Visual Culture Level 5 - Golden Age of Illustration / Dave McKean

Dave McKean

"I think in narratives, or at least, sequences of images, so storytelling suits me. Comics allow me complete control and freedom of the work, and I don't need a budget to initiate a project, just a pencil and paper. It's a wonderfully democratic medium." - Dave McKean [1]

Dave McKean is an illustrator from Kent, his practice ranges from Comic Books to Photography and Illustration. As a young child he was always interested in Comic Books and they helped him understand sequence and framing and still to this day his connection with this medium is sting strong. Dave worked for DC Comics during his early career and his work was considered to be spatial, textural and conceptual, this can be seen in his Sandman cover [2]. Even if he is working on a CD cover or a series for a narrative he is always engaged in his work and enjoys the control. He works on a lot of commercial briefs which requires working with others and this helps him communicate with other people and create contacts and connections for the future. He even collaborated with Heston Blumenthal where he captures the recipes in ''an abstract way''

''Unexpected challenges are welcome ones, such as the collaboration with food write and celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal where he was ''able to capture the feeling of recipes in an abstract way.''[3].

Dave creates dark metaphorical work which the audience can immediately have thoughts and feelings about. He doesn't enjoy creating work that is hard to figure out, he thinks it is better if the image /s are self explanatory and he thinks his artwork from 'Cages' is an excellent example of this. The cat in the image is wearing a mask and the meaning behind it is that when you look at a cat you almost expect it to speak;

''The cat with a mask is an example of this. It has it's antecedents in Roman and Greek statuses. But I think anyone who has lived with a cat recognises that feeling of looking into a cat's eyes and expecting them to speak. There seems to be a real understanding there. A secret knowledge.'' [4]

He uses a mixture of techniques, mostly as experimentation to see what works best for what he's trying to do. In his work you can see glimpses of drawing, painting, photography, and 3D forms. 

 ''No material is out of bounds; he has even used cuttings from his beard mixed with treacle.''[5]

As part of his developing process he started to work with Mac computers to enhance aesthetics of his pieces. His work shows influences from artists he admires; he admires the line work of Egon Schiele [6], the intensity of Marshall Arisman [7], the disturbing iconic characters of Stasys [8] and film makers such as Tarkovsky. [9]


[1] Brezell, D & Davies, J. (2011) Making Great Illustration. A & C Black. London. p.137

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[3] Brezell, D & Davies, J. (2011) Making Great Illustration. A & C Black. London. p.138

[4] Brezell, D & Davies, J. (2011) Making Great Illustration. A & C Black. London. p.138

[5] Brezel, D & Davies, J. (2011) Making Great Illustration. A & C Black. London. p.p 138-139

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[7]

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[9] Brezel, D & Davies, J. (2011) Making Great Illustration. A & C Black. London. p. 139