeoning independent and auto-biographical European comic scene of the 1990s which included publications such as L’Association’s Le Lapin and Amok’s Le Cheval Sans Tête.
On his return to London he worked in the animation industry working with directors such as the late Run Wrake (specifically his Keith Haring excerpt for U2’s Popmart tour visuals) and organised his first solo exhibition in 1997.
After briefly working with aerial photographer Adriel Heisey, flying in a specially built light aircraft over the Sonoran Desert in Mexico for his book ‘Under The Sun: A Sonoran Desert Odyssey’, he finally settled down to a family life and took his work more towards fine art, whilst always challenging comics and graphics as valid art forms.
He continues exploring new mediums and working towards a body of work he can show in a solo exhibition. He has organised a further 3 shows, All That Id Is, The Powerful And The Powerless and Welcome To Shugville.
Statement
My art is a product of a psychological beachcombing of interests, thoughts, whimsies, frustrations, memories, emotions and imagery. When some of these start to align and coalesce into a cohesive idea, I’m energised by giving them clarity.
I’m curious to try new mediums and master them to some degree. It gives an added momentum and fascination to my creative process. I believe my artistic vision runs through the eclecticism in my work which in turn reflects the varied nature of our visual and information-rich world.
Influences
nature & symbols, music & phenomena, photography & history, tribes & clothes, excerpts & the unkempt, industry & soundtracks, birdsong & bridges, religion & the rudimentary, monochromy & the medieval, detours & memories, graffiti & wastelands, movement & flow,
bass & psychedelica, sci-fi & found objects, composition & the moon, patterns & categorization, drawings & metals, the unexpected & suburbia, family & nests, the deadpan & isolation, the ordinary & the subliminal, communication & rhythm, dereliction & the absurd, analogies & streams, the practical & the intangible,
boundaries & the body, sea cliffs & the wind, perception & illusion, moments & the quiet, the epic & oddness, water & perception, psychology & the unintentionally comic, islands & shapes, the sea & the land, cause & effect, twilight & clouds, bones & beams,
juxtaposition & scale, dreams & holidays, simplicity & complexity, machines & buildings, uniforms & spontaneity, situations & love, graphics & rocks, barrenness & the city, rhythm & maps, energy & movies, time & outliers, dirigibles & paintings, paths & endeavour, perspective & mountains, the seasons & sex,
melancholy & myth, tunnels & colour, holes & emotions, wandering & literature, mystery & the sun, ambiguity & lines, trees & flight, balance & synchronicity, folklore & words, synthesizers & poetry, the light & the dark, fecundity & stories, things done & things not done.
