Interview conducted for Print Isn"t Dead™ Element 004 / People of Print
What was
the first illustration of yours to go to print?
That would be a small book that I did for a Dutch
publisher via The Partners design company straight after graduating from
Kingston University. I had distributed a number of photocopied folded books
that had been seen by them, so I was commissioned for a book celebrating the
life of the publisher. The book contained a CD with the publisher taking about
his experience in the business and the drawings were a combination of drawings
and collage, and one page was scratch & sniff - So a really nice print job,
involving the readers experience of the book as an object. At the same time I
was commissioned by Trickett & Webb to work on one of their famed illustrated
calendars, which were beautifully screen-printed.
What was your big break into the
word of illustration?
This was probably during my second year at the
RCA. Bloomsbury publishers approached me to illustrate Peter Bowlers ’Superior
Person’s Book of Words’ at a time when there were very few novelty books. It was
a great job, allowed me to translate what I was doing at the college, into a
successful printed outcome, that was in the bookshops for Christmas after my
graduation. As that job was going into production Penguin Books commissioned me
to illustrate Zadie Smith’s second novel ’The Autograph Man’. I learnt so much
on that job, quite a long lead in time as Zadie was still writing it at the
time so I was given quite a bit of freedom to interpret ideas around the book. I
was still to work with a computer at that time so the designer that I was
working with had a lot of trust in me to create the right handmade feel to the
jacket design. I was part of choosing the right paper stock, the cover was a
folded down poster printed on both sides that became the jacket. It felt very
creative to learn on the job, using printed offcuts from the Letterpress
department at the RCA to make the typography and give the cover some colour,
since the initial drawings were in black & white. The book got quite a bit
of exposure, and got me known in a relatively short period of time - it became
one of those signature pieces of work professionally.
Strangely I’ve always been fortunate in getting
interesting illustration commissions, unusual print jobs, which I’ve learnt a
great deal from whilst completing. Much of my work comes from the USA these
days, I like being a little anonymous as an illustrator in the UK, it seems to
offer me the freedom to evolve and not to be type cast in an industry which
tries to do so very much.
What tools and techniques do you
use when creating work?
The work is a combination of drawing, handmade
elements that are processed through digital. I’m a drawer, but like to contrast
the linearity of the drawing with graphic shapes or silhouettes from handmade
stencils that I spray paint. Recently I’ve used more devices such as a rolling
ruler to help mechanize some of the drawings - I’m interested in the tension
between pictorial depiction/space and abstraction, precise figuration and
graphic abbreviations. I use mechanical processes such as photocopiers to
distance the work from the original drawing, at times to pick up the dirt or to
throw the drawing optically that leaves smudges or pushes them focally. These
imperfections, graphic elements or component parts sometimes become the work
itself, or are re-contextualized in later drawings.
Sometimes the tools have a purely conceptual
rationale - the drawings done for Nicolas Bouvier’s The Way of the World, that
represent half glimpsed memories of cities seen along a journey across Iran in
the 1950’s had to be rendered in felt-tips that were not lightfast pigments. So
that whilst the print reproduction remains fixed, the original drawings will
move, the colours will fade with exposure to light. Very early on I wanted a
specific colour palette unique of felt-tips, and a medium that reflected the
fragility of memory.
Where do you gather inspirations?
Visually I’ve always been drawn to contemporary
art and photography/film. I see a lot of art, I read quite a bit of both
fiction and art theory, watch many films. In my teaching I advise students to
look away from illustration as much as possible, to seek inspiration from other
creative sources.
For any job I spend much time researching
visually, both for material to draw from, but also to create a colour palette
for reference.
The studio plays an important part also, the
dialogue with other practitioners, I talk much with Ian Wright to be honest,
but also with writers such as John O’Reilly. Inspiration can come from many
divergent sources - it’s in the act of creative making that they inform, or you
see their effect upon you.
Teaching has also greatly impacted upon me. The
students especially at the University of Brighton have always inspired. Not in
terms of the look of my work, but in the ambition of work etc. Moving into
animation and film was a surprise, or I should say an opportunity to discover
another aspect of my creative personality. Writing has followed this as well…
something else that I didn’t imagine.
Tell us about the AOI and your
involvement.
I was approached to apply for a position on the
Board of Directors. At the time I had recently co-founded the Mokita
illustration forum with Geoff Grandfield and Darryl Clifton of Kingston and
Camberwell educational institutions respectfully. So when I was asked by the
AOI to become a director I was already thinking of the wider illustration
profession, and the changing nature of illustration as a discipline. In my short career as an illustrator there
have been massive changes, not only in how work is made, but the effect of the
Internet on the industry and it’s popularity. I’m privileged to have a portion
of my contract at Brighton for research - To be given the time to explore and
to make known the emerging opportunities for and challenges that face the illustrator
today, and tomorrow.
The role is voluntary and none paid, looking
after good governess, making sure that the AOI is secure financially, strategic
planning and the direction of the company. Knowing that the AOI is the only
trade organisation for illustrators, and it’s work promoting and looking after
the interests of illustrators nationally, means that it’s important to invest
time as a director, and in recent times the position of Deputy Chairman to help
support it in whatever way I can. One of my roles is to help support
illustration research it is within the academic that you see how the discipline
is developing, engaging with new technologies and the possible future spaces
for illustration.
Do you draw everyday?
I go through cycles with drawing. I understand the
need to train like a gymnast at drawing, of having a regular artistic practice,
but I also like the breaks - to allow for the freshness of re-learning to draw,
or the adventure of a new medium, also of building up the energy for the next series
of drawings - creative procrastination I guess? I’m always busy, whether that
be with commercial jobs or drawings that I’m initiated myself - important for
my practice that I do both. I’m looking all the time though - there is that
necessary combination of drawing, of making marks on the paper, and then
looking, one informing the other. They’re not necessarily the same thing, and
I’ve always been interested in the communication aspect of the drawing, what it
is trying say.
What films, books and magazines
do you recommend that we run out and buy?
Films
The filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky had a profound
affect upon me.
L’Appartment by Gilles Mimouni
Le Samouraï by jean-Pierre Melville
The Fearless Vampire Killers - Roman Polanski
Books
Elephant by Raymond Carver
The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges
The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
Utz by Bruce Chatwin
On Being an Artist by Michael Craig-Martin
Magazine
Varoom Magazine, Eye Magazine, Works That Work,
and Frieze Magazine I regularly read.
What are you working on at the
moment?
There seems to be quite a bit of writing, and
curatorial work, speaking at various international conferences etc. There is a
growing network of illustration research, which is important to support and to
help the burgeoning discourse around the discipline. In terms of personal
drawings there is an ongoing series - Depictions of haunted houses from horror
films. Once again for me there is this interest in reality and fiction of
source material that become the subject of drawings. They are depictions of
film sets and locations that in the narrative of the film are haunted.
There is some moving image work that I’m working
on - Much of my work is sequential, or requires time to understand, so
animation and film interests me much. Then some work based upon Venice, an
ongoing project exploring the image of the city. Of course there are commercial
commissions always to be negotiated, but I like to be busy, to be making work
for others, and some for myself. They feed into each other and help keep my
practice developing.
© Roderick Mills
