e-interview with English artist Fernando Feijoo

Eve Kask: Where do you get the inspiration for your art (from life and the streets)?

Fernando Feijoo: My work is inspired from what I see in daily life, it is a comment on the social condition and the way we perceive ourselves and others. I have seen many things while just out for a drink on a Saturday night, and I also enjoy films with these themes. I enjoy travelling and have visited cities all around Europe. I like to feed this back into my work using text, images and found material I come across on my adventures. I am particularly inspired by Hogarth and have re-illustrated many of his works in a sequential & narrative way re-telling stories like his rakes progress, which I called – Cracks Progress. This story tells of a modern young man falling into a dark life of crime, drugs, prostitution and eventually prison. Other artists I like are Goya, George Grosz, Franz Masereel, Posada and many of the German Expressionists.

What is your relationship with literature? Who or what do you read?

I've read down and out by George Orwell this was quite inspiring as it told a story similar to some of my characters. I don't read that much. Sometimes I read the newspapers and stories about events happening around us. My work then reflects my opinions and reactions to these events. In many of my pictures there will be anti war posters on the walls of the streets. I also enjoy watching films and animations for inspiration. For my book, Contemporary Street Alphabet, I collaborated with the writer, Pat Francis. She wrote the text and I illustrated it. I find this an interesting way of working – you can talk about your ideas with someone else and see how to make them better. I have started collaborating with other artist like Marcelle Hanselaar and Chris Pig on projects based on drinking.
 
What wider meaning does the Artist’s Book have for you?

The artist's book for me is a vehicle for communicating my ideas through sequential images often telling a tale is some way. I enjoy the way a collection of prints can come together as a book, making the finished product look more impressive with all the end papers, binding styles, title pages and cover design.

What is the collectors’ interest in Artists’ Books in England?

In England I feel it is quite hard to sell artist books, I do this through my website and book fairs and exhibitions. There is the London Artist Book fair and Oxford Fine Press Book fair – these are great places to meet different artists working in similar ways.

In the Estonian context, you have enormous editions. Are you able to support yourself with your Artist’s Books?

I print so many books because I prefer to sell my books at a lower price to allow more people to buy them. I often see really nice artist books but cant afford them. My Alphabet book now sells for £150, which I think is quite reasonable as it includes over 26 original prints. I can't support myself just selling my work, but things are steadily improving and I would like to be able to do so one day. I have to work as an art lecturer to support myself.

You seem to be, first and foremost, a passionate drawer. Is printmaking mainly a tool for increasing the circulation of the Artists’ Books for you?

I trained as an illustrator for my BA at Maidstone and then went on to do an MA in Fine art printmaking. I love drawing and always carry a sketchbook to record ideas. For me printmaking is a tool to produce work, but not in a mass commercial way. I enjoy printmaking and all its different techniques – when you start on the print you have some sort of idea how it will work, but you are never quite sure. I enjoy the way accidents can sometimes create new ways of working. For me printmaking is a fresh creative way of making work, I don't use the computer because the result often looks dead, I like the way layers of ink sit upon each other, and when I produce a lino print I can really punch the lino into the paper and emboss it. For my book, Contemporary Street Alphabet, I wanted to explore the use of lithography as I had worked as a Master Lithographer at the Curwen Studio for four years, but never really explored what I could do with it. I used a variety of different techniques such as rubbing from different grades of sandpaper onto architect's film with litho crayons, using a thick chisel tip brush to draw with indian ink and then cutting back into the line with a scalpel, using different strengths of ink washes, photo-collages from the street and graphite sticks. When I printed the book I made two different exposures for the black line and printed it in grey and black and then added a spot red plate to add detail to the important parts of the images.

What were the first associations you had with the triennial’s theme ‘Political / Poetical’?

I felt the theme fitted well with my book, as it covered all the different aspects of my work. The book shows characters that might have been let down by society and now they are down and out, living rough, drinking to drown their sorrows surrounded by a richer higher class of people that don't really care and prefer to look the other way. I guess I am the modern day Hogarth constantly analysing people and the human condition within one big community.