George Barron

Interview with George Barron

He is multi-talented designer and musical promoter who will graduate 2007 with a BA (Hons) in Illustration from Camberwell College of Arts.

- Please tell me about your history.

G: I grew up in Devon, which is where I am now funnily enough. I am taking a bit of a break away from London. After completing my foundation degree in Exeter I moved to London to do a Degree in illustration at Camberwell College of Arts, which I have just completed.

- What influenced you to be an artist? What are your art roots?

G: I am not one of those people that grew up knowing that I wanted to be an artist, I did however always find myself drawing. Loving the surroundings I grew up in, I was lucky enough to be inspired by top artists in the area from all different disciplines, such as Peter Randall-Page (wonderful sculptor) and Alan Lee (Illustrator and conceptual designer). I suppose I sort of fell into art, as I grew up realizing there was a chance to make a career in it. Illustration throughout my studies and experience has been a focus for my creativity. I enjoy this particular discipline because it allows me to be expressive whilst having the focus of a brief.

It allows me to combine the free nature of Fine Art with the form and structure of Graphic Design. I like working in many different mediums to create the correct feel for a piece.

- What grabs you, and how is that expressed in your work?

G: My other love is history, I like to think that it gets expressed and gives a context to my work. I spend hours researching time periods using a lot of the imagery, then use this material re-working it, giving my work a modern context. I like adding other elements to projects I work on, this gives me chance to explore my other passions, such as music and film. For example I recently produced all the design work for a music festival in New York.

- Which artist are you most influenced by?

G: It is difficult to say one. I mentioned Alan Lee has been a huge influence, his passion for drawing, his skill and he has taken the path into film working on Lord of the Rings film trilogy, an area I am very interested in myself. Bold strong poster designs of Atelier Populaire. Roman Cieslewicz his use of text and image is wonderful.

- Your website is fantastic! Who's designed by?

G: Thank you, I designed it myself with a huge amount of help, from my web designer friend Andy White. The concept was to have every element of the site hand drawn by myself and to show some of my skills as an animator. I also wanted to keep it black and white as my last site had a similar sort of color scheme as my designs, which resulted in them being lost within the site. It’s a lot of work in progress and I am going to be adding a lot more elements in the next few months so please keep checking back.

- What are you interested in or what is your favorite thing except art?

G: Everything in my life now does seem to influence my artwork, I guess as it should. Like I mentioned, history, music and music promotion, film. I worked in an art house cinema for many years. Cycling also seems to end up cropping up in my work a lot.

- Do you think you will still be artist after 10 years?

G: Well I hope so! I just have to keep pushing myself forward I really can’t see me doing anything else now.

- What are your career plans, any future goals?

G: At the moment having just finished college I am still happy to keep exploring different areas and ways of working. At the moment I am doing animation, editorial illustration, music related pieces and film design. In the long term I would like to continue working towards my aspirations of being a production designer/art director for film, I love seeing my work visualized on screen.

- Message for reader please…

G: If you were like me and didn’t always know where to start, try to incorporate your other passions in life within your work. I know everyone says it but even if it doesn’t come into my work I find it helps to draw from life as much as possible. If you’re interested to learn more please don’t hesitate to send me an email at info@georgebarron.com it would be great to hear from you.

Website : http://www.georgebarron.com/

Written by Toshimi Takaishi