IAIN MACARTHUR
From animal masks and celebrity faces to feathered creatures and flying boomboxes, Iain Macarthur’s fantasy world bursts out of two dimensions in spontaneous layers of pen and watercolor strokes. Like fairytale characters on acid, his images combine the real with the surreal to create something entirely weird and uniquely beautiful. Three-eyed tigers? Sure. Flying fish kites? Of course. Hypnotic swirls exploding out of Bob Dylan’s head? Why not! Iain took some time from his drawing-obsessed life to let us into his world of bizarre illustrations and happy accidents…
Interview by Jasmin Tokatlian
Did you know then that you wanted to become an artist, or did you have something else in mind for when you grew up?
Well I always wanted to make comics and draw funny looking characters, produce badly drawn storyboards and stick people, but when I got a bit older it didn’t really interest me anymore. In my first year of college I was interested in painting and illustration work – I find painting and drawing illustration pieces more comfortable than comic work.
You also use a lot of fantasy animal imagery in your illustrations – foxes, owls, rabbits, giant squid… take the storybook animal watercolors you recently posted to your blog. Besides the bird wing patterns you just mentioned, do you focus on animals for a reason?
I love drawing birds and wolf-like creatures. I found the intense tiger face fun and exciting to draw, and the squid image I found fascinating as well. I guess I have a thing for drawing wildlife animals to people! The watercolor images are experiments, as I don’t use watercolors that much, so I thought I’d give it a go and I was quiet satisfied with the end result. I did the characters with animal masks, creating a wolf boy, a baboon boy, and a bunny girl. These masks represent their personalities – the baboon represents a misfit and a nuisance, and the bunny represents beauty and innocence. Well, that’s what I think they represent.
