Dunk (press monkey at common) caught up with Guy Mckinley to get his thoughts on the new exhibition at our venue.
Dunk- So Guy, Common has seen your work before, as part of the 'Dot The Eye's' collective, are you glad to be back again? And how is this different?
Guy: Of course I am glad to be back, this place is like a home away from home. Good art on the walls, hot mugs of tea, lovely meatball sandwiches, what more does this Scouser need. Nowt, that's what!.. Well a TV with cartoons on and a couch I can lie down on, but other than that a home away from home.
Regarding DTE, this is very different. Simply by the fact that when I take part in that it's a collaboration and develops over the days, the art is never set in stone and is kind of free flowing, its also a social art show and is more about the art happening and bouncing ideas of each other for the sake of a final piece. So it's not as boring as painting on your own, sorry did I say my own I meant with painting Christopher Stevenson. For this, my first proper solo show, I had to think about the final work and try to compliment the pieces that are being hung with the art painted directly on the walls and then there is the fairly early starts, you know how much I hate them, outside of that its been good. I like working big every now and then. But if anyone is ever thinking of doing a show, be warned the massive wall that separates the two parts of the main bar is an absolute nightmare. All the best bits of said wall have been removed; leaving all the bits no one wants. Its knows it's the problem child of the Common walls and it laughs in my face every day I am painting. The get!
Dunk - Why Common?
Guy: Well outside of the things I have already mentioned, the fact that I can pretty much do what I want on the walls and considering its someone else's actual workplace/business, that's quite nice. The company you keep there is nothing if not amusing. And I like their approach to getting involved with art. It's not a "Art Gallery" in the traditional sense, but as opposed to most bars that show art on their walls and it coming off like a bit of an afterthought, or a cheap means of decoration. I think Common takes it a little more seriously, they are really hands on and enthusiastic and work really hard to get it more 50% bar 50% art gallery which is no mean feat. If they played a bit of Grand Master Flash now and then it would be almost perfect.
Dunk - Where else has your work been displayed in Manchester, what brought you to this fair city?
Guy: Loads of spots, but mainly my Sisters and close friends house's. Outside of them goldmines, I paint live quite a bit like at the Eurocultured Festival for the last 4 years, I have had my work in the Adidas Vintage Store, as part of the New Balance Region Exhibition a few years back, Size, Selfridges, Some live stuff for Playstation in Piccadilly. Most of that stuff people have seen will be for brands. My more personal stuff has been in Cast, Common, the Contact Theatre and the Cornerhouse for doodlebug, anything beginning with the letter C really.
Dunk - What would you claim to be your greatest piece to date?
Guy: I have no idea what my greatest piece is at all. I have one I love for different reasons. It was one of the first jobs I did when I finished my degree in 2003. A mate who runs a company called Spearfish, called up and asked if I could design piece for Mckenzie clothing in few days. It my first good pay day, which was great and they printed it huge at this trade fair. It looked amazing, I had never seen my work so large, this was way before I started painting walls, but it was only used once for that show. Then months later I saw the Sprite "Design a Can" competition was still open and it was days before deadline so I decided to rearrange some elements in the same image and send it in. Off the cuff. I won one of the categories and I went an all expenses trip and spends for me and the missus to Tokyo, Japan. It literally changed a lot of the stuff I was drawing and remains a massive turning point. So it would be that. I am very proud of the newest work I have produced for this Common show and the last stuff I launched was the Dead Japanese Ghost Girl Warriors which I shown at Carhartt, they are probably the best example of the Japanese influence, but with a wholly Mckinley twist.
Guy's current exhibition at Common, Edge Street, Manchester
Dunk - Apart from your artistic skills, what piece of work would you say is an exceptional piece of art?
Guy: I love lots of things from the some of the greats to some of the crudest craft pieces. I think anything that you like to look at a lot, can be seen as exceptional. I have a print in my home, that I bought from the walls of Art of Tea in Didsbury, cheers Karen. It's a doozy. It's an old Polish Poster for a folk festival from 1970. A Lithograph of a what looks like a traditional traveler with headscarf and flower in her hair. It lovely, I wouldn't swap it. There are too many other artists to go into, but I saw a piece by recently Ron Mueck and it blew me away, like all of his sculpture. The way he plays with scale and the craftsmanship is astounding. He is by no means my favourite, but I would say it was exceptional.
Dunk - If you could steal this work, where would you hide it?
Guy: I guess it would be pointless, stealing something you would want to look at, but if I had to hide it somewhere that no one would find it...Hmmm...Maybe I could put the artwork in the same place that all my socks seem to disappear to. If I could find that place I would put it there. Even Poirot couldn't solve this mystery. Where they go I will never know, my laundry basket and washing machine are not that far apart, where are they Dunk, where?
Dunk - Being a Scouser, how many things have you stole in the past?
Guy: I, hand on heart, have never stolen a thing. I have though, found cash on the floor and once in the slot on a cash point. But what do you do with that? In fact that used to happen a lot more as a kid than it does now. Why is that? Was dropping £5 an 80's thing. If so maybe I should start up a new scheme drop a fiver a month. Make sure its in front of kids, though, there was nothing as exciting as finding a £5 and literally going mental in a sweet shop with me mates. You felt like Richard Pryor in Brewster's Millions. Milky Bars on are on me, or whoever else found the cash. Good times...good times!
Dunk - I read on 'threadless.com' that someone 'may' have stolen your ideas, if they did how would you feel about this?
(Exhibit A -
http://www.threadless.com/submission/177876/Odachi)
Guy: This is the first I heard and I checked that out after you gave me the link, the cheek of some people. He denied it as well. He has three designs on there one is a rip off of my Samurai Dusk and the other is a piece called Snow Geisha. No one seems to have picked up on that one.
I used to copy people when I was a kid, it was the only way to learn, but I would never lay claim to the character, or the piece I would simply say it was me copying this piece. I didn't want to gain a reputation as an artist/illustrator/ designer for copying peoples work, that's useless. It's them that, hopefully, will lose in the end. If it was well done I would be more bothered, but it was a little on the poor side if you ask me.
One of Guys prints, for sale : £90 each
Dunk - Have you ever 'borrowed' any ideas?
Guy: I have borrowed techniques and that's how any art progresses. You experiment to see what fits and what solves problems, its how you develop. That said I see stuff all the time, whether I want to or not. You can never say that something has never crept in subconsciously when I am drawing, though it's not intentional on my part, but you can't claim to have a completely unique style, its always influenced by what you like now, or liked when you started.
From the outside looking in, I have a comic book style I guess, as I love comics and comic art. I have never really wanted to be sequential artist; I was always aspiring to be a cover artist. I saw that as the more experimental and exciting side of that industry. I still like to try and tell a story in one image. Its a challenge, but if it going to hang on its own, its needs to either be petty, or tell you something about the character, ideally it should do both.
Dunk - Your work tends to lean towards a fantasy world; do you live a fantasy world?
Guy: Nope, but I know you think I do Duncan. I think the realms of fantasy are a rich source of imagination, but I think they need grounding. I am trying more and more to put my images/characters that may look fantastical in to the modern world. I am kind of obsessed with it at present, I like the collision of new and old. WIth Betty Pea, ( The Tick and the Tock of Betty Pea at Common) she is from an alternate realm, but has been thrust into our world as it is now, she brings with her other elements from her world too, but its her struggle with a world she isn't used to that interested me. The same applies with the Dead Girls I mentioned above, but rather than being from an alternate world, they are from ancient Japan.
I always have this tendency to give my characters a personality or a back story, I think if I do this it makes it easier to visualise a new image. Repetition can be fine, but you need to know what world you are exploring to go a different way. I think this has something to do with the Comic world I grew up with and my love of animation. I have had a story in mind for all my characters to date. Well, I say all, all the ones I expanded past a solo sketch. My dream would be to lead into animation with some of them, I have them all ready. There are loads.
Dunk - What do you think of the track: baby d ' let me be your fantasy'?
Guy: Dunk I know for a fact that you are singing it in you're head every time you see a cake, or a cream horn, or a bottle of real ale. So with that taken into consideration I think it's adequate.
Dunk - Finally if you could describe your work in three words, what would they be?
Guy: Pretty, Lovely, Lines
Dunk - ......thank you guy, any final words for your adoring public, because I know you like to talk ???!!!???
Guy: Erm if you can't make it down to Common check any of the links you would rather use for details images links and so on...
Website ~
http://www.guymckinley.com( I have been promised this will be up and running all new and shiny VERY soon)
Flikr ~
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guymckinley/Myspace ~
http://www.myspace.com/guymckinleyShop~
http://guymckinley.bigcartel.com/Blog ~
http://guymckinley.blogspot.com/