Screw it...

James Unsworth

"I live in the middle of London"

"I grew up in Liverpool and as a teenager smoked lots of weed."

"I work best at night."

"I read Science Fiction and I also spend a lot of time in nightclubs."

There is so much of this type of illustration in the world that it's tempting to write it all off as nothing more than "more of that scrawly grotesque Shrigley-ish shit", well, it's tempting for me anyway, because I'm a bit jaded.

Anyway, one of those ubiquitous Don't Panic posters showed up when I was clearing out some old boxes of stuff 'n' junk. The one with James Unsworth's name on it almost went in the bin before I'd read his name.

I'm glad I did read his name now, and then google it. His stuff is mind boggling. I don't know if it's the common motifs like the maximalist, psychedelic pen-line elements or what that makes me almost cringe at seeing 'more' of this kind of stuff everywhere (exhibit A), but on closer inspection I am often left feeling like a fool for being so quick to judge. It might just be the doodle-factor. There is a readable kind of rawness to this type of drawing, I think, like you can plainly see the oodles of blase, unconcerned talent just sitting there, dribbling all over the page, smoking a spliff, listening to weird music and not really giving a toss what you think unless it's something good and you want to pay it to be on your album cover.

Does this 'genre' or style of contemporary illustration have a name? Will it ever? Does it need one? Am I five years too late? Are there already way too many versed practitioners for the movement to even need torchbearers? Is anyone reading this? Should I go to bed? Should I start learning to enjoy drawing again?

http://www.jamesunsworth.com

Here is an interview with James from 2007, which gloriously and matter of factly confirms him (in as much as you (read:I) could possibly gather from a brief interview) as almost exactly the sort of dude in the sort of world that I imagined him to be. Well done him, well done his work, and well done my imagination. What a lovely little love (read:stoned) triangle.

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Simon Armitage

The Psychedelic Aliens (Ghana -1971)

"Like most stories involving aliens this one seems, well, made up. But it really happened. For a few years in the late 60's to early 70's worlds collided and aliens walked among us. And made music. This magical moment lasted for 3 short years producing only 3 releases: 1 - 4 song EP + 2 - 7"s. Today, these 3 original releases are the most sought after and most elusive African funk records. It took Frank Gossner (Voodoofunk.com, Soulpusher, DJ Franco) 4 years, 9 visits to Ghana, and dozens of newspaper ads and radio announcements to track them down. Psycho African Beat is the complete recorded output of this amazing group and their unprecedented music that combined elements of American soul, funk, garage rock and psych with African rhythms and melodies." - http://www.undergroundhiphop.com

Thanks are due to The Wire Magazine [ http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/5392/ ] for turning me onto this absolutely incredible band. The track in thewire.co.uk podcast is even better than this one, in my opinion. Here's the only song of theirs on youtube. Amazing stuff.

Flo

Florence Poppy Deary is another one of the highly valued Awkward staples. Flo is currently a student of Illustration at the University of Brighton. She has had brilliant work in both of the issues of Awkward magazine that have been published so far. If I have my way there'll be more than one piece of her's in issue 3, which is currently struggling to come together in its own inimitably snail's paced fashion.

Here is the tiny snippet of her stuff that she showed me earlier this afternoon - 

SMELL from Florence Poppy Deary on Vimeo.

Amazing Amiga animation

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Budget Cuts

Even David Shrigley is getting serious.