Three by Three: Guest Artists in Focus

QUESTION 2.    Painting on electrical boxes and textured walls can be unpredictable—what quality of realism becomes easier or more interesting because of those irregular surfaces?

• ANSWER 2.     As I mentioned above, I love to use the existing irregularities to enhance my works and often plan my works to include these. As a commercial artist I have painted many restaurants with beach scenes for a local company. Whenever I turn up there are invariably irregularities to these walls! I have used pillars to look like palm trees and anti-scratch dado rails as the handrails of balconies looking out over these vistas. I love the challenge of including what occurs naturally into my works.

Andy Dice Davies
Painter

MEDIUM:    spray paints, masonry, acrylic, mural paints

BIO:    My journey to becoming a commercial mural artist was not the conventional one. My journey began whilst teaching young adults with learning difficulties and behaviour problems. When a qualification I was teaching included some furniture upcycling, I learnt to make stencils to facilitate the pupils in my care putting them on their furniture. Later, a student asked if they could paint a local bus stop wall and we went about gaining permission and creating a design. As a guardian of the wall, I put a stencil of my daughter on the wall. When someone put this on Reddit, it went viral and catapulted me into people’s attention.

Since then, I have taught myself to paint freehand with spray, masonry, household emulsion and mural paints and have worked for the likes of Sky Arts, Arsenal FC and The Royal International Air Tattoo. I have also run The Cheltenham Paint Festival for 10 years; an international renowned festival that draws 150 artists from around the world to paint murals in my hometown

WEBSITE:    Dice67.co.uk

QUESTION 3.    Because outdoor murals inevitably weather, what part of your process is shaped most by the knowledge that time and climate will slowly alter the work?

• ANSWER 3.     I recently painted some works for the local Council; one I had to cut the bush back to access the wall so I painted foxes sleeping there. When the bush grows back it will look like they're sleeping in the bush and the other was an old wall with lots of greenery growing out of. I had to cut it back to paint it but my design of flowers will be enhanced when they grow back by the vegetation coming through. As part of the festival my friends Snik chose a very old wall which was always going to age but they liked the way the ageing enhanced the work. Also, at the end of the day, street art isn't permanent and it's that which keeps the scenes so fresh.

QUESTION 1.    When integrating your work into the character of a neighborhood, how do you balance your own vision with the existing personality of the space?

• ANSWER 1.    As the curator of an internationally renowned festival that has artwork at over 100 locations across my reasonably small hometown, ensuring artwork fits into the character of a neighbourhood is essential to the success of both my festival and my own work around the town. Having artists from across the world painting their own visions in a middle England town could be incredibly jarring but, through careful choice and consideration, the artworks have enhanced our beautiful Cotswold town and visitors regularly come from all over the world to see the works. We even have the distinction of being the only town in the top 10 cities in the UK to see street art.
  
  When I paint for myself around the town, I try to fit my works into the natural habitat and enhance the area. The cat I painted (included) used the natural curve of the bricks to create a hole through which the cat was trying to reach the young boy (my son). I have also painted skate ramps to look like a cage through which you can see the park behind. I find when you create something bespoke, and becoming of the area, the works then get left alone and not tagged by the local youth showing that the community accept and respect the works.

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All copyright and reproduction rights are reserved by Andy Dice Davies.
Artwork may not be reproduced in any form without the artist's express written permission.

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