The bell rings. Its hometime! Schools out for another day! All that maths and english that you'll never use in your life anyway is over for another day. Get home, dive out the car, sprint to the bedroom, school bag that's too big for you bashing off your arse cheeks the whole way. No time to get changed. Sit down with the full uniform on, loosen the tie, switch on the tele at the back. Channel av1 on the remote, controller in hand, its on!
This was my daily routine for a lot of my childhood. In case you havent already guessed. Im talking about playing computer games. Not the computer games we have today, Im talking 2 dimensional low pixel cartridge game stone age shit!
Some of my fondest memories as a kid was playing computer games with my friends. We didnt get many dry days to play outside in Scotland, so being allowed into your mates house to duel it out over streets of rage or fifa 94 was the ultimate way to spend an evening.
So it was only natural that as an artist who paints from a place of nostalgia that I wanted to pay homage to something that got me through so many adolescent rainy days. A retro games console, yip lets do it!
My style tied in really well with the subject matter. I wanted to to keep it simple like the console and the games themselves. From the first brush stroke to the last it was a pleasure. Every time I came back into the studio to add more I'd look at it and be transported back to my old bedroom, sitting in my school uniform eating custard creams and drinking irn bru, attempting the final boss for the 37th time.
I chose ash pink for the background, a colour that has been a favourite of mine as well as my fans ever since. It complemented the shades of grey so well and the small addition of cadmium red gave it an edge to enhance the whole concept.
Theres a deliberate simpicity in a lot of my work, its not trying to be anything. It is what it is and I will never apologise for that, because its me being me. What I am trying to do though, is give you some insight into how I feel when I paint and how I feel about my paintings. And if I'm doing this right, hopefully you'll feel something too.
What do you guys feel when you look at 'a console'?
As always I appreciate your time and hope your day is as euphoric as beating that final boss!
P.s when I used to fail on hard levels or get killed I used to blame my brother for eating biscuits too loud. Like full on go mental at him and hold him fully responsable! Anyone else used to get far too emotionally attached? Leave a comment and share your stories.
Chat soon
Art is for everyone. Sully ❤