Q & A with Nick White

Print available to buy at LMNOP

Image maker extraordinaire Nick White came to Brighton town recently and was nice enough to drop off some of his work to the LMNOP shop. We were so pleased about having our grubby mitts on the illustrated wares of Mister White that we decided to catch up with him so we could interrogate him about his infamous media collection, his high functioning funny bone and where he sees himself in the next ten years time...

 

Hello Nick, I read somewhere that you have a formidable collection of found media. It's been pretty sunny recently. Have you managed to find time to go to many car boot sales?

 

It's true it has been sunny of late but it has also been pretty rainy too and for some reason every time I've gone to a car boot or flea market it's been horribly wet. Saying that I was back in Cheltenham and Stroud the other weekend where there are still a few pretty good charity shops. So managed to return home laden with more books about cats, old frames, knitting patterns and general old faded paper based goodies.

 

 

 

Can you expand on the things you like to collect? What are you looking out for?

 

My girlfriend and I have a lot of collections and therefore a lot of stuff and I dread to think about having to move it all. I think this dread and the fact we live in a shared house has meant I have curbed my collecting somewhat.

 

When I moved to Kingston I had a few bits and pieces collected from here and there but when I discovered Deptford market I just went a crazy. I was pretty overwhelmed with what was there, so I did what loads of art students do and just collected everything and anything that looked remotely old. So I bought boxes of slides, old cameras, snow globes, view masters, small musical instruments, clocks, old super hero toys, tins, you know the usual. Most of which I still have but I think now due to space restrictions, my girlfriend's demands and the fact I'm not so overwhelmed by it anymore, I'm much more selective. I still love flea markets, especially when I’m abroad but now I'll probably just buy one thing rather than everything I can carry.

 

I have the usual collections that people who do collage have, like playing cards, dice, postcards, old alphabet letters, notebooks etc but I also have some others like 'People in bottles' (rather than ships in bottles), china animals that are also money boxes, books which are for specifically for certain people so 'Judo for young girls', 'Russian for Scientists' etc. I have also cheated and collected some 'ready made' collections. I have a few people's matchbox collections in jars and books but one of the best was buying someone's collection of Airfix model airplanes. There are about 80 different planes of various sizes. Luckily for me my girlfriend is a stylist and so has used many of my / our collections in window displays and photo shoots which means when I find a box load of random objects at a car boot I can say "These would be great as props!''. Sometimes this works.

 

In general, I mostly collect old books and magazines for my work. A few years ago though I started to look for job lots of old magazines on eBay. In general I'm not a fan of eBay buying - typing in 'old magazines' into a search bar is not the same as rifling through an old trunk and finding some faded magazine with a picture of a dog on.

 

One time when I was buying a few magazines on eBay I let the seller know that if she had anymore I'd be very interested in buying them from her direct. She was very helpful and gave me all the names and dates of the magazines and we agreed a price. She then asked what I was planning on doing with them all. Now, I've met a fair few people who frown upon people cutting up books and magazines, so I wasn't sure how she would react. But I told her that I cut them up and drew on them etc and sent a link to my website and crossed my fingers she would still send me the magazines. She replied saying that at first she was pretty horrified but then she saw my work and liked it so was glad to send them to me. We agreed that this was a better way of recycling her old magazines rather than putting them in a green bin with the empty tins and bottles.

 

 

 

Collecting is clearly a much loved hobby of yours. The magazines and books obviously lend themselves really brilliantly to your collage work. Do the objects you accumulate remain as reference material or do you ever venture your art into 3D?

 

Mostly they remain as reference or at just nice things to look at but occasionally I will paint on some bits and bobs. Like boxes or tins or old toys. I'd really like to do more 3D bits and pieces and have done a few bits of clay work as my mum is a potter but then I'll look at the pottery of Laura Carlin and think Yeah I should probably leave that clay be. She's so good.

 

 

Keeping on the subject of inspiration, who are some of your favourite artists?

 

Ahh. The ol favourite artists question. Well to be honest I don't like anybody else's work. That's not true. I could write a humungous list of all the artists I admire and love and who inspire me and who also infuriate me with their genius but I won't. Ok I will. But really there are a lot. In fact when I have gone to universities and done slideshow talks about my work I have to make sure that the section showing all the artists I like, has slightly less images than the sections about my work.

 

Of course there are the classics like Mr Hockney, Jean Michel Basquiat, Kurt Schwitters, Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg who I would obsess over when I was at school. Then there are all the other artists, comic book artists, illustrators, image makers. So in no particular order; Barry Mcgee, Clare E. Rojas, Marcel Dzama, Jockum Nordstrum, Chris Johanson, John Stezaker, Nick Van Woert, Matthieu Lavanchy, Tom Friedman, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns, Henrik Drescher, Tim Biskup, Christian Northeast, Gary Baseman, Mark Todd, Mingering Mike. I could go on and on.

 

Basically I love people's work where there's some kind of obsessive force at work whether it's in repetition, pattern or just filling in all the space. As well as work that seems highly intuitive. This is probably the reason I love outsider art so much. People who feel the need to express themselves so much they can't help make work. Outsiders like Adolf Wolfli, Ferdinand Cheval, Henry Darger, Chris Hipkiss, Damian and Delaine Lebas (whom I interviewed for my dissertation at university) are a few who share that drive and whose work is incredible.

 

I'm also very lucky to be friends with lots of talented image makers and artists whose work often inspires me the most as I see it being made and often get to work alongside some of them. So people like Ben Newman, Luke Best, Sam Rees, Daryl Waller, Rico, Paddy Molloy, Tom Hicks, laura Carlin, Jim Stoten, Florian Kremb, Jonny Hannah, the folks at Peepshow, the Nous Vous guys, pretty much all the peoples that Nobrow get in. Also the above list is pretty much just the visual artists that I admire and I haven't even mentioned the film makers, writers, story tellers, performance artists, musicians, comedians, lion tamers that inspire me but to be honest I'm not sure how many people will have read this far so I don't want to push it.

 

 

We've got a nice little selection of your prints and products in our shop here at LMNOP, including temporary tattoos! What kind of people do you envision are buying your lovely wares?

 

It's true you have. Thanks for that. I imagine it's probably just really cool people with great taste. Or people that look a bit like one of the heads that I have drawn and subconsciously recognise themselves in one of my drawings. Or folk who want a tattoo but are far too indecisive to go and permanently mark their skin with ink and so would rather stick a picture of a leg of lamb on their body for a few days instead. Either that or anybody with a face.

 

I say all that but I do the occasional zine fair and so have sold things to people in person and I can tell you that most people that buy my stuff appear to be very nice human beings of varying age, gender, profession and ethnicity but who all have lovely hair.

 

 

 

Do people ever say to you, 'Hey Nick, you're a funny guy. How'd you get so funny?' If not, then I think you should surround yourself with nicer people. But I guess that isn't a question. Okay I'll try again. I think it would be fair to say that your illustrations are really funny. Was it a conscious decision to produce humorous imagery or was it something that developed naturally over time?

 

It's funny, people say that to me all the time ' Oh Nick you're so hilarious. I wish I was as funny as you. Hell, I wish I was you.' But then I realise they are being sarcastic and they have just given me a taste of my own medicine and you know what? That medicine tastes like medicine, like Calpol but not as nice.

 

No thank you for the kind words. I actually have very nice friends who are all much funnier than I. Um, I enjoy comedy and laughing and making people laugh as much as the next person so yes it makes sense that some of that humour has come into my work. Humour can, as everyone knows, be a bit of a safety net that you can fall back on. 'This isn't working, let’s put a joke in it.' Is a device I sometimes rely on. I would love to make some work that delved a bit deeper - I mean in comics, people like Chris ware and recently Jon Mcnaught and Rob Hunter have made some beautiful work that makes you ponder life and laugh at the same time. So I suppose it's all about balance really. Also I'm talking about comics and narrative here which give you more space to do both whereas it's harder to be poetic and funny in a single print or greetings card.

 

 

 

The welcome page to your website states you as an artist, illustrator, animator and film maker. In that specific order. Do you think that list of credentials will rearrange in sequence one day? For example, could you see yourself being a film maker over an artist in the future? Or even a new title being added to the list, like jam maker.

 

I am in fact a mean jam and chutney maker as well as baker. Or rather I like doing such things. But yes in terms of titles they're always a bit silly and reductive. Can an artist not make films or do illustrations or vice a versa. And the other options never really work for me like ‘Creative’, 'image maker’, 'Visual magician' or whatever. Who knows? I suppose I just like lists so perhaps one day I really will just list everything I do. Nick White - 'Breather of Air', 'Eater of Croissants’, 'Maker of Lists', 'Producer of Crap'.

 

But in terms of one title dominating over the other, we will see. Perhaps one will take over the other. I haven't made any films or animated much in a while so sometimes feel guilty about having those up there but when I see friends and colleagues making films etc I do think I'd like to make some things move. Animation and film can be pretty time consuming so I'm always waiting for that great idea to invest in. Contrary to that, a few years ago I decided to make a little animation for Adam and Joe's song wars competition and intentionally left myself one day to make it, just to see if I could do it. I did it, and although it's a little ramshackle and not by any means perfect I was pleased with it. I need to do more of that.

 

 

 

Happy birthday! 30 is quite a milestone. Where do you hopefully see yourself in another ten years time?

 

Thanks, I am almost old. It's just as well that I have always had a penchant for cardigans, slippers and the colour beige. Whoah! Ten years. That's ages, almost a decade. Err, I'd like to be making a living doing what I love doing and making lots more work that I am proud of, in whatever form that may be. More exhibitions, Illustrations, have some more books published, make some films, and perfect the baking of a good loaf of bread. If I'm pushing it I would love to have a house to put all of my stuff with a family and dog. Oh and of course there's having the number one single and the perfection of human flight. The list could go on but ten years isn't that long.

 

I apologise for the rambling. People reading this will probably be thinking this guy likes himself a bit. Sheesh!

 

For more rambling and lovely imagery from Nick White visit http://www.thisisnickwhite.com/

 

You can see the great Nick White products we’ve got left in stock at LMNOP here 

 

All images Courtesy/Copyright of Nick White

Interview By Rosalie Hoskins