Please choose an expo below,
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Name and location?
My name is Chris Graham. I live in Bolsover, in deepest
darkest Derbyshire (recently voted 7th worst place in the UK to live). It’s the place left behind when the industrial
triangle collapsed, still awaiting the promise of regeneration.
Mac or PC?
Is there a real difference beyond the pretensions? I use a
PC along with a total lack of political correctness.
What do you do to relax?
I smoke marijuana as my substance of choice, draw shit and
talk bollocks. I walk my dog ‘Fern’, with my wife to be, and we climb up trees
to watch the clouds go by.
Which living designer/artist do you most and admire, and why?
Any of them that can earn a living and retain their moral
Integrity. So not that many in today’s consumer led market.
What would you consider your ideal project?
To be asked to draw what I want, when I want for no reason
other than because I can. To be given big white spaces and be left alone to
fill them.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Stopping drinking alcohol.
Tell us about a piece of work, how would you describe it?
I think the title, ‘Continuous Unconscious Consumer
Psychosis’ does exactly what it says on the tin. This is what the wonderful
world of consumerism and mass media imagery does to my head. I don’t believe
the smiley faces, the happy lies, the tap dancing polar bears and the
saccharine schmaltz. I see through the vacant advertising smiles to the export
free production zones, the tax breaks, the de-unionized work forces, the slave
wages, the illusion of individuality and illusion of free choice. I see the
route from the cash registers to the coffins.
Is this piece of work commissioned or experimental?
I think all of my work is experimental as I never really
plan ahead, I just go with whatever comes out. I was originally asked to create
new work for an exhibition titled ‘Xenophobia’ in Norway. My head summarily entered a
bout of mania and I spent 3 months moulding my own faecal matter into ‘Coca
Colon’ (a full size ‘coca cola’ bottle made of my own faecal matter). Theorizing
that the only true form of ‘mass produced individuality’ is your own shit, not
coca cola. Whilst waiting for said faecal matter to cure before moulding, I
began to draw on a till roll receipt and it made itself really. Day after day
of just putting pen to paper and living with the results. One hit drawing, no
corrections and no redraws.
Talk us through some of the processes involved in producing the work, and have you used similar techniques before?
I think I must start each image in the same way, with low
tech, low quality anti art (with a capital A) materials. 1 red and 1 black Bic
biro, 1 red and 1 black Berol felt tip and some A4 copier paper or found
scraps. I see an image from mass media and I just draw it. Be it on television,
in a magazine, on a billboard or from life. I don’t really know what the
finished piece is ever going to end up like, I only know the process must
continue. I just draw and draw and keep drawing. If it looks wrong, who cares?
Who’s to judge me? I live with each triumphant mistake, beautiful wrong line
and scribbled out detail that make the whole image.
What have you learnt during producing this piece of work?
Mistakes are what makes life beautiful.
How would you best describe your style?
Bad drawing. Bastardised, pornalised, twisted but true.