Teenage Flicks - Upcoming Exhibition
I’m delighted to share I’m putting on a new exhibition of illustrated works at Made in Stirling this summer.
Teenage Flicks shares my long term love of film and cinema, with a collection of works exploring the movies and shows that meant the most to me, from teenage discoveries of cult horror classics through to contemporary supernatural comedy drama. Featuring chest bursting aliens, dysfunctional families and ten pin ball wielding slackers, this exhibition explores both the magical narratives and the everyday stories captured in film, that I find fascinating.
Photo credit: Dave Hunt
It’s been a real joy to dig into the films and tv shows I have enjoyed over the years and give them the Grey Earl illustration treatment. It’s also allowed me to reflect on the storytelling styles that I most appreciate and to spot the themes and creative genres that have played such an influence on my work over the years. There’s a definite love for work that is otherworldly, shown off very clearly in films set far away from planet Earth, like the sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien (1979) that I discovered on a dusty old VHS at way too young an age, or films like the fantasy cult classic, Labyrinth (1986), with dancing goblins, bogs of eternal stench and David Bowie’s codpiece, mind boggling stuff for such young boy at that time.
There is also an appreciation of the theatre of film, with staging, set and costume taking the lead role, with recent films like the beautifully designed and surreal world created in Poor Things (2023) and classic’s like Royal Tenenbaum’s (2001), where the now distinctive directorial aesthetic style of Wes Anderson was forming.
It also turns out I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction, especially those told with a warning of what could be coming ahead of us or a reflection on what has been, as told in the Japanese original Godzilla (1954), with the giant prehistoric reptilian representing the fears that many Japanese people held about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the possibility of their recurrence, or the black comedy Delicatessen (1991) set in a foggy, sepia-toned dystopian France, amongst the fallout of a climate catastrophe with wide spread food shortages and following a group of survivalists, some more than others with a clear penchant for unregulated meat.
Godzilla - Giclee Print
With original drawings, digital prints and 3D pieces, along with a programme of film screenings and talks, Teenage Flicks invites you to dive back into the movies that made us and explore the films that made the cut and certainly inspired me over the years.
Teenage Flicks runs from Saturday 6th June - Sunday 26th July, with film screenings and talks throughout the exhibitions run.
You’re also invited along to the special launch evening on Friday 5th June from 6-9pm at Made in Stirling for a glass of fizz, snacks and to chat all things illustration and ofcourse film, hope you can make it!
