Sunday, 10 December 2006
DEAN SMITH BA (Hon's)
When you meet Dean you meet someone who is active and cheerful and clearly someone who enjoys life. He has two children and has lived locally for 35 years, and practising art for the past 22 years.He returned to full-time studies in 1994 and went to Basildon College and was recognised as ‘Art Student of the year’ in 1995. Then continued his studies in the University of East London where he successfully graduated with a BA (Hon’s) Degree in Visual communications in 1998.
L “Hello Dean, if you hadn’t of gone down the ‘Fine Art’ route what would you have done?"
D “God knows! I probably would be working in a factory being bored and frustrated without a doubt, I left school with no real qualifications, having had no real career advice, not knowing who I was, or where I was going or what I wanted to do.”
Dean has done an assortment of community work, and his focus is on Pop Art as you can see on his website www.deansmithart.com This is a style of art which explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of contemporary consumer culture. He particularly concentrates on celebrity. A favoured celebrity is Elvis Presley.
L “Elvis is obviously a big inspiration to you. When did this start? What was it about Elvis that inspired you?”
D “I love the whole icon thing, Elvis is the number one iconic figure to me, that doesn’t mean I sit all day listening to his records, but he had certain phases in his career that drew me in (no pun intended), like the early years and the comeback special. This whole thing of what makes someone an icon as opposed to being really good, I find fascinating.”
L Going back a bit further into Deans life I asked him,
“When did you get your first artistic stirrings? What was the first image that made an impression on you?”
D “Van Gogh’s ‘Wheatfield With Crows Under Threatening Skies’, without a doubt. I still have the print of it up on the wall, this year I saw it for the first time at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, genius!”
L “Was Van Gogh the greatest influence on you as an artist?”
D “ Definitely, then Picasso, Cézanne, Klimt, Munch, Dali, Hockney, and more recently Blake. Generally though, it is the artists that I associate with on a daily basis that influence me the most, through looking at and discussing ideas with them.”
L “So, do you remember your first painting you did?”
D “ I can remember when I was five or six in infant school, painting the picture of Bobby Moore holding the World Cup, so in a sense my influences have never changed.”
Apart from Elvis, Bobby Moore is a very popular picture of Deans, he did very well selling prints and originals of that very picture, ‘Bobby Moore holding the World Cup’ at the Eastgate gallery.
Dean works with collage using photographic print and using acrylic paint, and found objects. The art works have either a flat monochromatic approach that has a stylistic debt to Warhol or are produced through textured collage allowing serendipity to dominate the process of creation.
His strong statement on most of his business cards and his website is ‘Each portrait though not necessarily cool, reflects the image of ‘cool’’.
His paintings are a celebration of the cult of celebrity and iconic status.
Dean works mainly from home at present but is hoping to get a studio soon; his typical day is made up of finding interesting subject matter to paint, and working on his paintings. As the membership secretary of START he often spends part of his day chasing around doing bits for START.
L “ What are the best moments of your career?”
D “ The best was being involved with the art gallery in the Eastgate, just getting that amount of people looking at your work was fantastic."
L “If you could give a tip to an artist who is working their way through College or University what would it be?”
D “Marry someone with lots of money because being an artist means never having enough!”
L “And Finally, any other advice?”
D “Just enjoy what you do and accept the lows with the highs, not everyone will like your work so appreciate the ones that do, but don’t dismiss or get upset with the ones that don’t, it’s them that help you to question and re-evaluate your work and help you to keep your feet on the ground.”
Labels: Artists, Dean Smith
# posted by Lisa : 13:13
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