David Bray

David Bray Interview

David Bray has been a freelance illustrator since 1996 and has developed an extensive portfolio of clients since then. He has managed to create a unique world of his own using mainly the pencil and pen as his tools of the trade with computers having as little influence as possible in his work. In this day and age, that is something to be extremely proud of.

- Give us a breakdown of who you are and what you do.

D: I have been constantly drawing since I was a child. My father worked at the Royal Academy of Art and was friends with many of the artists, so I was always surrounded by art. It seemed to be such a natural environment for me and so I knew that I was always going to end up doing something art-based.

When I grew up, I thought that doing just a purely art job wasn’t very tenable and I ended up getting into Graphic Design. I did a degree in it and realized that I wasn’t satisfied with the course. It seemed as if Graphic Design was becoming more digital or computer-based and I wanted to explore the illustration side of things more. This led me to become a freelance illustrator in around ’96.

- What have been some of your influences and inspirations over the years?

D: That’s a tough question! I guess artists like Allen Jones, and other artists from the 1960’s, like Eric Stanton have influenced or inspired me. I like their erotic and almost fetishistic work. There are other elements, which include even things like Lego, which will crop up in my work too.

It’s really hard to pinpoint an exact style or thing that has influenced me. One day, I might wake up and want to draw a girl sitting on a hippo and then it becomes a challenge of whether or not I can draw a hippo. That may lead to me wanting to draw a lion standing on something and that will lead me onto the next drawing. So I will work on 4-5 drawings all at the same time and each drawing will influence the next one; it’s like a chart going on in my head.

- Your list of clients is quite extensive. Can you tell us about some of the more memorable collaborative projects you have worked on?

D: The highlight project so far has been working with Various Production, an independent record label, who have given me free reign on all the creative aspects of design for them.

There are no constrains and the brief is always the same; “Do what you want”.

As they have evolved as a company, so has my artwork as well. We have similar ideals, both musically and visually so we work together really well.

I also did a campaign with Harvey Nichols, a couple seasons ago called Heaven On Earth which was quite successful. I got involved by doing the visuals for the photographer and now it’s in the permanent poster collection at the Louvre museum in Paris. Finally, an interesting project I did was for MTV, celebrating 25 years of MTV in the UK. They asked designers, musicians and producers to do their own version of the MTV logo, which was built almost like a fishtank. You could decorate it and fill it up with whatever you wanted to. I did a drawing for the back part and then filled it up with melted little Smurf figures.

- There seem to be a lot of animals and sexy girls apparent in your work, why did you choose these mediums to draw consistently?

D: - I guess it’s because I love girls and I love animals; in that order and not necessarily in the same way! It’s all about nature, in its essences. I found it challenging to try and create these two different styles of characters, put them in the same drawing and see how I could make them interact.

- Do the girls you draw have any personal connection to you? Are they friends, or are they models or are they sourced from images?

D: It’s a mix really, some are from magazines, others from polaroids that I use from a photographer who I work with,

pictures of friends faces, bits of girlfriends. It’s a bit like Frakenstein; I take different body parts from different sources, her legs might be from real-life but her torso could be drawn from a magazine and then I try to join them to create a new girl. It’s all just a construction, but in two dimensions.

- It seems that you have many alter-egos listed on your website, like Dash Braze, Bonzey & Falk Jensen. Why did you decide to do this?

D: - It started off with my work for Various Production. I wanted an alter-ego that would cover my work for their record sleeves and as there were a lot of different styles in their music and each style had its own personality, I wanted to tailor each pseudonym to fit the particular style. One example is Falk Jensen, which I used to cover my photography-based work.

- When you are drawing/painting, what mediums are you using to achieve your beautiful style?

D: Normally it is pen, pencil, paper and marker-pen. When I was younger, I would just draw with the cheapest pen that I could find. I use paper as a medium as I really like its malleability and aesthetic. I have started painting on canvas now but I am still experimenting with it and won’t show any until I’m really satisfied with it as it’s an ongoing process.

- Any future plans/projects that you want to share with the general public?

D: - I’m doing a show with Various Production in the Truman Brewery this month (August), which will be a mix of sound sculpture, sculpture, drawings, screenprints and a new album release on vinyl.

David Bray : www.davidbray.eu

Stolen Space : http://www.stolenspace.com

Written by Selph