Seamus Killick is a first year student at ECA studying Illustration. His work tends to consist of these really funny, often quite grotesque, Basquiaty drawings that we are massively into. We had a little chat and this is what happened.
So Seamus, Who the hell is Howard Hughes?
Howard Hughes was this American film maker in the 30's. Pretty fucking interesting guy. He made like these big war epics and stuff and would make millions. Think he was the richest man in the world at one point. Ridiculously ambitious. He spent crazy amounts of money on this one film 'Hells Angels', finished it, then the talkies came to cinema and he did the whole thing over again with sound. He was also an aviator and pilot. He made the biggest plane in the world but it only flew once. This plane was insanely huge, no one thought it would fly but it did and all because he was a genius.
The thing that makes him really interesting is that he was a bit of a lunatic. I don't mean that in a bad way. He severely suffered from OCD. Really badly. It all got a bit out of control and in 1947 he had this massive mental breakdown and locked himself in his screening room for 4 months. He'd sit completely naked, watching the same war movies over and over, drinking nothing but milk and eating nothing but chocolate and he'd shit in boxes and stuff. Just mental. He was obsessed with EVERYTHING being clean. Dirt was his worst fear and he'd wash his hands till they bled.Basically, the guy was a mental genius. Really interesting stuff.
I know that you're work can be quite sculptural, tell us about that.
Yeah i really like sculptural stuff. I like the idea of fusing drawing and sculpture. Like a 3-d drawing, it really interests me cause its not just about mark making but its also about how you craft it, like you'd craft a drawing. Like using space as a piece of paper. Objects really inspire me. I like drawing on things that already look really cool on their own, then taking it and making it my own in some way, transforming it into something else. Pen to paper is great cause it gives you limits to work within, making the image more important but then, why not make the material you are working on part of the image? It just gives it another dynamic I guess. Like the TV I scribbled on. The idea was that it was a book. I took the contents of what I would normally draw into a sketchbook and just put it in a different context. So it was like a 3-d sketchbook, or a sketchbook without pages. Simply using something other than paper, as paper. If that makes sense. It does in my head anyway. I work in the sculpture studio in college a lot and its just quite an influential place to work in, it gives me a lot more ideas then say working at my desk at home. There's lots of interesting things going on.
What are you planning/working on at the moment?
Well we get a different word each week see. The first word was 'flight', that's where the idea of Howard Hughes came from. Then it was 'home', which I related back to him. Just finished this painting about Howard Hughes feeling at home in the sky. How, for him, the sky was pure and clean a 'germ free zone'. It was cool getting back into painting. Now its 'visitors' and I'm a bit clueless as to what to do. Maybe gunna go into how Howard Hughes always felt like a visitor. He was pretty socially inept, never at peace in his head or around others. Then look at that on a bigger scale. Probably do another painting. Like a big portrait. That idea excites me.
Who are into artist-wise at the moment?
Well into Charles Robinson, this children's illustrator in the early 1900's. He made these crazy images, really bizarre stuff that you wouldn't expect to come out of that time. Really strange fucked up happenings in these beautiful, innocent drawings. At first glance they're lovely but actually its pretty dark. Sort of like an old school Maurice Sendak who I'm also well into at the moment. I like film makers too. Chris Cunningham does it for me at the moment and always has. Can't stop watching Rubber Johnny. Watch it. you will never forget it. Ever. Everyone should know who Chris Ware is too. He's this amazing comic book writer, but he takes it to a complete other level, it's amazing. Not enough people know about him god dammit.
Finally, we asked Seamus to recommend a tune and he picked a banger.
