I had the pleasure of conducting an email interview with the amazing artist James Mylne. You can see his feature on The Flying Fruit Bowl here!
1. Tell us a bit about yourself…
I’m 31. I’m a Londoner. I’ve been a full time artist for a year now. Before that I was working part-time in advertising for 3 years whilst working as a part-time artist, but I have been creating my artwork for over 15 years.
2. What inpsired you to choose art as a profession?
There was never a particular moment when any choice was made. What I did was to make sure it always remained an option. I spent years building a foundation on which, when the time came, to launch myself from.
I was always creating and always will, create artwork. Being able to support myself entirely from the income from my artwork depended an having that foundation that I spent years building.
3. What are the benefits of using biro pens as opposed other artistic media?
I always loved drawing. I became very proficient in pencil at an early age, but what bothered me was that you can never achieve a true black with pencil. I preferred using biro because the images created held more contrast. They were bold & strong, having a graphic nature. I began experimenting with shading using biro aged around 14. When i worked out a viable technique pencil became obsolete to me.
4. Who is/are your favourite artist(s) and why?
I’ve always preferred street artists to established gallery artists, because they didn’t conform in any way. I sometime buy art (mostly prints), in my humble collection I have art by Audrey Kawasaki (who isn’t a street artist, but her work was certainly different when she started), d*Face, Hush, & ZEVS.
5. Do you think that there should be more emphasis on teaching the business side of art?
At university there is some, and it was always the most valuable lectures. So yes, I do. Very few people can make a living off their art. I think it’s important for students to be aware of this, as many left my art college with almost completely empty portfolios. All they worked on was theoretical art (that is what is pushed mostly in BA & MA degrees), and now most of them are not in the art world in any way.
6. It seems that you include a lot of celebrities in your work. Is there a reason for this and how do you choose the subject matter?
It’s not directly because they are celebrities, but because they are, there is a huge amount of photos of them out there. As I work mainly from photos, there is a larger choice of imagery for me to choose to draw from out there. It’s almost never the person I am drawing, it’s their composure, attitude, presence, ultimately the feeling I get from an image that I draw. Now that I am making progress with my art career I am looking to work alongside photographers to capture images from models and ideas I come up with to draw and work from. I never had that choice before, at least not in the same way. So the subject matter I work on is, as I mentioned above, the feeling and mood carried by the individual or subject. I look to capture a meditative, or contemplative state of mind I see in them.
7. What is the best and worst thing about being an artist?
The best thing is being your own boss.
The worst thing is never really being sure where the money to pay your bills is coming from a couple months down the road.
8. On average, how long does it take for you to complete one piece of your artwork?
On average, about 2 or 3 weeks.
9. Do you study art or are you self taught?
I spent 5 years at art college, but i would still say i am self-taught. I really didn’t learn that much at art school.
10. What message, if any, do you try and portray through your art?
You could look at it the other way. I’m not interested in bringing references to politics, war, religion, sexual preferences etc. I don’t go for cheap shock tactics. I don’t do an abstract painting and then talk a bunch of bullcrap I came up with to try and persuade everyone I’m a genius (I could, It’s really easy BTW).
There may not be any deep message in my work, but at least it’s honest, it’s not trying to make you pay through the nose for some out dated crap I read in a book once. I’m also not directly influenced by any other artists.
For a long time my work has been more about mastering a technique, and the way of creating a piece of artwork I walk away from feeling a fulfilled sense of achievement.
Recently I wrote a blog post titled “What’s The Point in Photo-realism? Is it art?” (linked). In that I said the art is in the process. Mastering something takes years and years. This is still very early days in my career.
My work, I believe will, evolve to include certain ideas and messages as time goes on, but I’m not going to force it, those ideas need to emerge naturally. Some of those ideas are already coming to mind and I will be working with them in my next solo at show at Rook & Raven gallery.
11. What is the biggest obstacle you have faced being an artist?
An on-going issue I have is a bad case of RSS (repetitive stress syndrome) in my right hard, wrist, and forearm. This is obviously the effects of so much drawing. Other than that nothing comes to mind really.
12. If you could collaborate with any artist, dead or alive, who would you choose and why?
I’d probably collaborate with a photographer like Mario Testino. I’ve collaborated with Terry O’Neill in the past and am currently collaborating with Bill Wyman, although those are in-direct collaborations. A side by side collaboration with a photographer like Mario Testino would be great!
13. Do you listen to music whilst you work? If so, what do you listen to?
I do. I’m not sure I could work without music. I’m heavily into IDM, so I listen to everything from old school jungle & trip-hip to dubstep & ambient music, a combination of all those is preferable.
14. Are there any artists that you would reccomend to be featured on this blog?
2 fellow artists at my gallery Rook & Raven who I closely relate to are Cyclops and Penny. I hope one day the three of us could have a group show together. Our art work whilst quite different compliments each others.
15. Do you sell prints of your work or do you sell the originals?
Both. I state off just selling originals, but as my originals take a long time to create I never have many available at one time & are also relatively quite expensive there has always been a demand for prints. I do limited editions of 7 – 100.
16. Do you think that an images loses its value once it has been reproduced?
There is that thinking. An original may be £4,000 but a print of it will be between £150 – £350 depending on the number of prints in the limited edition. A good thing about prints is that if you take a high resolution enough scan of the original artwork you can increase the size of the print. So prints can be larger than the original.
17. Do you do commisons? If so, which companies have you worked for?
I do. I Haven’t worked with many brands at all though. They are normally private commissions. Although I am about to do 2 commissions for an up & coming adult brand called Illicit Touch.
18. How do you catagorize your art? Is it fine art? Is it illustration or is it something else?
It’s fine art, or more specifically fine drawing. When people hear the term illustration they think more along the lines of digital illustration or comic book style illustration.
19. Can art be taught in a classroom and do you think that it should be encouraged as a subject?
I’m not sure. Probably more the latter.
20. Do you think that it is important to have a degree in art?
No. There are good things about being in an artistic environment like an art degree but that can be recreated outside of an university. If you Like art enough you will do your own research and hang around with other artists and go to exhibitions. There’s not much else university can offer except a student loan. Experience can’t be taught & art is subjective, you will seek out the style of art that interests you independently of a degree course.
21. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?
I’ve had many artists and students contact me in the past asking about advise etc so I recently wrote quite a comprehensive blog post about this. Here’s the link: http://www.jamesmylne.co.uk/blog/?p=1239