BACCHUS - shirt design

Shirt design for Bacchus : myspace.com/bacchusband

CAMBRIDGE POSTER ROAST

"Man...these prints suck..."

Gatefold vinyl.

Some recent projects that allowed me to design for the gatefold LP format. I love this size and format...feels so much more substantial than a CD, and often sounds much warmer. Opening up a gatefold LP often feels like opening some ancient tome... I think these particular albums will look great in 50 years when they're old, dog-eared and dusty...lying in the recesses of some charity shop awaiting discovery. (Alternatively you can buy them freshly pressed from the labels...)

ROSE KEMP - 'Unholy Majesty'
www.myspace.com/rosekemp

Lots of inspiration for this one, mostly provided by the music itself, though I borrowed from British folklore, Italian witchcraft and Austin Spare in equal measure. Really pleased with the vinyl version of this, limited pressing available from Aurora Borealis. Cd version for those without turntables from One Little Indian. Great album...one of my favourites from last year actually.

WRECK OF THE HESPERUS - 'The Sunken Threshold'

www.myspace.com/wothesperus

Utter sonic filth and audio darkness...file under the "funeral doom" tag I suppose, though this has a more avant-garde tone to it that places it above many others...the drumming is also very busy, inventive and almost "jazzy" in places. I hope I haven't put the purists off...if you like it bleak and monolithic, get this. Limited pressing from Streaks Records.

Work in progress - 4th Feb 2009

GRIEF - November 2008

This was a print designed for the Liverpool date of the GRIEF + TRAP THEM tour. The bleak sound of "And Man Will Become The Hunted" provided the inspiration here. Not so colourful as the Melvins print before it, but I still managed to sneak in a goats head. After dissapointing experiments with acrylic based metallic inks, I bit the bullet and prised open an aging tin of Sericol oil based ink to print the metallic on this. Apparently the ink I was using is no longer made as it reputedly makes womens hair fall out. Even though I wore a mask, I could still feel a thin layer of membrane peeling from my eyeballs as I printed this. Nice reflective sheen in the end though, which is kind of hard to discern from these pics.

In the end, neither Grief or Trap Them made it to the show - van problems and a frankly insane booking agent scuppered more than one date on this tour apparently. Saving grace of an expensive overnight trip to Liverpool was the presence of Dragged Into Sunlight, who played an amazingly brutal assault on the senses amidst candlelight and heavy incense.Thanks to Tom from DIS who passed on the prints to Grief later that week.

Available from the Scrawled store at : scrawled.bigcartel.com

MELVINS - Dublin 2008 screenprinted poster

Was pleased to get the opportunity to design my 3rd poster for the rock behemoth known as The Melvins. Whenever I think of Melvins artwork, my defining image is Kozik's "Houdini" cover...kids playing with freakish animals or bugs (my last Melvins print before this was very much a nod in this direction).

Around the time of this however, I'd been listening to a lot of earlier releases, such as Ozma, Bullhead etc. Although I love the recent Melvins stuff, I think there's a darker vibe to these releases, and I wanted to do something that reflected this yet still seemed "playful" in some way. However, what started out as a homage to the "Ozma" cover ended up as Crowley with shades flanked by goats....go figure!







Available from the Scrawled store at : scrawled.bigcartel.com

RITUAL - set of art prints

RITUAL is a series of art prints that I designed and screenprinted before last Samhain in preparation for the Danse Macabre exhibtion (in Nottingham) and the Day Of The Dead exhibition at home here in Belfast.

Nearly all of the screenprints I've made over the last couple of years have been gig-posters for bands. Whilst I love making gig-posters, I embraced the idea of creating a small set of prints devoid of text, logos etc. I also saw it as an excuse to draw some more skulls.

I'd been reading some articles and books on prehistoric burial customs during the year and was particularly struck by archaeological evidence from around the globe which seems to indicate ritualistic behaviour and symbolic thought originated much earlier than originally proposed. Whilst I was aware of symbolic behaviour in Cro Magnons & Neanderthals, I was surprised to find out of Homo Erectus remains (very much depicted as a typical "apeman" in popular culture) that seemed to indicate that this early human indulged in ritual activity. More reading and web scouring turned up other tantalising evidence and symbolism from pre-history...the end result was the following 3 prints.

i) Upon anvil & under horn

ii) This eternal war

iii) Of Ochre...

Set of 3 handprinted screenprints. Each print measures 35 x 35 cm. 3 colours on high quality 280g Reeves art paper.
Limited edition of #25...stamped, signed, titled & numbered in a sealed, printed envelope.

Available from the Scrawled store at : scrawled.bigcartel.com