Artist: Scott Nellis
Website: scottnellis.co.uk
Who are you, where are you from?
I’m Scott Nellis, have lived in Brighton for nearly ten years, originally from Chelmsford in Essex but hope to be from lots of places by the time I de-exist.
What do you do?
I create images, pictures, drawings, illustrations – whatever you want to call them – sometimes for myself, sometimes for others.
Why do you do it?
I’ve always been a creative person; from as far back as I can remember I always loved to draw, create images, invent narratives, or write lyrics and bash out tunes on the guitar. On top of all that I find it more appealing than the jobs I had pre-graduation; I studied Illustration at the Uni of Brighton.
How do you create these images?
My black and white drawings, which date back two or three years, are purely pen on paper. I have since developed a colourful, mixed media approach to my work so now, in addition to black pen drawing, I incorporate a mixture of pens/markers, painting, ink washes, photography, found imagery and a combination of processes including monoprinting, digital scanning/printing before throwing it all together with the aid of Photoshop. As well as being more diverse I am now producing work a lot quicker. The way I used to work with just fine-tip pens was a long and laborious process with the satisfaction of finishing a piece of work far apart. I’m loving developing my approach and I no longer fear a request for commissioned work which needs to be completed to a tight deadline.
Who are your influences?
I was aware of Roger Dean’s work from an early age and I lapped that stuff up. Dean was responsible for some of the most iconic album artwork there has been – most famously he designed for the band Yes. I was exposed to a lot of psychedelic album artwork and rave posters in my teens.
Growing up I loved to see images of sci-fi and horror or decent paintings from the masters that span the course of the past 1000 years or so – Caravaggio, Bosch, Dali, Modigliani, Turner etc. Visiting the Tate for the first time aged 14 blew my mind. During college and Uni I became more aware of the outsider art movement. I now feed my brain with the endless stream of illustration that can be viewed online but in all honesty, I just love to do it.
What inspires your work?
Having played computer games and watched films of any certification from an early age, my senses have been completely battered, I mean invigorated, by visuals over the years. I spent a certain amount of holiday time in amusement arcades and so the characters and gore from gaming titles such as Splatterhouse, Alien Syndrome, Salamander and Rolling Thunder really stuck in my mind’s eye… like seriously embedded. Then at home with all the 8-bit gaming devices and the likes of Freddy Krueger and Leatherface jumping out of the TV screen I now constantly have this surreal imagery running around inside my head.
All these elements merged together with night after night of vivid dreams and a whole bunch of paranoia and disconcertion thrown in, give me great inspiration and the motivation to want to create my own imagery. I am also lucky in that I find it possible to put pen to paper without any huge idea in mind and just let the drawing inspire itself. As such, I like to work spontaneously and given my upbringing on sci-fi/ horror, my outcomes have at times been considered of a dark nature.
What do you like?
Illustration/lo-brow/2D traditional fine arts and film are my favourite art forms. I watch films fairly regularly and have a membership at the Duke of York’s cinema in Brighton which is known for showing a lot of indie and world cinema, as well as the odd mainstream feature (you’d be hard pushed to find me in an Odeon). Aside from that, music, alternative comedy and travel is always on my mind – and FOOTBALL!!!
What don’t you like?
Government.
Find Scott Nellis here:
Portfolio: scottnellis.co.uk
Twitter: @scott_nellis
Originally posted 2012-05-29 08:00:40. Republished by Blog Post Promoter