Here at Art on a Postcard, we are always so grateful for the extreme generosity of our artists not only for donating a postcard-sized work of art to help us raise money for The Hepatitis C Trust, but for the amount of time that they set aside to support us.
This year we are delighted to be hosting our exhibition at WeWork in Devonshire Square. WeWork provides beautiful, collaborative work spaces offering ambitious businesses the space, community and services they need to thrive. Taking inspiration from WeWork we decided to meet up with some of the 170 artists who kindly donated work to this year’s Secret Auction to discuss their studio spaces and how it influences their practice.
We met with renowned artist Eelus to discover what makes his studio so special.
How would you describe your studio?
Quite small, cramped, full of tat you’d generally find in a teenagers bedroom. I wouldn’t say it’s your typical artist's studio as I work primarily in spray paint and I do that in a different part of the building where I have a large industrial fume extractor installed. I also have a third space within the building where I keep all my paint cans, store my paintings and other nonsense. I may be moving into a new much larger studio towards the end of the year which I’m keeping my fingers crossed for.
How does your personal environment effect your creative practise?
The extractor where I do all my painting is right beside the main entrance to the building. There’s always people coming and going, stopping to chat, watching, so it’s often difficult to block all that out to focus purely on what I’m doing, I find that difficult at times; working on paintings under the constant gaze of people coming and going, it’s not ideal and makes me quite uncomfortable as I’m more of a ‘door closed’ kind of person. But this is what I have for now, so I just crack on. Looking around my actual studio you probably get a good sense of who I am and what I’m into. I like to surround myself with things that keep my soul calm and in a good place, mainly books. Vintage sci-fi, books on horror films, the occult, the strange, the unexplained, UFOs, art history, comics, toys I’ve had since I was a kid, classic film posters. The main aim for me now as an artist is to start dropping elements of all that into the art I make, to open up a bit. I’d like for you to get a sense of who I am when you look at my work.
What makes a good space to create art in?
Everyone is different and has different needs. Lots of light, lots of space, that’s the obvious stuff. For me, the space needs to be an extension of who I am, filled with things that speak to me on a deeply personal level that inspire me and allow me to daydream. A door I can close and keep the world out is also vital.
Artist bio:
It all started when he was a kid, drawing posters of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to sell in the schoolyard so he could buy chocolate. Some years later, he’d sold enough posters to leave his day job behind, turning a lifelong hobby into a full-time profession.
Since then, he’s exhibited worldwide alongside some of the biggest names in the urban art scene, with the majority of his releases selling out in minutes.
He currently lives in Brighton, UK.