PHIL DUNNE
Phil Dunne relies on goosebumps as guidance. He doesn’t believe in factual information, statistics, charts or graphs; he just waits for the familiar tingle to hit him. That’s his creative process: intuition. You might even call the Irish artist’s innate ability to design and create some sort of sixth sense. It’s obvious that his growing success stems from more than just a mild case of the heebie-jeebies, though… it’s deeper than that. You see, Phil Dunne wants you to fall in love. Not just any kind of love, either: blinding, bright, neon pink love. And even though he knows you’re not perfect – no one is! – he still wants you to love yourself, your life, and of course, the robot.
Interview by Liz Stannard
Some of your work is dark and evil, some of it is uplifting and bright, but all of it seems to tie together. Is there an ongoing theme or a certain inspiration?
The last year I’ve really explored the dark side of my art and my personality. Nobody is perfect, we all have moments when we do bad things. So it was something that I thought I could really push myself into and get excited about what I was working on. I thought a lot about people who inspired me that had passed away before their time. It made me sad and gave me a fresh perspective that began to creep into my work. Right now I’m getting back to bright colors and the uplifting themes. I need color so much, I need it everyday. I’m a total eighties kid. I love the fashion, the music, the drama of the 1980s. I think that will be seen a lot in my work in 2010. Getting back to the eye-melting colors. I think to go forward you need to go back. And an exclusive for Big Up, my new vibe for 2010: “my hyper pink will make you think.”
I love your idea of establishing trends and subsequently bucking them. Have you always felt this way?
I’ve always felt like this. Any artist who is serious about their work and wants to create a strong body of work needs to stay moving and not be repetitive. I hate trends a lot to be honest. I think you need to build up an identity as an artist and you do that through your style, so people will instantly say that’s your work.
